Has U.S. Democracy Been Trumped?

[Winstonm]

From Meet the Supporters Trump Has Lost by Claire Cain Miller, Kevin Quealy and Nate Cohn at the NYT/Upshot:

 

 

BBO reporter: Are you voting for Trump

 

Judith Goines: No man.

 

BBO: Why not?

 

Goines: Trump is a pig. Pig's are filthy animals. I don't vote for swine.

 

BBO: How about Biden.

 

Goines: Biden is not a pig.

 

BBO: Yeah, but do you think he's too progressive?

 

Goines: Maybe. Progressives are more like dogs than pigs. They're definitely dirty. But, a dog's got personality. Personality goes a long way.

 

BBO: Ah, so by that rationale, if a pig had a better personality, he would cease to be filthy animal. Is that true?

 

Goines: Well, we'd have to be talkin' about one charmin' motherf***in' pig. I mean he'd have to be ten times more charmin' than that Arnold on Green Acres, you know what I'm sayin'?

 

Pup fiction?

[Winstonm]

Btw, it's not just Trump. The entire Republican party has lost its mind:

Lauren Boebert, a restaurant owner who encourages her employees to openly carry firearms while working and has expressed support for the QAnon conspiracy theory, won the Republican primary in Colorado's 3rd Congressional District on Tuesday night, ousting incumbent Rep. Scott Tipton.

Then again, maybe it is just Trump:

 

 

President Donald Trump called a Black Lives Matter mural to be painted on 5th Avenue outside Trump Tower "a symbol of hate."

[Chas_P]

And more from the category WTF is the Manchurian President doing:

 

The Flag-Hugger-In-Chief Flies A Nonstandard, Cheaper One At Mar-a-Lago

 

 

 

It's a good thing the Manchurian President claims to love the US flag because one can only imagine how poorly he would respect the flag if he didn't love it.

I see the CHOP has been broken up in Seattle Johnboy. Please list for us what you accomplished "in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity" while there. Thanks.

[johnu]

Wow, it that the best you can come up with :rolleyes:

 

I'm still waiting for you to defend the Manchurian President on not only doing nothing about the Russian bounties on US troops, but rewarding Russia by inviting them back to the G7, and withdrawing NATO troops from Poland. Or doing less than nothing to stop the coronavirus pandemic in the US by publicly undermining mask wearing and public distancing orders. Or any of the other hundreds of other issues that have been brought up in the past 4 years.

 

The Manchurian President is basically committing treason against the US military by not taking action against Russia and you have no comments? Honestly, I don't expect anything better from you.

 

And what about defending the Imperial Wizard in Chief for being the most racist president since before the Civil War. Maybe you can prove your worth by voting twice or more for Brian Kemp in his next election. We all know who you are voting for in November. Are you planning to vote by mail? :lol:

 

Are you planning to drive by the nearest military base this July 4 and wave your confederate flag?

[johnu]

The latest campaign ad from the Lincoln project

 

GOP Group Trolls ‘Comrade Trump’ With Mock Endorsement Ad From Vladimir Putin

 

The video went live amid reports that Trump and his administration knew of intelligence that found a Russian military unit was paying bounties to Afghan militants for killing U.S. troops.

 

“As the mother of a Marine, I lived with the fear of receiving a knock on the door and hearing the news no mom ever wants to hear: my son could have been taken from me,” Lincoln Project cofounder Jennifer Horn said in a news release earlier this week.

 

“It enrages me to think of the parents who lost their child because of Trump’s complete dereliction of duty,” she added. “He is a stain on their memories.”

This might be trolling the Manchurian President, but I can't really see anything in the ad that can't be reasonably assumed based on reported facts.

[johnu]

In the shadow of an out of control COVID-19 onslaught, the Grifter in Chief has fantasy happy talk for the nation.

 

Trump claims coronavirus is ‘under control’ despite record-high cases

 

President Trump said Thursday that the coronavirus pandemic is “under control” while Sun Belt states report daily records in new case counts and the United States nears 2.7 million cases.

 

“[China and Europe are] getting under control, and we are likewise getting under control,” Trump said during a Thursday press briefing.

