Trump and Pence are Goofus and Gallant

 

 Donald Trump and Mike Pence spawns a lot of jokes about the libertine President and his uptight, rather prudish Vice President.  For those of us old enough to remember Bill Clinton, it struck a chord.  A lot of them sounded very much like jokes about Bill Clinton and Al Gore.*

But Trump and Pence go well beyond Clinton and Gore.  But with the latest story about how Pence meticulously catalogued the government documents in his possession and turned them over the proper authorities, suddenly I realized who Trump and Pence are. They are Goofus and Gallant.  For anyone (including me) who is not old enough to remember Goofus and Gallant, they were apparently a cartoon giving lessons to children.  Goofus showed children what not to do; Gallant showed children what to do.  And suddenly Trump and Pence made a lot more sense.

Goofus runs off with random government documents, including some marked "Top Secret."  Gallant meticulously catalogues his documents and hands them over the the proper authorities.

Goofus gets two scoops of vanilla ice cream with his chocolate pie when everyone else just gets one.  Gallant has a plate of fruit for dessert.

Goofus discards his wives as soon as their beauty starts to fade.  Gallant has been married to the same woman for 37 years. Goofus grabs women by the pussy.  Gallant avoids any potentially compromising situation with any woman.

Goofus responds to a fire in an iconic cathedral with unsolicited advice that fire fighters have already rejected as impractical. Gallant responds with reverence and compassion.

And, of course, Goofus responds to losing an election by egging on a mob baying for Gallant's blood.  Gallant won't let even a howling mob keep him from his constitutional duty.

But here is the thing.  The comparison may be apt in more ways than one because, let's face it.  Everyone hates Gallant.**  He's just too much of a goody-goody.  Any one good thing that he does will no doubt meet with approval.  But being constantly so good is hard to read as other than a rebuke to the rest of us for not living up to Gallant's standards.

And that, of course, is the secret to Trump's appeal.  He gives us permission to be Goofus.  In fact, he celebrates our inner Goofus as "authenticity" and dismisses Gallant as mere snobbery.  And let's face it.  Everyone would rather be Goofus than Gallant. We just don't want everyone else to be Goofus.

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*Example: When the impeachment report came out detailing everything Bill Clinton did that met the legal description of sex used at his deposition, the joke was that Tripper Gore would have to explain half of that stuff to Al.  When rumors of the peepee tape came out, someone joked that a very uncomfortable staffer is now explaining to Mike Pence what a "golden shower" is.

**When I searched for imagines of Goofus and Gallant, at least half were spoofs of some kind.

Applying Trump's Razor to the Mar-a-Lago Raid: He's a Patrimonialist

But her emails!

The lessons of the Mar-a-Lago raid for Trump supporters should be obvious.  Don't go out on a limb to defend Donald Trump.  He will saw it off every time.

The lessons for our side are to remember, reality is almost never as juicy as your imagination.  I learned that the hard way with Trump/Russia.  My imagination filled in all sorts of sordid details.  The truth was bad, but nowhere near as bad as what I had imagined. And furthermore as someone (don't remember who) pointed out, our most lurid speculations play into the hands of Trump supporters.  They eagerly publish our side's most lurid fantasies, and then claim vindication when the truth turns out not to be quite that bad.  

So stop speculating that he wants to sell top secret documents to the highest bidder (they are too hot to handle) or that he is using them for blackmail, or that he is hiding something deeply incriminating.*  Instead, it is best to apply Trump's Razor -- that in trying to understand The Donald, but stupidest explanation that can be reconciled with the available facts is usually right.  The stupidest explanation here is that Trump took the documents home as a keepsake, a sort of hunting trophy.  He refused to turn them over because he had no real concept of what top secret documents are and thought that government documents were his own personal property.  He resisted turning them over because why should he turn over his personal property?  In other words, Trump was being a patrimonialist, treating the government as his private property and making no distinction between public and private patrimony. Nothing deeper or more sinister was at work.  Of course, what is the point in having a trophy unless you can show it off?  Especially if you have an ego like Donald Trump's.  No sinister plot is needed to make letting Donald Trump get his hands on top secret documents a very bad idea.**

And, incidentally, all this is further proof of why Ron DeSantis, though clearly dangerous, is a better choice than Trump. At least he understands that top secret documents are not his private property.

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*That last motive sounds particularly implausible.  It is not clear that Trump recognizes that anything can incriminate him.  Remember, this is the man who releases the readout of the Ukrainian extortion call because he thought it made him look good, who said that his call to pressure the Georgia Secretary of State to change the vote count was "almost as perfect," and who couldn't fathom what was wrong with a rampaging mob baying for his Vice President's blood.

