Take far-right radicalism more seriously

So runs the argument by Mike German, a fellow at the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University.

Treating far-right violence as a purely domestic issue deprioritizes these crimes on the national security agenda. It also ignores the international reach of militant white supremacist groups, and obscures the greater threat posed when governments become enthralled with exclusionary nationalism, which mobilizes popular support by stigmatizing groups of "others" -- often identified by race, religion or ethnicity -- as national enemies.

German calls on the federal Justice Department and intelligence agencies "to start taking far-right violence more seriously -- in order to avoid another century of brutal conflict".

That's all well and good, but as the history of the civil rights movement shows, you can't legislate or jail your way to utopia. At some point somebody will have to figure out a way to end the cycle of propagation of the many twisted, toxic ideas embedded in white nationalism, anti-Semitism and all the other odious bigotries now proudly asserting themselves under our deeply prejudiced domestic Dear Leader.

How, in other words, do we keep such bigotry and hatred from claiming hearts and minds?

We must adapt to wildfires

Prof. Crystal Kolden persuasively argues that the western U.S. must adapt to wildfires rather than trying to prevent them. Her opening paragraphs, in fact, are a direct rebuke to our domestic Dear Leader's uninformed drivelling: "there is no reason for these massive, deadly and costly forest fires in California except that forest management is so poor.”

Rather than indulging our knee-jerk impulse to ban human habitation in fire-prone areas, which Kolden accurately notes penalizes those who have been priced out of other areas in California, Kolden suggests, "we should take a cue from the Dutch":

Much of the Netherlands sits below sea level and is therefore prone to flooding, but the Dutch can’t exactly move en masse next door to Germany. So they have learned over the centuries that the solution is to stop fighting the sea, and build their cities and towns to maximize saving lives through smarter planning and infrastructure. We could do the same with wildfire.

Kolden notes that a few communities already have undertaken such measures as mandating fire breaks around homes and requiring fire-resistant building materials. Best practices will vary according to local conditions and resources.

We also shouldn't blindly follow the vision Trump clearly embraces, though he didn't come right out and say it, the vision of rapacious logging and clear-cutting. I would bet he has the cartoonish idea that if you only rid yourself of trees, you rid yourself of wildfires, too. That idea is idiotic (which is why I suspect Trump holds it: he has never met an idiotic idea he didn't love). Logging may be a component of future wildfire mitigation but that's far from certain. As with so many other things, it would be best for our domestic Dear Leader to keep his trap shut and let people who study and understand such problems come up with ideas and recommendations.

Another bit of adaptation that Kolden didn't mention, but that millions of Californians are all too painfully aware is needed, is to the threat of smoke and soot. Because of unusually gentle winds, the Camp Fire in northern California has bathed the populous Bay Area and much of the nearby San Joaquin Valley in unhealthful levels of smoke. There is no escape from the bad air for millions; even the "N95" masks designed to filter out dangerous particulate matter carry their own risks, according to the Sacramento County Department of Health Services, whether the masks are used correctly or not. Granting that the stagnant air is unusual for this area, now that the possibility for this confluence of bad conditions has been made manifest, we need to think about how to respond to it.

Turn away from rage

French president Emmanuel Macron spoke at the Arc de Triomphe today, explicitly rejecting the brand of "America First"-ism embraced by Trump.

There's nothing wrong with being a hard bargainer, with trying to win the best advantage for your side in a negotiation. If that were all Trump was doing by turning the country's back on treaties and agreements — NAFTA, NATO (sometimes), the Trans-Pacific Partnership, the Paris climate accord, the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty — his actions would be defensible, if still regrettable.

However, that's not what Trump is about.

He wants to ride the populist wave he rode into office for as long and as far as he can because that's how he keeps his power base. As long as he holds the Republican Party in his grip, he keeps his own grip on the White House. If Republican lawmakers in Congress were to find that they could defy him and keep their seats, Trump would be out of office faster than you could say "impeachment". Those lawmakers would much rather put the drama behind them under a Pence presidency.

