Anne Applebaum: THE NEW PROPAGANDA WAR

Here is a difficult truth: A part of the American political spectrum is not merely a passive recipient of the combined authoritarian narratives that come from Russia, China, and their ilk, but an active participant in creating and spreading them. Like the leaders of those countries, the American MAGA right also wants Americans to believe that their democracy is degenerate, their elections illegitimate, their civilization dying. The MAGA movement’s leaders also have an interest in pumping nihilism and cynicism into the brains of their fellow citizens, and in convincing them that nothing they see is true. Their goals are so similar that it is hard to distinguish between the online American alt-right and its foreign amplifiers, who have multiplied since the days when this was solely a Russian project. Tucker Carlson has even promoted the fear of a color revolution in America, lifting the phrase directly from Russian propaganda. The Chinese have joined in too: Earlier this year, a group of Chinese accounts that had previously been posting pro-Chinese material in Mandarin began posting in English, using MAGA symbols and attacking President Joe Biden. They showed fake images of Biden in prison garb, made fun of his age, and called him a satanist pedophile. One Chinese-linked account reposted an RT video repeating the lie that Biden had sent a neo-Nazi criminal to fight in Ukraine. Alex Jones’s reposting of the lie on social media reached some 400,000 people.

Given that both Russian and Chinese actors now blend in so easily with the MAGA messaging operation, it is hardly surprising that the American government has difficulty responding to the newly interlinked autocratic propaganda network. American-government-backed foreign broadcasters—Voice of America, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Radio Farda, Radio Martí—still exist, but neither their mandate nor their funding has changed much in recent years. The intelligence agencies continue to observe what happens—there is a Foreign Malign Influence Center under the Office of the Director of National Intelligence—but they are by definition not part of the public debate. The only relatively new government institution fighting antidemocratic propaganda is the Global Engagement Center, but it is in the State Department, and its mandate is to focus on authoritarian propaganda outside the United States. Established in 2016, it replaced the Center for Strategic Counterterrorism Communications, which sought to foil the Islamic State and other jihadist groups that were recruiting young people online. In 2014–15, as the scale of Russian disinformation campaigns in Europe were becoming better known, Congress designated the GEC to deal with Russian as well as Chinese, Iranian, and other propaganda campaigns around the world—although not, again, inside the United States. Throughout the Trump administration, the organization languished under the direction of a president who himself repeated Russian propaganda lines during the 2016 campaign—“Obama founded ISIS,” for example, and “Hillary will start World War III.”

“Lo and behold, the entity that becomes the most persistent in alleging that American elections are fraudulent, fake, rigged, and everything else turns out to be the president of the United States.”

X (formerly Twitter) also used to look for foreign propaganda activity, but under the ownership of Elon Musk, that voluntary effort has been badly weakened. The new blue-check “verification” process allows users—including anonymous, pro-Russian users—to pay to have their posts amplified; the old “safety team” no longer exists. The result: After the collapse of the Kakhovka dam in Ukraine last summer, a major environmental and humanitarian disaster caused by Russian bombing over many weeks, the false narrative that Ukraine had destroyed it appeared hundreds of thousands of times on X. After the ISIS terrorist attack on a concert hall in Moscow in March, David Sacks, the former PayPal entrepreneur and a close associate of Musk’s, posted on X, with no evidence, that “if the Ukrainian government was behind the terrorist attack, as looks increasingly likely, the U.S. must renounce it.” His completely unfounded post was viewed 2.5 million times. This spring, some Republican congressional leaders finally began speaking about the Russian propaganda that had “infected” their base and their colleagues. Most of that “Russian propaganda” is not coming from inside Russia.

One could call this a secret authoritarian “plot” to preserve the ability to spread antidemocratic conspiracy theories, except that it’s not a secret. It’s all visible, right on the surface. Russia, China, and sometimes other state actors—Venezuela, Iran, Hungary—work with Americans to discredit democracy, to undermine the credibility of democratic leaders, to mock the rule of law. They do so with the goal of electing Trump, whose second presidency would damage the image of democracy around the world, as well as the stability of democracy in America, even further. https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2024/06/china-russia-republican-party-relations/678271/

George T. Conway III: The New York Trump Case Is Kind of Perfect

Strictly speaking, Daniels’s testimony wasn’t necessary—particularly the details about the sex. The case is about whether Trump caused the falsification of business records at his business, and whether that falsification was intended to cover up another crime (among other offenses, violations of the Federal Election Campaign Act). Daniels has absolutely nothing to say about the Trump Organization’s business records, and the fact that she was ultimately paid the hush money isn’t in dispute. The sex strictly doesn’t matter: If Daniels and Trump didn’t have sex—as Trump maintains—but the facts alleged by the New York County District Attorney’s Office were otherwise the same and proved, Trump could still be found guilty of a Class E felony under the New York penal law.

