[I finally finished reading this thread.]

It is still early days. Just because congress hasn't done more to check the president's power doesn't mean they won't in the future. Betsy DeVos is only two republican votes away from being rejected. And it seems the senators might just vote against her. If she's not confirmed, it'll only be the second time in history that Congress voted down a first-term president's appointee to the cabinet.

But then you hear about these conversations with the presidents of Mexico and Australia...

Hah. I was myself going back and looking at some of the early posts here.

It's interesting to see how much the president's approval rating has dropped since those first few days:



What's also interesting is just how darn low his approval ratings have started. In a way, he only has up to go, assuming people aren't already completely fed up with the guy, like they were with Bush by the end of his second term. Most presidents start off their first term with enough good will to command high approval ratings, at least for a few months.

But what the heck is he going to have to do to make those ratings go up? And if he doesn't care enough to do so, will he even win a second term?

I have a feeling he (read:supreme leader cannon) is probably going to try to go with the old 'wartime presidents get reelected' strategy.

Steve Bannon conspiracy theories are comforting in their familiarity. Like the ol' Bush-Cheney conspiracies.

Well I hate to be the Harbinger of Doom, but part of that nostolgia probably comes from having lived through it and survived to joke about it. Like, I loved that horror movie so much (when it was over).

Not that Bush ever threatened our very existence, but then again maybe that's where the analogy breaks down?

But yeah I get what you mean, it's strangely soothing .

Mark Levin the talk show host is different from Mark Levin the scholarly author. The talk show host is boisterous and combative. I've never managed to make it through Liberty and Tyranny and he describes Ameritopia as a tougher read than that. I'll get through them one day. Anyway, I find it interesting that you've mentioned him several times. From an education, knowledge, and experience standpoint I am unaware of a major conservative talk show host with his credentials. When you described what it was you were interested in reading, except for the connection to American politics, I thought Ameritopia would be a good fit especially taking this paragraph from the Amazon description:



I'm not offended if you're not interested or by general rudeness. Someone here actually apologizing is far more shocking.

Something that comes to mind: say that Russia or China come to the conclusion that Trump is on a nuclear war path. What's to stop them from initiating a first strike to catch us off guard, just in case taking us by surprise might be their one chance of survival?

“We’re going to war in the South China Sea in five to 10 years. There’s no doubt about that. They’re taking their sandbars and making basically stationary aircraft carriers and putting missiles on those. They come here to the United States in front of our face – and you understand how important face is – and say it’s an ancient territorial sea.” --Steve Bannon, March 2016.

Yes, by all means, thank you for the recommendation. I still can't forgive him for his role as a propagandist on his talk show, though, intelligent and methodical though he may be. I just feel he's not an objective source. That said, he's not at all a hack--after all, he has an admirable constitutional political / legal background. I feel that his dishonesty has more to do with the force of his argument (I am talking again about his radio program), which by omission, gives the misleading impression that his analysis is the only one.

And for all I care, Levin might well be right that we have fallen because we've chosen "utopianism". I just can't forgive him for not calling out the madman in the White House that he has helped place there. I hope there comes a day when he turns against the president, but I am most definitely not holding my breath, since it would seem that it has been conservatives' willingness to (in my mind, brazenly and flagrantly irresponsibly) put up with gross incompetence and disregard for the law just to gain control of the government. You may well say the same about liberals, but on the other hand, I don't think any such liberal has posed the kind of existential threat to the republic that Trump does.

According to Frum in that episode of The Weeds that we've been discussing, in past times, the RNC would have blocked Trump from becoming their nominee, despite winning the primary elections.

He's always been very critical of Trump and the GOP establishment. Levin, that is.

Be that as it may, from my understanding of the content of his radio broadcasts over the past days and weeks, in lieu of actual push back against Trump, he has instead demonized the left.

Actually, I just read the summary of today's broadcast, and he did in fact criticize Trump, but only for not being far enough to the right on economics (and on the idiotic attack on the Australian PM). I would rather see him defend the rule of law against executive power, as he was so fond of doing when Obama was in office.

Well and I guess this was encouraging:



So maybe he will come around?

Because we spent the cold war making certain that it is not possible to win a nuclear war. Trump is an irresponsible blow hard, but at the end of the day everyone knows this, and no one is going to take it to nuclear war.

"Smart" conservatives tolerate it because they don't care. They have narrow social and economic goals, and don't generally care much about the rest. They've always been happy to let the traditionalists and segregationists do essentially whatever they want as long as they don't get in the way. That's why conservative parties are such effective coalitions despite having a wild diversity of opinion, while progressive parties are almost homogeneous but still crippled by infighting about ideological purity.

(Turns out ya kinda need some of both to have a system that isn't whacko.)

The line is one that Trump would almost certainly never cross, because it would be personally bad for him.

Trump isn't to the right. I mean, he may be to the right of Obama or Clinton but he's not right wing. As far as defending the rule of law against executive power he always does when it's misused. I usually listen to his podcast daily but I've been too burned out on this stuff to keep up lately. I actually did listen to the past couple days today but I really didn't give it my full attention.

I listened to his broadcast from today for a few minutes just now.

My impression is congruent with Jon's remark about conservatives having narrow economic and social goals. Sure, Levin will chime in to make a legal point when the administration is demonstrably out of line with the law, especially when concerning an executive order that steps on the responsibilities reserved to the Congress, but by and large he sees Trump as a tool for advancing the conservative agenda, and applauds what he calls the "nationalist and populist" voting bloc for having joined the conservative cause (he probably still includes Trump himself in this group to an extent). Levin takes credit on behalf of conservatives for constraining Trump's Supreme Court choices to a list of originalist justices, which Trump promised to pick from back in September.