So Trump upends the status quo and vilifies anybody he doesn't like because that all delights his supporters. They like that he's manifestly enraging his opponents with his every word and deed. They also like that he's giving them plenty of people to hate and despise: Democrats, liberals, illegal immigrants, Latin Americans fleeing violence in their homelands, women who object to being treated as second-class citizens, non-heterosexuals, African Americans ... frankly, the list is too long to enumerate. His opponents, meanwhile, have tried to turn the popular discomfort with him — and yes, the rage at him — to their own advantage: thus the midterms.

All this rage, though, isn't good for us.

We can reject policies without vilifying one another.

We can disagree without despising one another.

In the end, living in rage and fear (fear is another emotion Trump has great success fostering) isn't just bad for our health, it's contrary to who we are as a nation. As a nation we're about looking forward.

Trump is all about looking backwards. For him, making America great again means resurrecting an America of an indeterminate past age, back when everything was just fine — for men like Trump. That everything wasn't "just fine" for a lot of others doesn't matter to him. And he has convinced more than forty percent of the voting population that it doesn't matter to them, either.

No matter what he says, though, Trump can't turn the clock back. He can't change the actual state of the world, or even of the country.

He can, however, repeat the mistake made by those who let him become president.

That mistake: ignoring those who disagreed with them in favor of rhetoric that sounded good.

That was the mistake made by two generations of D.C. politicians in both parties. They sang paeans to the free market, all while ignoring the costs to working people. The job market became a crapshoot, with all the ugly consequences that come with betting against the house. And make no mistake, employers are the house, and the rest of us are the gamblers.

White nationalists are Trump's most loyal supporters but it was economic uncertainty and fear that motivated everybody else who voted for him in 2016.

Stoking rage and fear among his own supporters gives them (and him) a temporary emotional high, but it doesn't do anything to fix the broken economic system that prompted the fear. Those among his supporters who aren't virulent white nationalists, then, will see no help from him.

Meanwhile, as long as his opponents drum up support by vilifying him and/or his supporters, they, too, offer no help to fix the broken economic system that got us into this polarized mess.

Trump will be defeated (electorally) by someone who offers an alternative vision of our national future — one that appeals to our desire to look forward. That's especially true right now because so many of us want to look anywhere but right here, because right here and right now are so ugly thanks to Trump.

Until that person comes along, we can lay the groundwork by rejecting Trump's all too sure talent for fomenting rage. Whether you support or oppose him, just stop letting him wind you up. It'll be better for you, and better for the country.

What we've lost sight of in the Kavanaugh mess

Rich Lowry in Politico and Bret Stephens in the New York Times have penned pieces defending Brett Kavanaugh. Lowry's piece takes issue with the portrayal of Kavanaugh as a liar — but specifically and only about Kavanaugh's purported lies about his alcohol abuse as a young man and about his controversial remarks in his high-school yearbook. Stephens takes on the "bullying" by liberals, focusing heavily on the devastating effects an attempted-rape allegation can have on a man's reputation. Both pundits portray Kavanaugh's accusers and their accusations — and whatever testimony they have been permitted to give — as not credible.

Stephens' outrage prompts him to wonder:

Will a full-bore investigation of adolescent behavior now become a standard part of the “job interview” for all senior office holders? I’m for it — provided we can start with your adolescent behavior, as it relates to your next job.

Without ever saying so, Stephens accuses everyone who opposes Kavanaugh of bad faith. That's essentially the same argument every Kavanaugh supporter has made since Lindsey Graham went on his querulous rant last Thursday. The accusations have no shred of supporting evidence, the witnesses are inconsistent, the accusers are inconsistent, etc., etc.

In all this, the body politic has lost sight of a couple of things.

First, in attempting to defend himself, Kavanaugh went on his own querulous tirade last Thursday. In doing so he manifested a volatile, angry temperament I wouldn't want in a DMV clerk, much less a man who wants to be on the Supreme Court. He also ranted about the accusations of sexual assault against him being a political hit by the left and went so far as to accuse supporters of Bill Clinton of being behind the accusations. How could anyone who isn't manifestly conservative or right-wing possibly expect a fair hearing from a man with such unabashedly partisan bias?

This is something that Kavanaugh himself has had to address in a Wall Street Journal op-ed piece today. I haven't read it but it's worth noting that his most partisan remarks were contained in his written statement, prepared prior to the hearing. He didn't blurt out anything spontaneously. He planned his worst remarks!