 

Meanwhile, the U.S. reported a record-high number of coronavirus cases Wednesday: 52,789. Despite warnings that the pandemic will worsen from top government infectious disease expert Dr. Anthony Fauci, Trump insisted that renewed outbreaks in Southern states will be short-lived.

Trump said Wednesday that the coronavirus is “going to sort of just disappear.”

The only thing that makes sense is that the Stable Genius was looking at infection and hospitalization graphs upside down and mistook out of control growth in COVID-19 for miraculous decreases in cases. Honestly, the Chief of Staff, VP, and National Security Advisor need to get on the ball and have a general or one of the department Secretaries take a sharpie and draw a pointer to show which way is up on the presidential briefing materials.

 

As for the comment about the coronavirus just magically disappearing, the Grifter in Chief has made basically the same comment at least 19 times going back to February. I attribute that to a post-it note with that idea on the presidential desk in the Oval Office that accidentally got permanently glued to the surface. Every so often things are cleared off the desk and the post-it becomes very visible and the Stable Genius thinks it is a new talking point.

[Chas_P]

 

Are you planning to drive by the nearest military base this July 4 and wave your confederate flag?

 

I haven't decided yet. I may go to the airshow at Robins AFB.

 

What about you? Are you still living in your parents' basement?

[y66]

[johnu]

...

Non responsive answer removed

....

Being the Confederate patriot that you are, I thought you would have jumped at the chance to defend your Confederate President for his treasonous actions after Russia put a bounty on US troops. I guess that is a bridge too far :rolleyes:

 

Or defend the criminal refusal to let the US government try to control the coronavirus pandemic in the US, or the lack of PPE for health professionals after there have been shortages since almost day 1. I'm sure the Manchurian President would send a tweet your way for one of his prime stooges if you put in any effort to actually defend him.

[Winstonm]

 

WASHINGTON – Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley said that some soldiers deployed to Washington, D.C. to possibly assist in thwarting Black Lives Matter protests were issued bayonets, USA TODAY has confirmed.

 

Members of the Army’s 82nd Airborne Division from Fort Bragg in North Carolina and the 3rd U.S. Infantry Regiment, known as the "Old Guard", based just outside the nation's capital, were mobilized early last month in response to demonstrations over police brutality following the death of George Floyd.

 

 

 

 

Somehow it seems apt that this Confederate-loving president would order armed troops from Ft. Bragg to put down what I'm sure in his mind was a "black lives matter rebellion".

[y66]

We Americans enter the July 4 weekend of 2020 humiliated as almost never before. We had one collective project this year and that was to crush Covid-19, and we failed.

 

On Wednesday, we had about 50,000 new positive tests, a record. Other nations are beating the disease while our infection lines shoot upward as sharply as they did in March.

 

This failure will lead to other failures. A third of Americans show signs of clinical anxiety or depression, according to the Census Bureau. Suspected drug overdose deaths surged by 42 percent in May. Small businesses, colleges and community hubs will close.

 

At least Americans are not in denial about the nation’s turmoil of the last three months. According to a Pew survey, 71 percent of Americans are angry about the state of the country right now and 66 percent are fearful. Only 17 percent are proud.

 

Americans are reacting in two positive ways. We’re seeing incredible shifts in attitudes toward race. Roughly 60 percent of Americans now believe that African-Americans face a great deal or a lot of discrimination. People have been waiting for a white backlash since the riots, or since the statues started toppling. There isn’t much if any evidence of a backlash. There’s evidence of a fore-lash.

 

Second, Americans have decided to get rid of Donald Trump. His mishandling of Covid-19 hurt him among seniors. His racist catcalls in a time of racial reckoning have damaged him among all groups.

 

I’ll be delighted when Trump goes, but it’s worth pointing out that it wasn’t only because of Donald Trump that Americans never really locked down, and then started moving around again in late April.

 

It wasn’t Trump who went out to bars in Tempe, Austin and Los Angeles in June. It wasn’t Trump who put on hospital gowns and told the American people you could suspend the lockdown if your cause was just. Once you told people they could suspend the lockdown for one thing, they were going to suspend it for others.

 

Our fixation on the awfulness of Donald Trump has distracted us from the larger problems and rendered us strangely passive in the face of them. Sure, this was a Republican failure, but it was also a collective failure, and it follows a few decades of collective failures.