But as we have so often seen over the past nine years, Trump’s instinctive, narcissistic mendacity came into self-defeating play once again—this time by making Daniels’s testimony more significant than it had to be. It’s hard to imagine that many sentient, honest human beings could believe Trump’s denials of having congressed with Daniels. Yet Trump continues to insist on denying it—not only in public, but in court. And not only is sex not an element of the crime, but his strongest defense—the one he could actually skate on—will be to argue that there is insufficient evidence that he knew his people were falsifying business records. This defense faces many problems—including that Trump personally signed (on the Resolute desk!) some checks (made out to Cohen) in packets with false backup attached. Still, Trump would have been best off having his lawyers focus their efforts on the question of his knowledge and intent regarding the payments.

As usual, though, this defendant just couldn’t help himself. The prosecution was entitled to put on evidence of the sex to establish Trump’s motive for the payoff and cover-up. The defendant could have had his lawyers not dispute the point, even stipulate to it. What’s the harm? His political supporters stand by him even though he’s already a civilly adjudicated sex offender, so why would they care one whit about what he did consensually for a couple of minutes with an adult-film actor once upon a time in Stateline, Nevada? Had he not insisted on contesting the point, Daniels might not have had to testify, or at least she might have been on and off the stand in a flash. Because, again, what ultimately matters in the case happened mostly in New York City in 2016.. https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2024/05/stormy-daniels-on-stand-trump-trials/678373/
 

Jackie Calmes: Trump promises to subvert the law — first by freeing the Jan. 6 criminals

Of all the promises that Donald Trump has made for a second term as president, he’s all but certain to fulfill one if he’s reelected: pardoning most, if not all, of the rioters who’ve been arrested, pleaded guilty or been convicted by judges or juries for their roles in besieging the nation’s Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, and injuring roughly 140 police defenders.

That’s nearly 1,400 people — “unbelievable patriots” all, in Trump’s noxious telling — who tried to overturn a free and fair election.

Most of the former president’s other campaign vows — deporting millions who’ve long lived in this country, deploying federal troops against protesters, spending government funds at whim and gutting the civil service, for example — can be stopped by Congress or the federal courts. Many likely would be.

A president’s pardon power, however, is virtually unlimited, as the Supreme Court held in 1886. And Trump, though not alone among presidents in this, has abused that power before.

What could be more abusive or obscene than unilaterally absolving the would-be insurrectionists, nearly 900 currently, who have been fairly prosecuted and sentenced according to the rule of law that a president is sworn to uphold?

Yet, like so many of his outrageous statements, Trump’s pledge to wipe the criminals’ records clean and spring jailed “hostages” on “the first day we get into office” doesn’t shock as it should. It’s just Trump being Trump, shooting off his mouth.

But this vow isn’t like the implausible claims that he’d build a 2,000-mile border wall and Mexico would pay for it, or that he’d ban all Muslims from the country. A reelected Trump could and likely will make good on the vow that would erase accountability en masse for the fatal, antidemocratic violence on Jan. 6. https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2024-05-09/donald-trump-pardon-jan-6-insurrectionist

Eugene Robinson: MAGA Republicans are already doubting the 2024 election results

Don’t say they didn’t warn us. If Donald Trump loses again to Joe Biden in November, the attempt by MAGA Republicans to overturn the result — in essence, to negate the will of the voters — could be even worse than last time.

Trump’s denial of his 2020 defeat has had a deeply corrosive effect on our democracy, with a majority of Republicans still deluded into believing the election was stolen. The damage might be ameliorated if prominent GOP officials, who do know better, at least expressed confidence in the democratic process and pledged to accept the outcome of this year’s vote, no matter who wins.

Surely, that’s not too much to ask of men and women who owe their jobs to the same electoral system that Trump claims is hopelessly corrupt. Right?

Wrong. Witness the pathetic performance by Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.) on NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday. Host Kristen Welker tried six times to get Scott to say, yes or no, whether he would accept the result of the November election. Scott refused to give an answer. Instead, he served up a heaping bowl of word salad, tossed with a vinaigrette of oil and ambition.