Second, we seem to have forgotten that Kavanaugh was nominated by Don Trumpone because of the judge's fringe belief that the president of the United States must not be compelled to respond to lawsuits or other judicial proceedings while in office. Kavanaugh is ready to defend our domestic Dear Leader by shielding him from any subpoenas, including but not limited to any that Robert Mueller might serve. Again, this is a fringe view that Kavanaugh has never disavowed, and he shows no discomfort about having been nominated for the Court precisely because he holds this fringe view. He has demonstrated full willingness to be Don Trumpone's lap dog on the Court, having not just met with the president nominating him (every nominee does that, of course) but having huddled in the Oval Office to strategize his confirmation.

Neither Lowry nor Stephens goes within a hundred miles of either of these fundamentally disqualifying points. Both of them know they have no answers to these weighty objections. So both of them, like every other Kavanaugh supporter, is hoping we won't remember them.

None of this is to suggest that we shouldn't perform a real investigation of the sexual-assault allegations against Brett Kavanaugh. Kavanaugh himself would benefit if the allegations can be disproved.

However, whether the allegations can be proved is irrelevant to his fitness to serve on the Court. He has already demonstrated that he is not fit.

His supporters are crossing their fingers that we in the body politic have lost sight of why.

Consigliere Mitch earns his keep

Mitch McConnell is steamrolling ahead with the Kavanaugh nomination.

Late Wednesday evening, McConnell filed cloture, an action that moves the Senate closer to a confirmation vote, though a final vote would not take place until Saturday at the earliest.

...

McConnell repeatedly vowed to hold a vote on the nomination this week and has said the results of the FBI investigation should not be a reason for delay, even as Senate Democrats have questioned the credibility of the investigation and called for more people to be interviewed as part of the probe.

"[T]he results of the FBI investigation should not be a reason for delay."

Really, Mitch? Even if the investigation turns up compelling evidence that Kavanaugh doesn't belong on the Supreme Court, or maybe even in the federal judgeship he currently holds?

Oh, right: Don Trumpone's White House, probably via Don "let's finish this, I gotta split" McGahn, never intended to let the FBI anywhere near anyone who could provide such evidence.

The fix is in. Consigliere Mitch has been completely consistent in signaling this from the beginning. And now, having indulged the three unruly children in his caucus (Jeff Flake, Lisa Murkowski and Susan Collins) in their insistence on at least a token look at the serious allegations of sexual misconduct (including attempted rape) leveled against Kavanaugh, he is signaling that his patience is ended.

The very last obstacle to Kavanaugh's confirmation is his own performance at his session before the Judiciary Committee to rebut the attempted-rape allegations. Whether he committed the abhorrent acts thirty-plus years ago, he definitely displayed poor anger management, political bias and susceptibility to conspiracy theories. All of these things would cause us to doubt his fitness for an ordinary judgeship such as he currently holds, much less a Supreme Court seat.

McConnell and McGahn know this. That's why Republican talking points, including Don Trumpone's, all concentrate exclusively on the lack of evidence that Kavanaugh committed attempted rape. Not one single Republican will touch Kavanaugh's embarrassing performance of just last week. They'd like you to forget it ever happened.

The problem is that his performance during those hearings is just as relevant, if not far more relevant, than the allegations made by Christine Blasey Ford. (Sorry, Dr. Ford. For what it's worth, your credibility is infinitely greater than your attackers'.) That performance shows what Kavanaugh is like right now. And he's anything but judge-like, even by his own standards: see tonight's Rachel Maddow show for an exquisite piece on that score.

But his unfitness to be a judge, much less a Justice, is irrelevant to that old white patriarch McConnell and his old white male cronies. It is, in fact, offensive to them for Kavanaugh to be held accountable for his past actions. They're scared silly that if it happens to him, it might happen to them. As it probably should.

So Consigliere Mitch, seeing the goal of cementing a reactionary, far-right majority on the Court for decades in sight, is damning the torpedoes. And he may even take comfort in his nakedly unethical exercise of power because according to one poll this farce of a confirmation is firing up Republican voters to participate in the midterms. That could be disastrous not just for Democrats but for the country.

