Some anonymous lickspittle in the White House has penned, anonymously, a rather smug, self-congratulatory notice of a coup. The New York Times was docile enough to publish it.
I have one question for this anonymous crypto-fascist: Who the fuck elected you?
It’s alright, you don’t have to reply, I already know the answer: Nobody. That’s who.
We can’t have this. We can’t have un-elected, un-accountable, toadies deciding which decision gets approval and which decisions get overruled.
This is proof, if any further was needed, that EVERY LAST person in the White House right now is completely unmoored from any and all constitutional principles and lack, wholly, any understanding of democratic processes: pure and undiluted excresence of fascim. They care about power, and getting what they want done and stopping what they don’t want. Does it matter that we might agree on what Donald Trump should NOT do? Not in the least if they are going to swipe at the head to do it. Now they want to cloak their coup in a fake rapport with my outrage at Trumps bellicose fascism, all the while perpetuating that exact fascism.
I ask again: Who the fuck elected you?
I’m trying to decide whether I’m supposed to detect snark in this diary. I for one am cheering this guy on. We need people undermining this President from within for the sake of the country.
Grow up, Christopher. This is the Reichstag fire you said could never happen here. Now you’re cheering it on.
No, this is dousing the Reichstag with flame retardant before it has a chance to burn.
@ dousing the Reichstag fire: Nope.
This is using shovels to secretly distribute the still-burning embers as widely as possible.
Rachel Maddow characterizes it as pulling the fire alarm.
The way to douse the Reichstag fire is to invoke the 25th amendment and remove this dangerously incompetent thug from office.
I’d prefer the 25th amendment too, but that involves the cabinet which I’m not sure from the piece is on board, plus the President can argue he is fit to hold office and then it takes 2/3 of both chambers of Congress to sustain 25th amendment action.
25th amendment also requires the agreement of Pence. There’s speculation based on vocabulary that this op-ed is the work of the VP’s speechwriter, but that doesn’t guarantee he’s speaking for Pence in this instance.
I understand the requirements of the 25th amendment.
The point is that this “inside resistance” is well outside the scope of constitutional limits on executive behavior.
The fact that it is unlikely that GOP Collaborators will agree to remove Mr. Trump from office in spite of the overwhelming evidence of his incompetence demonstrates the complicity of those GOP Collaborators in perpetuating this betrayal of America.
Our system of checks and balances is failing badly.
Yes, our system of checks and balances is failing badly, which is precisely why desperate times call for desperate measures.
Would you support Gen. Mattis doning his old uniform and placing Trump under house arrest for collusion and heading a caretaker government? The US is not Egypt or Turkey or anywhere else where juntas have happened. The US is a democratic republic. You and the other commentators rooting for this guy are essentially rooting for the man on the white horse to come into town. For Caesar to cross the Rubicon and kill the republic in order to save it.
Don’t tempt me, but I’m glad this is remaining non-violent. Only the Senate Sergeant-at-Arms is authorized to arrest the President.
What part of “we the unelected and unaccountable will assume extraordinary power for the greater good, completely at our own discretion, because of these special circumstances” is not applicable to either the Reichstag fire or the present situation?? The importance of the Reichstag fire was not in whether it burned or not but in the extraordinary power the Nazi’s took unto themselves in the wake of it.
Democracy is hard work, Christopher. So are metaphors, apparently.
The metaphor breaks down because the fire was something that worked to the favor of the would-be dictator. These guys are trying to stop someone with those impulses.
Anonymous Resister is why we are in Afghanistan going on 17 years. Obama elected to end it, Trump elected to end it, but it goes on and on.
He mentions trade and not being aggressive enough with Russia. Not lying or anything illegal. It’s Seven Days in May but Donald Trump is the JFK character! Hard to pull off.
Now do you believe that there is a Deep State that really sets policy whoever gets elected?