“This is an issue that is not an issue so I’m not going to make it an issue. ... At the end of the day, the 47th president of the United States will be President Donald Trump. And I’m excited to get back to low inflation, low unemployment. ... I’m not going to answer your hypothetical question when, in fact, I believe the American people are speaking today on the results of the election.”

Scott’s evasiveness is understandable because he is auditioning to be Trump’s running mate, but it is not excusable. He knows that cases of proven voter fraud — or even formally alleged voter fraud — are vanishingly rare. He knows that recounts and audits consistently show that votes are tallied accurately. He knows that all the conspiracy theories about the 2020 election spun by MAGA fabulists such as Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell have been proved utterly false and, in some cases, expensively defamatory. Still, with his nonanswers, the senator undermines the legitimacy of U.S. democracy.

Other Republicans hoping to be Trump’s vice-presidential choice have been equally shameless. North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum was shifty on CNN’s “State of the Union” when asked about the possibility of violence if Trump loses, declining to answer and instead saying he is “looking forward to next January when Vice President Harris certifies the election for Donald Trump.” Rep. Elise Stefanik (N.Y.) said she would have to “see if this is a legal and valid election” before voting to certify the November result.

And Rep. Byron Donalds (Fla.) went even further — all the way to 2028. He said that if he were the sitting vice president at the time of that year’s election, he would decline to certify the results “if you have state officials who are violating the election law in their states.” In other words, he would do what Vice President Mike Pence quite properly refused to do: impose Trump’s will over that of the American people.

All of this could be written off as nothing more than politicians being craven — hardly a new phenomenon — if not for the damage it does. A sobering study released last month by the Stavros Niarchos Foundation SNF Agora Institute at Johns Hopkins University found that 62 percent of Republicans and 22 percent of independents believe Trump was the “legitimate” winner in 2020.

Hardly any Democrats share that view.

Those “deniers” add up to about one-third of voters overall. If that much of the electorate believes a presidential election was stolen — despite multiple recounts and dozens of court cases proving it was not — we have a serious problem.

The Johns Hopkins study concludes: “A political party that has undermined its own voters’ faith in elections is a destabilizing force in a democracy — especially one in which only two parties are realistically competing. The strong viewpoints that deniers hold, and the distinctive identity that they have formed, demonstrate that reviving our democracy will require more than any given result at the ballot box, or providing accurate information to voters on how the election process works. It will require a functioning, responsible conservative party that still believes in democracy.”
No such party now exists in U.S. politics. And for that failing, Trump is only partly responsible.
No one is forcing Republicans such as Scott, Burgum, Stefanik and Donalds to pretend to believe Trump’s lies. No one is forcing them to weaken faith in our elections. Whatever happens in the days and weeks after Election Day, many leading Republicans deserve to share the blame. https://s2.washingtonpost.com/camp-rw/

Bess Levin: Trump Demands Rupert Murdoch Fire Paul Ryan for Unforgivable Act (Saying He Won’t Vote for Him)

Donald Trump demanded on Thursday that Rupert Murdoch boot former House Speaker Paul Ryan from the Fox Corp. board. The reason? Ryan committed the apparently fireable offense of telling people he will not be voting for Trump come November.

“Rupert Murdoch should fire pathetic RINO Paul Ryan from the Board of Fox,” Trump scream-wrote on Truth Social. “Ryan is a loser, always has been, and always will be. He was the WEAKEST & MOST INCOMPETENT Speaker of the House in its History. Fox will sink to the absolute bottom of the pack if Paul Ryan has anything to do with it!”

Trump’s commentary about Ryan came two days after the former GOP leader spoke about the ex-president at the Milken Institute Global Conference, saying: “Character is too important to me. And it’s a job that requires the kind of character that he just doesn’t have.” Ryan added that, “having said that, I really disagree with [Joe Biden] on policy. I wrote in a Republican the last time, I’m gonna write in a Republican this time.” (Note: This is not the way to prevent Trump from becoming president.)