 

Editors’ Picks

 

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Continue reading the main story

On the day Trump leaves office, we’ll still have a younger generation with worse life prospects than their parents had faced. We’ll still have a cultural elite that knows little about people in red America and daily sends the message that they are illegitimate. We’ll still have yawning inequalities, residential segregation, crumbling social capital, a crisis in family formation.

 

Trump’s rise in 2016 was a symptom of all these crises, long before he had a chance to become an additional cause of them.

 

What’s the core problem? Damon Linker is on to a piece of it: “It amounts to a refusal on the part of lots of Americans to think in terms of the social whole — of what’s best for the community, of the common or public good. Each of us thinks we know what’s best for ourselves.”

 

I’d add that this individualism, atomism and selfishness is downstream from a deeper crisis of legitimacy. In 1970, in a moment like our own, Irving Kristol wrote, “In the same way as men cannot for long tolerate a sense of spiritual meaninglessness in their individual lives, so they cannot for long accept a society in which power, privilege, and property are not distributed according to some morally meaningful criteria.”

 

A lot of people look around at the conditions of this country — how Black Americans are treated, how communities are collapsing, how Washington doesn’t work — and none of it makes sense. None of it inspires faith, confidence. In none of it do they feel a part.

 

If you don’t breathe the spirit of the nation, if you don’t have a fierce sense of belonging to each other, you’re not going to sacrifice for the common good. We’re confronted with a succession of wicked problems and it turns out we’re not even capable of putting on a friggin’ mask.

 

In the days leading up to this July 4 weekend, I’ve been thinking about a scene in “Good Will Hunting.” We’ve seen Will perform all these mathematical feats and flights of verbal brilliance, but the Robin Williams character sits him down on a park bench and confronts him with a rot at the core of his character. “I look at you; I don’t see an intelligent, confident man; I see a cocky, scared” kid.

 

The last three years have been like that Robin Williams speech for a whole nation — an intervention, a truth-telling. I had hopes that the crisis would bring us together, but it’s made everything harder and worse. And now I worry less about populism or radical wokeness than about a pervasive loss of national faith.

 

What’s lurking, I hope, somewhere deep down inside is our shared ferocious love for our common country and a vision for the role America could play as the great pluralist beacon of the 21st century.

 

July 4 would be a good day to find that faith.

[y66]

For the stranger than fiction file:

 

I'm concerned about voter registration in Mississippi. The blacks are having lots (of) events for voter registration. People in Mississippi have to get involved, too.

 

https://hattiesburgamerican.com/story/news/local/2020/06/30/mississippi-election-commissioner-accused-making-racist-comments/3280055001/

[hrothgar]

I see the CHOP has been broken up in Seattle Johnboy. Please list for us what you accomplished "in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity" while there. Thanks.

 

Who the ***** cares?

 

Has there been any discussion of CHAZ or CHOP or whatever that merry little band of idiots was calling themselves before now?

 

I understand that Chas is desperately trying to deflect attention from any of the 1,001 major scandals that are currently engulfing the Trump administration and the country, but seriously...

 

Perhaps the fever swamp of the right wing media cares about this stuff.

No one with a brain does.

[hrothgar]

I haven't decided yet. I may go to the airshow at Robins AFB.

 

What about you? Are you still living in your parents' basement?

 

 

Breathe deep while you're there Chaz

(and don't wear a mask! They're for wimps)

[Zelandakh]

I haven't decided yet. I may go to the airshow at Robins AFB.

I would have thought that Fort Benning and Fort Gordon were more in your line. What are your thoughts on having a US military base named after a (probable) former head of the Georgia KKK?

[Chas_P]

Breathe deep while you're there Chaz

(and don't wear a mask! They're for wimps)

Regardless of skin tone or political persuasion tomorrow is the fourth of July and "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." I wish you all the best Richard.

[Chas_P]

I would have thought that Fort Benning and Fort Gordon were more in your line. What are your thoughts on having a US military base named after a (probable) former head of the Georgia KKK?

I would think that you are a half-wit. How's that?

[Zelandakh]

I would think that you are a half-wit. How's that?