**It also reminds me of Conor Friedersdorf's prophetic warning:

Absurdly, many seem to have convinced themselves that Trump, who won’t release his tax returns, as every presidential candidate has for decades, will be better on transparency; that a man whose finances we don’t even know, who used his charitable foundation to illegally funnel money to an attorney general investigating him for fraud, will be better on conflicts of interest; that an erratic man who blurts all manner of things out on Twitter and has shady ties to Vladimir Putin will somehow be a more trustworthy guardian of classified information. Trump is likely to be worse across all those metrics!

General Comments on the January 6 Committee: I Will Never Confuse Mark Meadows and Mick Mulvaney Again

 

Hovering over the January 6 Committee hearings was an absent presence, a man who never testified, never even took the fifth, but knew perhaps more than anyone else about what was really going on, who had cooperated just enough to seriously incriminate himself, but not enough to get off on a plea. If there was any sort of coordination between the White House and the rioters, this is the one who would know it.

I refer, of course, to Mark Meadows, the White House Chief of Staff at the time of the election and aftermath.  

Confession:  I have been known to confuse Mark Meadows and Mick Mulvaney.  Consider all they things they have in common.  Both have the initials MM. Both were elected to Congress from a Carolina state.  Both were leaders of the Freedom Caucus, along with Jim Jordan.*  Both left Congress to serve in the White House, including as White House Chief of Staff.  Both were loyal Trumpsters.  The main difference, so far as I could see, what that Mulvaney looked so much more Irish than Meadows.  (Meadows is actually quite handsome).

Mulvaney, it must be emphasized, was a very much a loyal Trumpster.  As director of the Office of Budget Management (OMB), Mulvaney withheld military aid to Ukraine, a policy opposed by essentially everyone else, and described by National Security Advisor John Bolton as a "drug deal" between Mulvaney and envoy Gordon Sondland. Mulvaney refused to testify at the first impeachment hearings.  As chief of staff, Mulvaney encouraged the insane decision for the Trump Administration to have the entire Affordable Care Act overturned in court against the better judgment of William Barr.

So Mulvaney's credentials as a Trump supporter are beyond dispute.  But, as luck would have it, in March, 2020 Mark Meadows took over as White House Chief of Staff, while Mulvaney became special envoy to North Ireland.  As such, Mulvaney was out of the country during the attempt to overturn the election and took no part in any aspect.  He resigned in protest after January 6 and later became a CBS commentator.

Meadows, by contrast, was in the thick of things.  Cassidy Hutchinson's testimony about Meadows was devastating.  Liz Cheney hinted without actually saying that Roger Stone, Michael Flynn, and Rudy Giuliani may have been involved in planning the insurrection.  Hutchinson confirmed that Meadows (1) discussed the rally with Giuliani, (2) warned that it might get violent, (3) planned to travel to the Willard Hotel to make plans with Giuliani, but Hutchinson talked him out of it, (4) when she tried to warn Meadows that a riot was starting at the Capitol he twice closed his car door on her and seemed uninterested when he did find out, (5) Meadows spent the rest of the day sitting on a couch, scrolling through his phone, strangely indifferent to the riot going on, and doing nothing to talk any sense into Trump. 

Mulvaney could only describe Meadows' response as a sort of nervous breakdown.  He said it was Hutchinson's testimony that convinced him that Trump's behavior was criminal.  I have to wonder whether Mulvaney, listening to what Meadows was doing during those fateful days, ever wonders if he would have done any better under the circumstances.  Does he ever say to himself, "There but for the grace of God go I"?

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*Jim Jordan, on the other hand was impossible to confuse with the others because (1) his initials were JJ, (2) he stayed in Congress, (3) his schtick of showing up in his shirtsleeves, (4) his signature style of yelling and ranting, and (5) the whiff of scandal over the University of Ohio wrestling team.

General Comments on the January 6 Committee: Donald Trump is a Stone Cold Sociopath

 The usual phrase to describe the latest revelations about Donald Trump is "shocking but not surprising."  And I must say the revelations about Donald Trump during the January 6 hearing have been quite shocking, but (mostly) not so surprising.  And they have made fleshed out what should have been clear for a long time -- Donald Trump is a stone-cold sociopath.

Trump's reaction to the concept that there were laws barring what he wanted to do was blank incomprehension.  His reaction to Sidney Powell and Michael Flynn making blatantly illegal proposals to seize voting machines was to say that at least they were doing something.  Donald Trump's reaction to Justice Department officials saying that they did not have the authority to seize voting machines, and did not even have the technological expertise of the Department of Homeland Security was to call Ken Cuccinelli at Homeland Security and say, "I'm sitting here with the acting attorney general. He just told me it's your job to seize machines. And you're not doing your job."*  His reaction to a violent mob rampaging at the Capitol was to rejoice and not understand why no one else was rejoicing.  It took great pressure to force him to urge the mob to be peaceful. His reaction to hearing the mob call out to hang Mike Pence was to say that Mike Pence deserved to be hung and to send out a tweet urging them on.  His only comment at the end of that shocking day was to say, "Mike Pence let me down."  He did not think the mob at the Capitol did anything wrong, nor could he see anything wrong with killing his own Vice-President!