While serving as House Speaker, Ryan defended all kinds of character-lacking behavior from Trump in exchange for tax cuts. When Trump demanded loyalty from the head of the FBI—whom he later fired—Ryan defended him by saying, “He’s just new to this.” When Trump gave the Charlottesville neo-Nazis a free pass, Ryan told people “he’s learning.” Since leaving office, however, the former Wisconsin representative has become a major critic of Trump, labeling him an “authoritarian narcissist” and calling BS on the stolen-election claims. “It was not rigged. It was not stolen,” Ryan said in 2021. “Donald Trump lost the election. Joe Biden won the election. It’s really clear.” https://www.vanityfair.com/news/story/trump-demands-rupert-murdoch-fire-paul-ryan-for-unforgivable-act-saying-he-wont-vote-for-him
 

Eric Lutz: Why Big Oil Executives Are Already Salivating Over a Second Trump Term

President Joe Biden has framed his rematch against Donald Trump as a referendum on democracy and abortion rights. But November is not just about “freedom.” It is also a “climate” election, as a number of Biden environmental initiatives hinge on the outcome at an absolutely critical juncture for the planet.

As the Washington Post reported Thursday, Trump has promised oil executives that he'll immediately tear down Biden’s green policies if elected again, prevent others from being enacted, and rip up regulations on drilling—all in exchange for a billion dollars of campaign contributions. “You’ve been waiting on a permit for five years,” the former president told the CEOS at a Mar-a-Lago event last month, as an attendee recounted to the Post. “You’ll get it on Day One.”

In addition to his promise to ramp up drilling, Trump also said he would undo the Biden administration’s “ridiculous” electric vehicles initiatives, among other clean energy policies. While some oil executives seem to question Trump’s ability to effectively do their bidding—especially with much of his attention focused on beating the felony charges he’s facing in his Manhattan hush money trial—the industry has already been drafting executive orders to lower drilling costs and boost offshore leases that Trump would be able to approve immediately after retaking office, as Politico reported this week. “We’re going to have to write exactly what we want, actually spoon feeding the administration,” as one energy company lawyer involved in an executive order on gas exports told the outlet. https://www.vanityfair.com/news/story/donald-trump-promises-to-big-oil

Jonathan Chait: How Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s Brain Worm Could Save America

It is distinctly possible that when the history of the 2024 election is written, its outcome, and therefore possibly the fate of the Republic, will have been determined by a tiny worm inside Robert F. Kennedy’s brain.

I believe the worm is, more likely than not, a force for good. My reasoning is as follows:

Kennedy, by his own admission, has endured serious mental trauma on account of a brain worm. As the New York Times reported this week, Kennedy began to confess his mental difficulties in a 2012 deposition pertaining to a divorce, in which he argued that “his earning power had been diminished by his cognitive struggles.” Kennedy blamed the problem on a 2010 episode that he and his doctor attribute to a brain worm, now deceased but possibly still lodged inside his skull, that he believes ate a portion of his brain.

Normally, a victim of a horrible medical condition like this deserves sympathy. But you forfeit that sympathy when you run for president. If it is your belief that a worm has devoured part of your brain, you should not run for the world’s most powerful job. (In Kennedy’s defense, it is possible the portion of his brain responsible for moral reasoning is missing.)

It is impossible to know for sure why Kennedy has turned into such a crank. His kookery certainly precedes the brain-worm incident. After the 2004 election, Kennedy was volubly insisting the result had been fixed by an implausible conspiracy to rig voting machines. But both the breadth and the depth of his paranoia appear to have grown in recent decades.

To the extent his descent can be traced to his self-confessed cognitive limitations, they are pushing him in an objectively prosocial direction. And to the extent Kennedy has correctly diagnosed the source of his mental problems — obviously a less than solid assumption but one doctors deem plausible — the worm is playing a potentially decisive role.

It would be the ultimate butterfly-flaps-its-wings dynamic. A tiny worm, perhaps one-third of an inch long, crawled into the brain of the descendant of a famous political family and munched its way into making him a right-wing populist kook who pulled enough votes to prevent the other, more popular right-wing populist kook from winning the presidency. The worm would merit a small statue — or, if that is too grotesque, perhaps an exhibit in the future Biden Presidential Library. https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/how-robert-f-kennedy-jr-s-brain-worm-could-save-america.html
 

Michelle Goldberg: Killing Dogs. Taunting the Homeless. Praising Al Capone. This Is Trump’s Party

John McEntee — who started out carrying Donald Trump’s bags and rose to become, in the chaotic final days of Trump’s presidency, his most important enforcer — has a TikTok account. In a video he published last week, he explains how he likes to keep “fake Hollywood money” in his car to give to homeless people. “Then when they go to use it, they get arrested, so I’m actually like helping clean up the community,” he said.