Eh these deep staters sound like the Keystone Cops to me. Slapstick stealing orders from Trump’s desk when he isn’t looking. They would be far more credible if they resigned en masse or pushed for a 25th amendment vote. If the danger is that real. If the danger isn’t real, they should let Trump govern. They are trying to have it both ways, without any consent from the people or any oversight from their representatives. All the more reason to FlipCongress.
Also, that comment could have done without getting personal (i. e. “grow up”)
This official and his peers are subverting the explicit purpose of the 25th Amendment.
In the piece, the author acknowledges the relevance of same (emphasis mine):
Excuse me, but this “inside revolution” is, in fact, precipitating a constitutional crisis by subverting the process explicitly provided for in the 25th amendment. The effect of this “inside resistance” is that some secret, unidentified, and unchecked group of people is choosing the “right direction” for the administration — and therefore for America. Bzzzt.
The cowardly evasiveness continues in the next paragraph:
This cabal attempts to blame “we as a nation” for allowing him to do these things to us.
Say WHAT? The only people who have “sunk low with him” are the GOP Collaborators who stare treason directly in the face and turn their eyes aside rather than do their constitutional duty.
The facts of this were already crystal clear to anyone who has been paying even a tiny bit of actual attention. The upcoming book by Bob Woodware gathers and buttresses these facts with actual first-hand sourcing of the long and growing list of stark examples of this president’s inability to perform the duties of his office.
The deeper constitutional crisis is that this abject betrayal of America is not limited to Donald Trump. The “inside resistance” is unconstitutional. The refusal of GOP Collaborators to perform their constitutional duty (such as by refusing to even consider the Merrick Garland nomination, while steamrolling the Brett Kavanaugh nomination) demonstrates their own betrayal of their constitutional obligations.
It is becoming more and more clear that the criminal enterprise that has taken over the federal government is not limited to Donald Trump. It includes Mike Pence, key officials of the GOP political organization, and many members of the house and senate. Am I the only one who remembers the shameful spectacle of sitting GOP elected officials betraying America FROM MOSCOW on the FOURTH OF JULY?
My prediction is that the Mueller investigation will show that Donald Trump and his family have been deeply enmeshed with organized crime for decades. As a result, Mr. Trump and his family are controlled by Russian organized crime and therefore Mr. Putin.
I think it’s possible that Mr. Mueller’s investigation will show that the corrupt ties extend beyond Mr. Trump and his family deep into the GOP political establishment. We’ve known for decades that the GOP was ideologically corrupt. I wonder if we are now learning that they are also venally corrupt, and join Mr. Trump and his family in the pocket of Russian organized crime (and therefore Mr. Putin) as a result.
What do we do when the evidence shows that the governing political party (holding all three branches) has been turned by hostile powers?
As Peter Beinart eloquently put it, the real culprit is the Republican Congress which has completely abrogated its oversight responsibilities.
The Op-Ed writer is trying to have it both ways. You cannot say in the same breadth that you are saving the republic from a constitutional crisis while doing all you can to cheerlead the deportations, tax cuts, deregulatory agenda, and judicial extremism of this administration. They want to continue the Trump policy agenda while containing the fallout from Trump’s erratic personal behavior and criminal misconduct which they snarkily concede is real.
Can’t shake the devils hand and say you’re only kidding. If he committed criminal acts and is unfit for office than he needs to be impeached or removed via 25th amendment. This official, like the rest of the GOP Congress, is a coward afraid to admit the Emperor has no clothes because they are terrified of his base of rabid supporters, so fearful they are putting the long term health of the presidency and their country in jeopardy. I won’t root for that.
This op-ed is an affront to all of us here at BMG who have been elected to bloviate under made-up names.
Thanks, Bob. Your cynicism has reset my perspective. I guess I just lost my head there. Glad to have you round to set me straight.
