Guess he didnât check with the Homeland Security Advisor to get the story straight
White House homeland security adviser Tom Bossert on Sunday claimed President Donald Trumpâs failure to condemn white supremacists after violence broke out at a rally in Charlottesville was because he didnât want to âdignifyâ the movement.
Republicans didnât invent racism. But Republican politicians have exploited racism for half a century through their âSouthern Strategyâ (now the All-Points-of-the-Compass Strategy). Trump, more than any of his predecessors in their day, in 2016 soughtthe racist vote, then making it plain to all the world that racists are encouraged to gather as they did on Friday in Charlottesville.
We must all damn the racists in our midst. And we must even more damn Donald Trump for soliciting and welcoming their votes, and for making it plain yesterday that he has no problem with their violence.
I think this is good and, PR ploys aside, Iâm glad to hear this kind of talk out of NcMaster.
And he was on with Chuck Todd and in a roundabout way denied Bannon thrice. Kinda funny.
The next version will be Bannonâs: racism? Terrorism? What are you talking about?
Well past time for Kelly to axe the Bannon/Miller/Gorks troika.
This might be a good spot to talk about the McMaster-Kelly-Bannon battles that have been referenced in The Hill, Politico and Foreign Policy. #Charlottesville, I believe, will factor into that power struggle.
Bannon has been orchestrating a campaign against McMaster through members of the NSC and Alt-Right media guys like Cernovich. Higgins, a recently fired NSC member, wrote that bat-shit conspiratorial memo basically declaring all enemies of Trump as marxists and encouraging him to embrace Bannon white nationalist ideas and crack down on the country, Putin style. Hence, Bannon is placing his own ideological view through other sources to reinforce those ideas for Trump. Trump got hold of that memo through Junior (why is he getting classified memos?) and Trump loved the memo. Score 1 for Bannon.
In the meantime, McMaster has been trying to root out the right wing nuts in the NSC who mostly came over w/Flynn. He got Higgins and Cohen-Watkins out. Now, Kelly has been looking at the WH staff operationally and is trying to root out people who are basically groupies - hangers on with no specifically defined role (e.g., Bannon + Gorka). He has also been hearing a lot of complaints from other WH staffers (mostly veterans from the Bush years, I suspect) about Bannon. McMaster wants to fire more Bannonites and Bannon himself, but Kelly is cautious and is not pushing for it, though he is thinking about it.
Trump went all in on Bannonism since the Manafort raid. He went after trans soldiers, affirmative action, supported police brutality, attempted to radicalize the boy scouts, and inflamed international tensions, threatening nuclear war, military intervention in a civil conflict/crisis and now this white nationalist bullshit in Charlottesville.
However, #charlottesville may be changing some things. Trump maintained his fealty to Bannon and exposed Kelly as basically no more effective than Mooch (and less entertaining). When David Duke basically issued a demand to Trump that he back up the Nazis, Trump went to his Bannon playbook and obliged. The blowback he has received since has been intense and one senses a tectonic shift in the political balance of power, where America seems to be waking up to recognize the long-held consensus on race that has enabled the country to function over the past 40 + years.
Bannon may have actually cost Trump something more than approval ratings. He has made Trump look like a Nazi sympathizer and illegitimate. This will kill Trump in the Russia investigation, as no one will go out on a limb to defend him. The other wildcard is Kushner. Kushner hates Bannon and has wanted him out for a while. Trump has ignored those pleas because he believes Bannon got him into the WH. In Kushnerâs view, the reason Trump is unpopular is because he has sided too much with the far right Bannonist views. It makes it difficult for him to govern.
So we may have reached an inflection point where the value of keeping Bannon is outweighed by the political costs. Trump is a sitting duck in the Russia investigation and he has no chance of sticking around without the help of the GOP Congress. Firing Bannon might be of some value to Trump to get a second look from the voters and the Congressional GOP.
That said, Trump supports Bannon because he believes in white nationalism and Bannon has found a way to cast Trump as an historic figure and change agent within that movement. Trump believes that Bannonâs clarity helps him maintain that connection to the base, and to keep that base away from the Establishment GOP.
