Defining democracy down by @BloggersRUs

Defining democracy down

by Tom Sullivan

The Trump era is like an episode of Drew Carey's old improv game show. Except this is "Whose Government Is It Anyway?" — the shit show where everything's made up and the facts don't matter.

Garrett Graff describes at Wired just how much of one Foxification has made of America:

We, as a democratic society, cannot survive such consequences-be-damned, winner-take-all, facts-don’t-matter politics. Fox News has upended Daniel Patrick Moynihan’s famous proclamation that “everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not to his own facts.” Its daily programming seems driven by the idea that everyone might be entitled to their own facts, but that there is only one correct opinion: President Trump’s.

Kurt Bardella at NBC reinforces how Foxified Republican members of Congress have become:

The conservative approach during these hearings has been to treat every member’s time like it is a segment on Fox News. The members are playing the part of Sean Hannity or Laura Ingraham. Their script is built on misdirection and moving the goal posts as their paltry strategy shifts to incorporate various conspiracy theories and outlandish claims.

Donald Trump has done plenty worth condemnation. But Trump didn't corrupt his party. He simply unmasked it. "Forget about impeachment. As a parent, as a person, I wonder: Where is Matt Gaetz’s humanity?" asks Dana Milbank about the Florida Republican's gratuitous smears of Hunter Biden Thursday.

It was as if Republican members of the House Judiciary Committee were running on a loop Thursday. Reps. Guy Reschenthaler of Texas, Gaetz and others repeated the same lines every few hours to make sure late tuners-in did not miss their juiciest bits. Democrats did some of that themselves, just not as loudly. (I looked for a "Jim Jordan" setting on the TV remote that might automatically reduce the volume whenever the Ohio Republican resumed shouting.) The GOTV defense began sounding like those ubiquitous, K-Tel's greatest-hits commercials of old, only less tuneful.

Like a lot of observers, I got 2016 wrong. Decades of a steady diet of right-wing radio and Fox News had made many Americans somewhat crazy, sure. But even given the weaknesses of the Clinton campaign, I didn't think the country was crazy enough to elect president a celebrity grifter as obvious as Donald Trump. They claimed to love America too much for that. Obviously not. As former president George W. Bush realized after Trump's "American carnage" inauguration speech, the country would be in for "some weird shit."

“Do you feel confident in that?” the reporter asked.

“My .357 Magnum is comfortable with that!” he said. “End of story!” https://t.co/iBecicYvay
— Shannon Watts (@shannonrwatts) December 11, 2019

As the gentleman in the clip above demonstrates, firearms have replaced patriotism as "the last refuge" among some Trump supporters. Threats of violence in the event of electoral or legislative failure are common on the right. The president has become a kind of "Thousand Hills Free Radio and Television" at his rallies and in his tweets. He himself has bragged he could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue and not face consequences. His lawyers support that proposition in court. The attorney general acts as Trump's Minister of Propaganda. His defenders in Congress see no evil, nor hear any, and excuse what they hear from their Guinness World's-record-eligible tweeter.

Another Moynihan contribution to the lexicon is “defining deviancy down.” It captures "the way standards and expectations, as they fall, become accepted at each new, lower level as somehow 'normal.'"

Throughout the Trump presidency, his opponents have argued the press ought not normalize his behavior. In many ways, press coverage has. Yet, there is still some memory of normal left to provoke a flurry of editorial boards to call for Trump's removal. Just not yet in swing states, nor in the numbers that did so during the Clinton impeachment, Politico reports.

Nerves are on edge and tempers flaring. Late Thursday night, House Judiciary Chairman Jerry Nadler abruptly gavelled his committee's markup hearing to a close without calling for a vote on two articles of impeachment. Without consulting ranking member Rep. Doug Collins (R-Ga.), Nadler announced the hearing would resume this morning at 10 a.m. EST.

It had been a 14-hour day and members clearly tired. Blindsided Republicans were livid:

Republicans erupted in anger at the move, accusing the New York Democrat of wanting to put the vote on television and going back on an agreement for the committee to stop considering amendments.

Rep. Doug Collins of Georgia, the top Republican on the Judiciary Committee, called the move the "the most bush league stunt I've ever seen in my entire life."

"Words cannot describe how inappropriate this was," Collins said.

But Democrats blamed Republicans for the schedule switch. They were furious at Republicans for what they believed was a blatant effort to drag out Thursday's proceedings and delay final votes until the middle of the night. Earlier Thursday, it was widely believed that Republicans would be through offering amendments by around 5 p.m. EST.

As the evening wore on, Democrats came to believe the GOP was simply trying to bury the votes in the news cycle. So the decision was made to hold the final two votes Friday morning to ensure more people would be able to witness the historic move -- even though it enraged the GOP.

Mistrust runs deep. With good reason. So, the Chicago Tribune's Rex Hubke offers this advice and admonishment:

"Disinformation is intended to wear critics down, to make them feel that resistance is futile, that combating nonsense with facts is a waste of time.

"You can’t let that happen. You need to keep your mind right."

This presidency is an endurance contest to see which side of the aisle will break first, or whether the republic will. This feels like the point in an action movie when someone wonders aloud if they'll get out of this alive.