I’m sure we’ll catch up in person, someday. Maybe on some cattle-car headed to a concentration camp in Montana. I look forward to how much we will laugh at how we bloviated…. Nuthin but good times ahead…
Heh. I don’t remember bob-gardner joining us at any of the several real-life face-to-face bloviation-fests at the Saloon. My very unscientific estimate is that about twenty
BMG bloviators met face-to-face. One of the first lines of each face-to-face exchange was “Hi there! I blog under the handle …” Some of us use our names, some of us do not.
I bloviate so much that I’ve had not just one but TWO made-up names here (“BrooklineTom” and “SomervilleTom”). A BMG “bloviator” just got elected to the state House of Representatives.
The anonymity of the author of the op-ed is not the issue. The issue is their unwillingness to take the steps required of their position.
Petr seems downright obsessed with the op-ed writer’s anonymity. Why do you say it’s not the issue?
You’re absolutely correct, I was mistaken.
The anonymity of the op-ed writer is a contributor. In my view, that anonymity is not nearly so important the substance of what the author has written.
In any case, I think your comparison of the NYTimes with the pages of this blog is misplaced. I also note that writing under a pseudonym, as we do here, is VERY different from writing anonymously.
Then what’s everyone’s beef with the op-ed writer? That an unelected official shouldn’t influence the elected president? Everyone has that right; it’s in the Constitution. People surrounding leaders have been undermining those leaders forever.
No comment on my career, I mean alleged career, as a Russian spy.
As for attending a BMG get together, I have occasionally dreamed of going into a dark room where all the people I’ve insulted are getting liquored up. It’s not a happy dream.
“influenced” is different from “obstructed” and your unwillingness to meet that distinction, even halfway speaks more about you than about anything else…
Anybody who ever stepped foot in the West Wing were directed and, indeed, paid to ‘influence” the elected President: that is the essence and the entirety of their entire fucking job
So, ah, fuck you and every horse you’ve ever rode on and any all horses you ever might hope to come in on in the future.
My beef is that the anonymous author has forced me to agree with Sarah Sanders:
Do you have any idea what that feels like?
“… an unelected official shouldn’t influence the elected president? ”
What?
If this cabal were able to influence the elected president, none of this would be happening. We’re having this exchange because a GROUP of unelected senior administration officials are bypassing the elected president — removing and shredding documents, for example — precisely because they are unable to influence the elected president.
My beef with the op-ed writer is that he — and they — are subverting the constitution by secretly (until now) implementing an ad-hoc version of the 25th Amendment, and doing so in a way that results in the implementation of a very narrow, personal, and self-serving agenda.
A certain amount of insulting comes along with any site like this, and I find your commentary well within the envelope of acceptable exchanges. At our face-to-face gatherings, I don’t recall anybody getting “liquored up” enough to matter.
Face-to-face contact does, in fact, personalize the entire experience for better or worse. “Charley on the MTA”, “pablo”, and several other pseudonyms are real people for me now.
Are you suggesting that we should have discounted the information from “Deep Throat” during the Watergate scandal? Are you aware of the influence of the anonymous debates of the Federalist Papers while our current government was being formed? Do you object to the role that “Common Sense” played in the American revolution?
When all is said and done, it sounds to me as though you’re mostly just stirring up spit.
So … by all means … keep it up.
Wait, you aren’t actually Bob Gardner?
In a triumph of tautology over… tautology… (head esplodes) “Bob Gardner” is both his real name and a made-up name . He’s schrodingers bloviator.
She is actually a Russian spy who has hijacked the identity of a recently-deceased Republican resident of Texas in order to sow discord among liberal Democrats in Massachusetts.
Right?
Guess I hit a nerve. It seems like a lot of bluster on this blog, and not much data.
Take it up with Elizabeth Warren. She’s just distributed an email saying the same thing we’re saying here — and she is distributing her “bluster” under her own name:
The nerve you hit, bob-gardner,, is the one that controls bowel function in the presence of a rapidly rotating air transfer device…