If Consigliere Mitch can shepherd Don Trumpone's boy Kavanaugh onto the Supreme Court, he will be able to smile that creepy, disingenuous smile of his in the mirror, knowing that even though his Don has been totally useless as a conventional president, he, the consigliere, made everything work for his precious Republicans.

If you hate Don Trumpone and Consigliere Mitch as much as I do, you have one responsibility: vote Democratic in the midterms. No matter the obstacles.

The exercise of brute power

Matt Thompson in The Atlantic boiled down Kavanaugh's testimony to the Senate in these simple and precisely accurate terms:

Let us fully dispense with the polite fiction that last week’s Senate hearings on the confirmation of Brett Kavanaugh were intended to bring us closer to a common understanding of the truth. This entire affair is not about truth, but power—who will wield it, and at whose expense.

Judith Donath, also in The Atlantic, is more scathing:

What is hard to see, unless you see the world through the lens of a certain type of powerful man—like Trump, like McConnell—is that the picture that has emerged about Kavanaugh’s past, far from marking him as unfit, signals that he is trustworthy. It shows that Kavanaugh is there for the guys. Most of all, he knows how the world works: Ordinary rules are for ordinary people. They do not apply to the entitled elite—and he will fight to keep it that way.

Donath notes that not only has Kavanaugh demonstrated a willingness and ability to keep the secrets of his own elite circles — his Georgetown Prep male classmates, for instance — but a willingness and ability to uncover the secrets of others, such as Bill Clinton's. "Keep the secrets of the in-group; raid and reveal those of the out-group", as Donath puts it, adding, "Kavanaugh, up for an ostensibly non-partisan position, has hinted that Trump is part of his in-group these days".

The public doesn't currently know if Kavanaugh will be confirmed. My guess is that Don Trumpone and his senatorial consigliere, Mitch "fuck fairness, I'll do what I damned well please" McConnell, have put the fix in: no matter what the FBI investigation turns up, McConnell has the leverage to secure every Senate Republican's vote to confirm.

But however things turn out, those of us who aren't in the old boys' club have got to make our long-term goal the dismantling of that club, one old boy at a time. White men have got to have their stranglehold over this country's leadership broken.

Don Trumpone and Consigliere Mitch would be good first starts.

White man derangement syndrome

After hearing a clearly traumatized woman make credible accusations of attempted rape against a Supreme Court nominee, a white man who very likely will help eliminate a woman's right to have an abortion, Senator Lindsey Graham launched into an uncontrolled tirade against the injustice of the accusations. He seemed to inspire the nominee himself to engage in his own uncontrolled tirade of self-pity, decrying the public humiliation he has suffered and the death threats made against him and his family.

Lacking in either man's outburst was any hint he had processed even a tiny part of the trauma suffered by the woman who was attacked, trauma which included not just having to relive the incident before many skeptical senators and a nationwide TV audience, but both public humiliation and death threats that forced her and her family to go into seclusion prior to the hearing.

These two white men — one a United States senator, the other a federal judge under consideration for a Supreme Court seat — could only find room for indignation about the white male nominee's suffering. They could only lament their own powerlessness against the enormous "injustice" being done to them.

I call it White Man Derangement Syndrome.

Zack Beauchamp at Vox calls it "white male backlash". As Beauchamp puts it:

“I will not shut up” is a perfect mantra for Trumpian backlash politics. There is no risk that white men are, en masse, going to be silenced: They occupy the commanding heights of power in every walk of American life. The demands that they be quiet at times are a response to the overrepresentation of their voices, that they understand what life is like for more vulnerable people and then change the way they act accordingly.

But Graham is not willing to give even that little ground.

Sen. Graham shamed both himself and the Senate. Let this be his political epitaph.

Any lingering inclination to give Judge Kavanaugh the benefit of the doubt vanished after his petulant whining and unabashed evasion of awkward questions. Whether he can be proven Christine Blasey Ford's attacker, he has proven beyond any doubt that he lacks the self-control, sense of responsibility and moral sense that a Supreme Court Justice must have.

Both of these white men demonstrated with stunning clarity the unhinged paranoia and blinding self-pity lurking at the heart of modern conservatism.