That is possibly the most constructive answer you have ever given, so thank you. I shall wear the name-tag with pride.

[Chas_P]

I shall wear the name-tag with pride.

As well you should. Maybe I'll send you a medal.

[Winstonm]

I have to give Trump credit for one accomplishment: he is preparing the nation for a generational repudiation of the Republican party along with its selfish, zenophobic, and racist members. When Mitch McConnell starts whining about Democrats changing rules in the Senate, you know things are dire for the Confederate...er.... Republican party.

[y66]

Annie Karni at NYT: https://nyti.ms/31I2yu2

 

WASHINGTON — Standing in a packed amphitheater in front of Mount Rushmore for an Independence Day celebration, President Trump delivered a dark and divisive speech on Friday that cast his struggling effort to win a second term as a battle against a “new far-left fascism” seeking to wipe out the nation’s values and history.

 

With the coronavirus pandemic raging and his campaign faltering in the polls, his appearance amounted to a fiery reboot of his re-election effort, using the holiday and an official presidential address to mount a full-on culture war against a straw-man version of the left that he portrayed as inciting mayhem and moving the country toward totalitarianism.

 

“Our nation is witnessing a merciless campaign to wipe out our history, defame our heroes, erase our values and indoctrinate our children,” Mr. Trump said, addressing a packed crowd of sign-waving supporters, few of whom wore masks. “Angry mobs are trying to tear down statues of our founders, deface our most sacred memorials and unleash a wave of violent crime in our cities.”

 

Mr. Trump barely mentioned the frightening resurgence of the pandemic, even as the country surpassed 53,000 new cases and health officials across the nation urged Americans to scale back their Fourth of July plans.

 

Instead, appealing unabashedly to his base with ominous language and imagery, he railed against what he described as a dangerous “cancel culture” intent on toppling monuments and framed himself as a strong leader who would protect the Second Amendment, law enforcement and the country’s heritage.

 

The scene at Mount Rushmore was the latest sign of how Mr. Trump appears, by design or default, increasingly disconnected from the intense concern among Americans about the health crisis gripping the country. More than just a partisan rally, it underscored the extent to which Mr. Trump is appealing to a subset of Americans to carry him to a second term by changing the subject and appealing to fear and division.

 

“Most presidents in history have understood that when they appear at a national monument, it’s usually a moment to act as a unifying chief of state, not a partisan divider,” Michael Beschloss, the presidential historian, said before the speech.

 

Most politicians, including former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., the presumptive Democratic nominee, this year were forgoing any of the traditional holiday parades and flag-waving appearances. The vast majority of fireworks displays in big cities and small rural towns have been canceled as new cases reported in the United States have increased by 90 percent in the past two weeks.

 

As he traveled to South Dakota for the huge fireworks display at Mount Rushmore National Memorial, Mr. Trump, however, had a different message: The sparkly, booming show must go on at all costs in the service of the divisive message and powerful images he wants to promote.

 

“We will not be tyrannized, we will not be demeaned, and we will not be intimidated by bad, evil people,” Mr. Trump said, referring to his political opponents and their supporters.

 

Under the granite gaze of Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln and Theodore Roosevelt, Mr. Trump announced plans to establish what he described as a “vast outdoor park that will feature the statues of the greatest Americans to ever live,” an apparent repudiation of the growing pressure to remove statues tied to slavery or colonialism.

 

As he arrived, Air Force One performed a flyover of Mount Rushmore. His campaign promoted the stunt online, calling him “the coolest president ever.”

 

In the amphitheater below, few in the packed crowd practiced any social distancing as people waved signs that referred to CNN as the “Communist News Network.” As he observed a flyover by the Navy’s Blue Angels, Mr. Trump sat on a packed dais with the first lady, Melania Trump, the national security adviser, Robert O’Brien, and Mark Meadows, the White House chief of staff, none of whom wore masks.

 

As the president departed Washington for South Dakota on Friday, at least five states — Alabama, Alaska, Kansas, North Carolina and South Carolina — reported their highest single day of cases yet. Newly reported cases of the virus were rising in all but a handful of states, and many large cities, including Houston, Dallas, Jacksonville and Los Angeles, were seeing alarming growth.

