Minute by minute, the wheels are coming off the clown car that is the Trump Administration.

[kpete]

Donald Trump and the Stress Test of Liberal Democracy
Resistance must take the form of the affirmation of the values and institutions that the President has scorned and threatened.

By David Remnick


Minute by minute, the wheels are coming off the clown car that is the Trump Administration. The circus animals are deserting, wriggling through every available window and door. Last week, it was the chief economic adviser, Gary Cohn, who had countenanced the President’s falsehoods and flights of bigotry but who finally took a stand on the question of steel and aluminum tariffs. Still others—the Secretary of State, the national-security adviser, the chief of staff, the Chief Daughter, and the Feckless Son-in-Law—are surely imagining either their own retirement from government service or multi-part indictments. Meanwhile, Robert Mueller’s investigation grows increasingly ominous for the President. Also, porn stars.


..........................


.........The Trump era represents a test of sturdy-seeming American values, and the stakes are global. Just as a prosperous and self-confident American government helped rebuild Western Europe and Japan after the Second World War, and then helped protect them for decades—through the establishment of various security, diplomatic, and economic alliances—the Trump Administration’s disdain for that legacy has left our allies feeling exposed and vulnerable. European leaders routinely tell reporters and former American officials that the U.S. government is barely recognizable to them, in rhetoric or in action. The reductions in the diplomatic corps have often left them with no one to talk to; the Administration’s transactional relationships with authoritarian regimes give them the sense that the President is uninterested in any moral dimension in his foreign policy.

The next significant chapter in this stress test for liberal values will be the midterm elections of November, 2018. If the Democratic Partyfails to win a majority in either the House of Representatives or the Senate, Trump will be further emboldened. His capacity for recklessness will multiply and go unrestrained. The Republican leadership, which has already proved shocking in its cowardice, will be even less inclined to challenge him.


........



Popular resistance to Trumpism began on the Mall the day after his Inauguration. The youthful uprising against the National Rifle Association in south Florida is the newest source of inspiration. But, for Trump and Trumpism to be rendered an unnerving but short-lived episode, history will require more than cogent critique. It will require that millions of men and women who do not ordinarily exercise their franchise—some sixty per cent in off-year elections—recognize the imperatives of citizenship. For those who aspire to office, it will require not merely renunciation of a President but an affirmation—critical and thorough—of the values and the institutions that the President has scorned and threatened. It will require an honest, complex, open-minded debate on immigration, income disparity, distrust of government, guns, race, gender, speech, social media, and the environment.




MORE;
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/03/19/donald-trump-and-the-stress-test-of-liberal-democracy?mbid=social_twitter

[Cha]

1. KICK4WeHaveToWIN

the Senate or the House.. preferably both!

[Eyeball_Kid]

9. The GOP will make sure that the voting mechanisms continue to be vulnerable to hacking.

That's how they won in 2016 and before. There's no reason for them to change.

Watch what they do, and DON'T do! Watch them throw up roadblocks to electoral reform (i.e., paper ballots, accountable electronic voting machines). They don't want voting to reflect the will of the people. They want it to reflect their ability to maintain power, and by extension, Putin's power within the US.

It bears repeating: the GOP is now an extension of Putin's power. They're not only fully supporting Trumpy, but they are fully supporting Putin's incursions. The GOP leadership is in bed with Russia.

Right now, Trumpy Fanboys are ecstatic over Russia's support, as if Russia/Putin is giving them something with no strings attached. But Russia will collect their due, and when that happens, there will be no resistance in the power centers of Washington. The US as a nation will become Putin's Puppet State.

[olegramps]

12. The 2018 Elections may prove to be pivotal for the future of the nation.

If the Senate and House remain under Republican control it will embolden the worst elements of American society. The rise of the White Supreme radicals will intensify even more than at present. Trump's message "Make America Great Again" is nothing more than code for Make America White Again. It is not a fable that thirty percent of the population fully supports his agenda. I am on my way out, the youth have everything at stake.

[Iliyah]

2. Yeah, but they (t-rump/cronies/gops) are

destroying the USA and what's left of democracy.

I don't think none of them care.

[pandr32]

3. The wheels need to come off the right-wing noise machine

Faux news is carried in every nook and cranny of this vast country and it is not giving their viewers much if any of this information.

[Honeycombe8]

4. As long as he's still in power, his wheels aren't off. They might be wobbly.

As for the mid-terms, it would be very difficult for the Dems to win a majority in either the Senate or the House. But they will make good gains, it looks like. But the Repub majority is so large that it would take a miracle for the Dems to take the majority. Will that embolden Trump? He'll say that, but the Repubs' ability to do things will be lessened significantly. And Trump will know that and will rail against the Dems voting against Repub bills.

Hopefully, he'll be impeached before any of this comes to pass.

[Nitram]

5. How many wheels does that metaphorical clown car have?

[Fritz Walter]

6. Indeed! A search of DU posts shows that metaphor in use for at least two years

If we really want to derail Cadet Bone Spurs and his vehicle of destruction, we must Get Out The Vote.
NOW. Primaries are already underway.

[Nitram]

8. Yes.

[poboy2]

7. Defend the 4th estate.

Such as it is, with the recognition of its corporate nature, defend the press.

Quote the founders. They are on our side. The ideals expressed are still valid.


and lastly, yes, extinction level event for western democratic civilization itself.

[Duppers]

14. +1000

"Extinction level event for western democratic civilization itself."

That's not hyperbole either. Thank you, poboy.

[poboy2]

17. Thank you.

I actually usually add that part at the end too (the 'not hyperbole'). I actually write that.
So, yes. I fully believe this to be true. I also believe in the rudimentary two items.
The founders are on our side. Let us be armed by their words and ideals.

[SammyWinstonJack]

10. Riding along on the rims throwing sparks everywhere.

[Paladin]

11. It's not happening anywhere fast enough to suit me. (nt)

[KPN]

13. K&R. Be cuz we absolutely must win in 18.

One or both houses.

[sharedvalues]

15. David Remnick is very smart and worth listening to

[briv1016]

16. Never heard that before.

[czarjak]

18. Fine tuned machine. Period.

[EffieBlack]

19. Someone says this every 5 or 6 days - but he keeps on rolling along ...

I’ll belleve the end is near when I hear the fat lady singing.

[triron]

20. The car is headed in the wrong direction as well.

Question is: which direction?

[Rhiannon12866]

21. K&R. The New Yorker editor who wrote this was just on with Seth Meyers last week

He gave a fascinating interview:

https://www.democraticunderground.com/1017483473