My guess is that Kelly gets the green light to fire Gorka, but that Bannon stays. However, losing Gorka means that Kelly and McMaster will gain a firm upper hand. As Mueller starts to get more evidence and begins letting the indictments fly, Trump will find that there really isnât anything for him to do in WH except to sell access. He may plot his exit strategy at that point.
McMaster claimed President Donald Trump was âvery clearâ in his response to the violence.
Uh, no General. Not very clear. Otherwise half the administration wouldnât need to be twisting themselves into pretzels Trumpsplaining this morning. When Trump equates the white supremacist racist bigotted nazi alt-rightists with the peaceful counter-protesters who are against racism, bigotry and violence and for equality and inclusion ("âŚegregious display of hatred, bigotry and violence on many sides, on many sides.") - well, then heâs just saying âI wonât condemn the really bad guys who support me.â
From what I understandâitâs even worse than just equating the white supremacists and their protestorsâthe phrase he used, âcherish our history,â is a kissy-face message to the alt-right. I havenât seen an explicit explanation of its meaning to them but certainly they have this confabulated notion that the âWestâ has done awesome stuff and the brownz arenât even properly grateful and want to tear it all down. That would be what Iâd think the phrase would be shorthand for.
So, he can use the dog whistle, but he canât call out the dogs by name and their actions as domestic terrorism.
- Fire Bannon
- Fire Miller
- Fire Gorka
- Expatriate Gorka and deport him to whatever country he came from as he received his citizenship here based on a
withholding information heâs a member of a banned group violating the terms of his citizenship. - Create a national database of Trumpâs base and match it to known alt-right and kkk membership lists which can be gathered from YouTube channels and take away their guns, deny them the right to purchase any weapon of any kind. And thatâs a long list of household chemicals.
- Deny them the right to gather.
- Audit every one of them.
- And remove any member found to be in any position paid with taxpayer dollars.
That would be a start.
And if they get uppity they can go to a work camp and begin fixing our roads.
And for Godâs sake - do NOT file any charges against anyone in this administration until the Dems can take back the Congress. THENâŚimpeach and imprison EVERY member of this government from Trump down to Sessions and in a special act, remove Gorsuch from the bench.
THEN we can have the trials. There can be no future pardons if there is capital punishment.
Trump thinks Bannon is a leaker so heâll be gone soon.
Even McMaster is waffling quite a bit. He says that violence with the intent to intimidate people is terrorism, but he wants a thorough investigation to decide whether this particular murderous attack was intended to intimidate. Might just have been a foot slipping on the accelerator a bunch of times.
If youâre heading for a conclusion that even in his public statements after an atrocity heâs actually leaning toward violent white supremacists, Iâm right there with you.
I also wonder if Bannon can not be dismissed as Trump Admin will then lose the Mercers- important donors- Bigly
Meanwhile back at the Kaserne, the hate spreads and more young Brown Shirts are being schooled on violence. Whatâs next? Suicide bombers?
I have some trouble believing that (though it could happen). Trump has a survival instinct and he believes Bannon and Putin won him the election. Charlottesville may push him to reconsider, but Trump has been consistent in his promotion of birtherism, racism, anti-immigration and in providing a platform for bringing white nationalism mainstream. He saw the opportunity right away when Obama was elected and exploited it.
In addition, if you look back at Trumpâs prior interviews and quotes over the past 30 years, this is a guy who thought he could be President and desired it as early as the late 80s. He has been positioning himself for this for nearly the majority of his adult life. If he maintains white nationalism as a lure and organizing principle, he remains electorally viable even if his share of the national vote drops.
The antidote to that comes from the millennial generation, and specifically, the Berners. The younger generation is less racist than prior generations, but the disaffected portion of the younger generation is much more radicalized, on right and left, and on the right they now have advocates in the WH. Millennials have to vote in high numbers and vote wisely. This is where Bernie has to stop fanning the flames of dissension with talk about the DNC being a monolith of power that hates Bernie, or that the '16 primary was âriggedâ or any of that stuff. 6 million people voted third party in 2016. That canât happen in '18 and '20.
Second @pebent. Bannon will stay because of the Mercers. The day the Mercers decide Trumpy is not getting them anywhere, Bannon will quit or be fired.