 

Mr. Trump planned to follow up his trip with a “Salute to America” celebration on Saturday on the South Lawn at the White House, marked by a military flyover and the launch of 10,000 fireworks on the National Mall.

 

Mayor Muriel E. Bowser of Washington has warned the gathering violates federal health guidelines. The Trump administration, which controls the federal property of the National Mall, pushed for the celebration, ignoring a mayor whom officials view as a political rival.

 

Throughout his presidency, Mr. Trump has tried to bend events to his will, often using social media to drive home his alternate version of reality and, thanks to the power of repetition and the loyal support of his base, sometimes succeeding. But the president’s attempt to drive deeper into the culture wars around a national holiday, during an intensifying health crisis that will not yield to his tactics, risked coming across as out of sync with the concerned mood of the country at a moment when his re-election campaign is struggling and unfocused.

 

“I don’t think it will work, because what he is trying to do is pretend that the situation is better than it is,” Mr. Beschloss said.

 

Mr. Beschloss compared Mr. Trump to Woodrow Wilson, who presided over the influenza pandemic in 1918 by trying to pretend it was not happening, and to Herbert Hoover, who in 1932 tried to project that the Great Depression was not as bad as people were saying.

 

“People voted him out because they felt he did not understand the suffering,” Mr. Beschloss said, referring to Hoover.

 

Mr. Trump has consistently played down the concerns over spikes in new cases, even as many cities and states have had to slow or reverse their reopenings, claiming that young people “get better much easier and faster,” that the death rate is declining and that the virus will “just disappear.”

 

On Thursday, he lauded his administration’s response, referred to the surge in new cases as “temporary hot spots” and focused instead on what he said was evidence of the economy bouncing back.

 

“A lot of people would have wilted,” Mr. Trump said at a news conference where he praised the latest job numbers. “We didn’t wilt. Our country didn’t wilt.”

 

Despite his rosy outlook, the coronavirus on Friday for the first time infiltrated Mr. Trump’s family circle. The president’s elder son, Donald Trump Jr., and his girlfriend, Kimberly Guilfoyle, had traveled to South Dakota separately with plans to meet up with the president. But they left before Mr. Trump’s arrival once Ms. Guilfoyle tested positive for the virus and said they planned to cancel all coming events.

 

Mr. Trump’s show, however, went on without missing a beat. In South Dakota, Mr. Trump enjoys the backing of Gov. Kristi Noem, a Republican, who had invited him to make the trip, which amounted to a second attempt to get his campaign back on track after the disappointing turnout at a rally last month in Tulsa, Okla.

 

In recent weeks, South Dakota has had one of the country’s most encouraging trend lines. The state has averaged a few dozen new cases each day, including 85 announced Friday. There has not been a day with more than 100 new cases in South Dakota since late May. Ms. Noem said Friday night that many attendees at Mr. Trump’s Fourth of July spectacle had traveled from out of state to attend.

 

In Washington, however, officials remain adamantly opposed to the celebration planned for Saturday, which White House officials defended as a gathering people could enjoy safely. Administration officials noted that the celebration in Washington was scaled back from last year’s event, when Mr. Trump turned the holiday into a salute to the military, with tanks on the streets of the capital and flyovers from Air Force One as well as aircraft from each branch of the armed forces, as he delivered remarks from the Lincoln Memorial.

 

Kayleigh McEnany, the White House press secretary, said this week that Mr. Trump had recommended following guidelines set by local authorities only on wearing masks — not on social distancing overall. “The C.D.C. guidelines, I’d also note, say ‘recommended,’ but not required,” she said. “We are very much looking forward to the Fourth of July celebration.”

 

This year, the National Park Service said it was taking extra safety precautions on the National Mall, installing more than 100 hand-washing stations throughout the area, up from 15 last year. Officials also said they had 300,000 cloth facial coverings on hand to distribute.

 

“We are committed to providing the American people with a safe and spectacular celebration of our nation’s birthday in Washington D.C., which will honor our military with music, flyovers and fireworks,” a spokesman for the park service said. “We are doing so consistent with our mission and historical practices, and we hope everyone enjoys the day’s festivities.”

 

The president’s political opponents, however, said the celebrations were about one person, only: the president himself.