By and large, he is still triumphant that conservatives are in control of the government, and his primary goal appears to be to ensure that they remain conservative, and to that extent he appears to feel satisfied in having fulfilled his civic duty.

But yeah pretty big tent indeed.

I just hope that Trump will put Germany second.

Sorry, don't know how to play this video :(
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WcH9eWBs9fw

Started with the Netherlands, now every European satire news show is adding one: http://www.everysecondcounts.eu/ (very slow at the moment)

Shame we don't really have one.

Oh man that's rich.

Where do I sign up for the Trump security force? I want to (physically) overturn me some egg-headed so-called judges for trying to take away my country.

Man, Trump's reaction is just president unworthy.

"The opinion of this so-called judge, which essentially takes law-enforcement away from our country, is ridiculous and will be overturned!"

This man has a complete disdain for the judiciary and the press. This man has no love for democracy.

Of course the ban is unconstitutional. JFC.

Donald Trump as a very... "transactional" perspective on the world.

If there were no people living there, he would probably sell Alaska back to Russia (like he's doing with the rest of our institutions).

He has a strong totalitarian bent.

I saw a hilarious video, but I forgot whose show it was on. It wasn't the Daily Show, I'm sure about that. You see Spicer denying it's a ban. He's blaming the press for inventing that word. Then it was followed by 15 segments of Trump and administration, including Spicer calling it a ban.

It was really, really great. xD

I am beginning to think that losing to the Supreme Court might be the only way to put a dent in this manchild's inflated ego. But, then what?

> Be me
> Turn on Morning Joe
> Seethe with rage as Mika announces the highest court in the land has trumped my authoriteh

My cell membranes require liberal tears to stop from bursting.

What do, Steve? Should I flip over the table†?

† “Steve thinks everything has to be a fight,” [Bannon's co-director of a Reagan documentary, Tim Watkins] said. Once, an argument broke out when he told Mr. Bannon that the rough cut of the film, at two hours and 10 minutes, should be trimmed further. Angry, Mr. Bannon “actually flipped over the table,” Mr. Watkins said.

* authoritarian

It was Jake Tapper on CNN.

I found that clip frustrating. It wasn't the Daily Show, but it was *very* similar to the Daily Show. Awkwardly similar. It seems like with that segment, CNN fell into Donald Trump's trap, the very trap he planted when he said that the media was the opposition party. If CNN keeps running segments like that, it's going to toss out the last bit of credibility it still has. It'll seem to most like nothing but a partisan organisation bent on an anti-Trump message rather than an impartial conveyor of reliable information.

It would be tragic if the media went down in history as lacking in credibility because of something CNN did.

Because, as we know, everybody who stood up to Hitler has done down in history as a partisan hack.

Well of course you are right.

CNN bugs the hell out of me. I don't know if it's just the medium, or instead maybe if CNN has always been this way, but it seems they have copied a lot of the bad things about Fox News.

Hopefully those who opposed Hitler had more to say about him than to make unfunny potshots about his moustache.

Leave satire up to the comedians. We're beyond market saturation for the whole liberal pretend news comedy talk show thing that was popularized by weekend update and the daily show. We don't need our news outlets to begin taking cues from those shows and imitating them. It's its own kind of fake news.

There's a way for the media to push back against Trump, and they must, for the sake of democracy. But the way some outlets are choosing to do so is playing right into his hands by undermining their own credibility.

It seems to be a post-election thing. I watched their election coverage on election night as the results were coming in, and it was beyond dull. A guy stood in front of a screen all night and talked about the historical voting patterns of counties as the each county's results came in. That was it. He did it for hours. There was no attempt to offer any editorial perspective or anything. CNN seems to have tried to take on a different tack and adopt a more clear position in the past few months.

But I'm not entirely sure, to be honest. I don't even have cable and haven't for years.

The Chinese state police just announced a new subscription informant service for employers. For 90 renminbi, employers will be able to buy a lifetime subscription to a feed of an employee's interactions with law enforcement. As part of the service, employers must agree to provide biometric data for every employee (including fingerprints), which will be retained permanently by the government and added to a general law enforcement database.

According to Chinese government officials, the provided information will even include arrests that do not lead to a conviction, and even any known participation in activist groups. It is expected that this plan will have a chilling effect on political participation, as employers will be encouraged to punish employees for innocent associations and misdemeanours commonly associated with political activism. The western media has described this plan as a stifling, but not surprising, application of China's out-of-control state surveillance apparatus.



Oops, did I say China? I meant America.

Won't somebody think of the children?!

I don't know how CNN is gonna go down in history, but I can make an educated guess about the FBI.

I was arrested (but not convicted) of possession and paraphernalia (dangerous drug.) Every job I have applied to knows this.

Of course now that I'm done with diversion it's supposed to go away. But in the mean time I've been fired by one job and turned down by two others because of it.

I don't watch it either. I just turned opened their livestream on Youtube right now, and I would say the problem seems to be with their use of the medium. Sure, a television news program can have a slower, more relaxed pace (like PBS, Charlie Rose, or Democracy Now), but I don't think such a show has competitive ratings. With the pace and perpetuance of a 24/7 news cable news stream, you're going to amplify a lot of pertinent stuff (albeit in short bursts), along with a lot of noise and downright trash.

If I were a journalist I would try to work for the New York Times.