Another way of putting it is to quote Dave Barry, who described Wall Street speculators as having "the ethical standards of tapeworms."  The comment is funny, not just because tapeworms have no ethical standards at all, but because the whole idea of a tapeworm having ethical standards is self-evidently absurd.  Tapeworms are incapable of having ethical standards.  They're tapeworms!  Tapeworms can't help sucking the nutrients out of their hosts.  It's what they do.  They are incapable of doing otherwise.**  

Well, Donald Trump has the ethical standards of a tapeworm.  Not only does Donald Trump have no ethical standards, the whole idea of Donald Trump having ethical standards is self-evidently absurd.  Donald Trump is incapable of having ethical standards.  He's Donald Trump!  Donald Trump can't help evaluating events solely in terms of his own interests.  It's what he does.  He is incapable of doing otherwise.

It is also unclear to me whether Donald Trump has any concept of objective reality apart from his personal interests.  It is not clear he can distinguish between wanting to win and actually winning, or between the size of crowd he saw from his specific vantage point from his inauguration to the entire crowd on the ground and so forth.  Once again, I am reminded of when John Hinkley, Jr. shot and wounded President Reagan and got off on a plea of insanity.  An outraged columnist asked if Hinkley was sane enough to know that he was loading bullets, not raisins and firing a gun, not a roman candle.  Certainly, I think that Trump has that much sense of objective reality.  He understands objective reality well enough to know that it is not in his interest to jump off Trump Tower and try to fly by flapping his arms.  Whether he might think that a follower whose loyalty he was starting to question should prove it by jumping off Trump Tower and flapping his arms to fly I could not say.

All of this is why the question of whether to prefer Donald Trump or Ron DeSantis should be a complete no brainer.  Yes, I grant, DeSantis is a fairly typical Republican these days who appears to believe no Democrat can legitimately win an election,*** that media may not legitimately criticize Republican politicians, regulatory agencies and law enforcement may not legitimately investigate or prosecute Republican politicians, corporations may not legitimately express "woke" viewpoints, local government may not differ from state policy, social media may not legitimately ban any right-wing post, and (presumably) that it should be a defense to any crime that it was done to advance the Republican Party or platform.  Yes, he is smarter and more competent than Trump and would no doubt be more effective. And no, these are not just ordinary policy disputes. They are part and parcel of the entire Republican Party's apparent belief that it is entitled to a monopoly on political power and that its opponents are illegitimate by definition.

But Ron DeSantis is not a stone cold sociopath.  He is, no doubt, a cynical opportunist and authoritarian, but he is not a stone cold sociopath.  A President DeSantis would understand the difference between his wishes and objective reality, even if he chose to lie about it. He would not throw his plate at the wall when someone told him news he didn't want to hear.  He would understand what was wrong with a mob rampaging through the Capitol, howling for his Vice President's blood.  I do not doubt that, if elected, DeSantis would implement something like Trump's plan to remove civil service protections from some 50,000 mid-level managers in the federal government and replace them with loyalists.  But I would expect him to put his loyalists to more traditionally Republican uses.  Until recently, I would expect a Republican to act as an economic royalist and use this power simply to halt all economic regulation of any kind.  Times having changed and the Republican Party have moves somewhat away from economic royalism, I would expect a President DeSantis use regulatory power to bar all "woke" policies and punish companies that express any "woke" opinions, but to otherwise refrain from all economic regulation. 

But I would expect a President DeSantis to focus on typical conservative targets such as the Environmental Protection Agency and the Internal Revenue Service, with the goal of gutting them, except to punish "wokeness."  I would not expect him to focus on the "daddy" branches of the government, such as the Justice Department, the intelligence community, or the Pentagon.  He might bring some pressure to bear to let them know they were never to investigate any Republican office holders or candidates, and that ordinary crime should be forgiven if done on behalf of the Republican Party or right wing causes.  But I would not expect him to use the government's coercive mechanism to rig the election apparatus (at least not to the extent that Trump apparently plans to), or to persecute political rivals and allies who "betray" him. 

I would expect a President DeSantis to push for a de facto Republican one-party state and seek as much as possible to use the federal bureaucracy to advance the fortunes of the Republican Party.  But I would not expect him to push for a de facto personal dictatorship, or to be a patrimonialist, equating his private business fortunes with the public good. 

 In short, I would expect DeSantis, or any other Republican President to seek a de facto one party state, but also wish to maintain at least the facade of democracy and the rule of law.  