 

“Donald Trump is seeking to aggrandize himself and divide our nation at yet another rally,” said Andrew Bates, a spokesman for Mr. Biden. “Joe Biden believes the presidency is about serving the American people — whereas Donald Trump only exploits it to serve himself.”

 

On Friday, Mr. Trump spent the day at his golf course in Sterling, Va., before he departed for South Dakota, and White House officials said they had no safety concerns about the trip.

 

But the virus had already shown it can infiltrate the administration, and the White House has experienced the dangers of staging large gatherings as the pandemic rages. Vice President Mike Pence postponed a planned trip this week to Arizona after Secret Service agents set to accompany him tested positive for the coronavirus or showed symptoms. And at least eight campaign staff members who helped plan Mr. Trump’s indoor rally last month in Tulsa, have tested positive, either before the rally or after attending.

 

Before the president left for South Dakota on Friday, Trump campaign aides were circulating on social media a doctored image of Mount Rushmore, featuring Mr. Trump’s face carved into the stone next to some of the nation’s most revered presidents.

 

“Mount Rushmore, improved,” one aide wrote.

In Trump's lexicon "improve" and "desecrate" are synonymous.

 

Will check back with Governor Noem in two weeks to see if covid case #s have also improved.

[Winstonm]

Putin can always rely on some Republican flunkie to offer cover and propaganda in the service of Comrade Trump:

 

 

 

A memo produced in recent days by the office of the nation's top intelligence official acknowledged that the CIA and top counterterrorism officials have assessed that Russia appears to have offered bounties to kill U.S. and coalition troops in Afghanistan but emphasized uncertainties and gaps in evidence, according to three officials.

 

The memo is said to contain no new information, and both its timing and its stressing of doubts suggested that it was intended to bolster the Trump administration's attempts to justify its inaction on the months-old assessment, the officials said. Some former national security officials said the account of the memo indicated that politics may have influenced its production.

 

The National Intelligence Council, which reports to the director of national intelligence, John Ratcliffe, produced the 2 1/2-page document, a so-called sense of the community memorandum. Dated July 1, it appears to have been commissioned after The New York Times reported on June 26 that intelligence officials had assessed months ago that Russia had offered bounties but that the White House had yet to authorize a response.

 

[PassedOut]

Afghan Contractor Handed Out Russian Cash to Kill Americans, Officials Say

 

Details of Mr. Azizi’s role in the bounty scheme were confirmed through a dozen interviews that included U.S. and Afghan officials aware of the intelligence and the raids that led to it; his neighbors and friends; and business associates of the middle men arrested on suspicion of involvement. All spoke on condition of anonymity to avoid retaliation.

 

U.S. intelligence reports named Mr. Azizi as a key middleman between the G.R.U. and militants linked to the Taliban who carried out the attacks. He was among those who collected the cash in Russia, which intelligence files described as multiple payments of “hundreds of thousands of dollars.” Those files were among the materials provided to Congress this week.

 

Through a layered and complex Hawala system — an informal way to transfer money — he delivered it to Afghanistan for the missions, the files say. The transfers were often sliced into smaller amounts that routed through several regional countries before arriving in Afghanistan, associates of the arrested businessmen said.

 

Afghan officials said prizes of as much as $100,000 per killed soldier were offered for American and coalition targets.

Perhaps Putin gives Trump a cut of the money to conceal Russia's actions.

[johnu]

I would have thought that Fort Benning and Fort Gordon were more in your line. What are your thoughts on having a US military base named after a (probable) former head of the Georgia KKK?

State flag of Georgia

 

 

First national flag of the Confederacy

 

 

Mississippi just voted to change their state flag that included part of the Confederate battle flag. Some observers say there is a similarity between the Georgia state flag and the 1st Confederate national flag. I'm not seeing it B-)

[johnu]

Afghan Contractor Handed Out Russian Cash to Kill Americans, Officials Say

 

 

Perhaps Putin gives Trump a cut of the money to conceal Russia's actions.

Or maybe the Pee video is real and Putin is keeping it on a locked server, for now. Or Putin has promised to finance several high end hotels in Russia for the Manchurian President. Unless there are leaks by patriots in the government to expose potential treason, we'll have to wait to find out until Manchurian President stooges are removed from positions of power.