With his boyish face and slicked-back hair, McEntee, the former director of the White House Office of Presidential Personnel and a man likely to be central to staffing a future Trump administration, comes off a lot like Patrick Bateman, the homicidal investment banker played by Christian Bale in the 2000 film “American Psycho.” The clip’s smug villainy, I think, offers a clue to why South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem, thirsty for a bigger role in MAGA world, might have thought she could ingratiate herself by bragging about killing a puppy.

Right wingers often rain contempt on what they call virtue signaling, a performative kind of sanctimony epitomized by the “In This House” yard signs that once dotted progressive neighborhoods. Partly in response, they’ve developed what’s sometimes called vice signaling, the defiant embrace of cruelty and disdain for social norms. Think of “rolling coal,” the practice of modifying diesel engines to make them belch dark exhaust in an effort to trigger environmentalists, or the way George Santos’s promiscuous falsehoods endeared him to hard-core MAGA acolytes.

A cult of Bateman has developed on the very online right, which is why images from “American Psycho” appeared multiple times in a bizarre ad for Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis during his abortive presidential campaign. And no one, of course, does vice signaling like Trump, who keeps comparing himself to the gangster Al Capone. https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/13/opinion/kristi-noem-vice-signaling-maga.html
 

Eugene Robinson: How is any of this making Israel more secure?

War without coherent aims is lunacy. The way Israel is waging its war in Gaza looks increasingly shortsighted and senseless — just as Israel’s staunchest allies, including the United States, have warned all along.

Israeli forces are massing for what Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vows will be an all-out assault on Rafah, the refugee-filled metropolis in southern Gaza, where the last intact Hamas battalions are said to be dug in. Meanwhile, however, fierce combat broke out this past weekend between Israeli troops and Hamas fighters in several places across northern Gaza — which Israel already pummeled, depopulated and theoretically pacified months ago.

Caught in the crossfire, as always, are Palestinian civilians. An estimated 300,000 men, women and children have been evacuated from Rafah in advance of the planned Israeli invasion, while another 150,000 are being told to leave the area of renewed fighting in the north. Where are all these people supposed to find food and shelter? How is any of this making Israel more secure? Or bringing the Hamas-held hostages home?

I believe Israel absolutely had the right to respond with force to the unspeakable Oct. 7 terrorist attack by Hamas, in which more than 1,200 Israelis were killed, some after being tortured, and more than 240 hostages were seized and taken into Gaza. But I agree with President Biden — for decades, a fierce supporter of Israel — that the way Israel is waging this war is ultimately counterproductive.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken pretty much summed up my view on Sunday during an interview on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” He warned that Israel is “on the trajectory, potentially, to inherit an insurgency with many armed Hamas [fighters] left or, if it leaves, a vacuum filled by chaos, filled by anarchy and probably refilled by Hamas.”

It is true that a duly constituted Palestinian state in Gaza would pose a security problem for Israel. But what Netanyahu is creating instead — a state of total anarchy — is guaranteed to be much, much worse. https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2024/05/13/israel-gaza-rafah-lunacy-war/
 

Jonathan Bernstein: Trump Was Incredibly Bad At Presidenting

Damn he was bad at the job.

I was one of the political scientists who participated in a “rank the presidents” survey and it was easy to place Trump dead last, given everything.1 But the truth is that even if Trump had followed and accepted the law, including the Constitutional “emoluments” provision, and even if he didn’t provoke an insurrection in support of his bid to overturn an election he lost, and even if he didn’t have a history of sexual assault, and even if he didn’t regularly make bigoted remarks and encourage bigotry…he was still quite a bit worse at the regular parts of presidenting than any of the modern presidents, at least.2

It’s hard to know where to begin, and I’m obviously not going to convince anyone in a few short paragraphs or even a full item, but even given how important all that other stuff is his gross incompetency at the job is worth remembering. Trump had terrible personnel judgement. He was easily manipulated by everyone - bureaucrats, foreign leaders, members of Congress, pretty much anyone who figured him out, which apparently wasn’t difficult. He didn’t even attempt to talk to the half (or really a bit more than half) of the nation who hadn’t supported him.

But if you had to focus on just one thing, it’s that by all accounts he utterly failed at the thing that Richard Neustadt thought was the most important thing for presidents to do in order to succeed: Collecting information. Trump didn’t read. He didn’t pay attention during briefings. He didn’t care about policy. He didn’t even bother, as far as anyone can tell, to learn the basic rules of the constitutional system. He did apparently watch a lot of cable news networks, which is…let’s just say not a great way of learning much. https://goodpoliticsbadpolitics.substack.com/p/trump-was-incredibly-bad-at-presidenting