I would expect democracy and the rule of law to mean as much to Trump as, well, to a tape worm.

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*To quote the full account:

President was very agitated by the acting attorney general's response, and to the extent that machines and the technology was being discussed, the acting attorney general said that the DHS, Department of Homeland Security, has expertise in machines, and certifying them, and making sure that the states are operating them properly. And since DHS had been mentioned, the president yelled out to his secretary, get Ken Cuccinelli on the phone. And she did in very short order. Mr. Cuccinelli was on the phone. He was the number two at DHS at the time.

I was on the speakerphone. And the president essentially said, Ken. I'm sitting here with the acting attorney general. He just told me it's your job to seize machines. And you're not doing your job.

**And this can act to their disadvantage as well.  I remember as a child when our cat got deworming medicine I asked if the tapeworms might recognize that the drug was bad for them and refuse to partake.  The answer -- tapeworms soak up what is there, good or bad.  They cannot do otherwise. 

***At least for President, Congressional majority, or statewide office or legislative majority in a red or purple state.  I do think Republicans are willing to concede Democrats a minority in both houses, control in certain hopeless blue states, and maybe even big city governments in red states.  Hence the wish to limit municipal autonomy.

General Comments on the January 6 Committee Hearings: Should We Miss the Republicans?

So, as we watch the Select Committee hearings, a certain haunting questions won't go away.  Should there be Republican nominees?  

Just by way of quick reminder, Republicans rejected forming a blue ribbon commission to study the insurrection, so the House voted for a 13 member committee with eight members to be chosen by Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi and five by Republican leader Kevin McCarthy.  Pelosi then chose seven Democrats, including both impeachment managers, and Liz Cheney.  McCarthy chose five Republicans, including Jim Jordan.  Pelosi then rejected both Jordan and Jim Banks as inimical the the committee's mission.  McCarthy then withdrew all his nominees, so Pelosi appointed Adam Kinzinger as the only other Republican willing to serve.

The result has been -- unusual.  Committee hearing do not follow the same rules of evidence as a  trial, but traditionally they have been an adversarial process, with partisan divisions and aggressive cross-examination of witnesses by the minority party.  (Jim Jordan is particularly notorious in this regard).  Committee hearings also tend to involve into preening and posturing, with each committee member asking the witness many of the same questions and being more focused on showing off than eliciting information. 

Without those things, the hearings really do seem sometimes not to be "real" committee hearings, with a proper adversarial process, but something more staged and predetermined.  Opponents refers to the hearings as a show trial.  I think it would be more accurate to call them a documentary.  On the one hand, what's wrong with that?  Good documentaries can be informative.  This is certainly a good documentary.  But documentaries do not leave a lot of room for spontaneity, or opposing views.  

And so, yes, I saw the committee show a selection of videotaped testimony and wondered if it was deceptively edited.  Of course, the entirety of their deposition testimony would have gone on for hours and hours and much of it was presumably deathly dull.  And, yes, I can absolutely imagine that Republicans would insist on showing witness testimony in its entirety precisely to bore to audience into tuning them out. Still, the Democrats would have had a majority of 8-5 or at least 7-6 (depending on which way Liz Cheney wanted to go) and should have been able to make some reasonable rules, allowing each party to submit the parts of videotaped depositions it considered genuinely relevant, but not long portions intended solely to confuse and bore.

Even live testimony, if brief, felt staged. Longer testimony had more give and take, more spontaneity, more feeling of reality. But not the real genuineness and spontaneity that goes with hostile cross-examination in an adversarial process.  At the same time, "real" hearings can degenerate into round-robins of each committee member asking the same question, speechifying, preening, and posturing.  The January 6 Committee avoided this problem by having only one or two members ask questions at each hearing.  They could have set the same rule for Republicans -- only one member is allowed to cross examine per hearing.  The Democrats took care to give each member a chance to shine, but by all means, let the Republicans decide who to put forward.  Whether they wanted to have a difference member cross-examine each time, or to have Jim Jordan ranting and raging each time should be entirely up to them.

There is only one problem here.  It presumes that the Republicans are good faith actors with good faith disagreements.  It presumes that Republicans are prepared to concede the committee some degree of legitimacy and do not want to destroy it altogether.  The evidence rather suggests otherwise.  Others have pointed out that Republicans' opportunities to undermine, obstruct, selectively leak, and even pass information on to Trump and his inner circle, would probably have completely sabotaged the Committee.

In other words, good faith Republicans could have contributed to the Committee's mission to get to the bottom of things by challenging them and forcing them to prove everything.  Bad faith Republicans could (probably) have sabotaged the committee and made it unworkable.  And given the choice between that and a committee that seems just a little too slick, too scripted, and too much like a documentary instead of a committee -- well, I think what we have now is very much the better choice.