Trump is now attacking all the institutions that could limit his power later

[muriel_volestrangler]

Trump’s tweets attacking the judiciary go well beyond conventional criticism of judicial opinions on the substance or of “unelected judges” who are said to be overstepping their power. The description of the judge who first blocked his ban as a “so-called judge” directly targeted the judiciary’s institutional legitimacy. And it’s not hard to imagine where Trump’s explicit claim that any terrorist attack should be blamed on the judiciary will take him next, if such an attack does occur.

Trump recently claimed that “any negative polls are fake news,” particularly those from major networks like CNN, NBC and ABC. He added: “Sorry, people want border security and extreme vetting.” In other words, any poll that finds that Trump or his policies are unpopular is suspect or invented by definition. Multiple polls have shown that majorities reject his travel ban and his border wall, and global protests have broken out against the ban in particular. In other words, the public backlash to the first two major efforts to translate Trumpism into policy reality has been severe. In response, Trump is explicitly telling his supporters that any empirical evidence of that backlash must be discounted as fake news — particularly if the polls in question come from major news organizations, who are thus being cast as deliberate deceivers of Real Americans.

You cannot divorce that last point from the larger context here: Trump and Sean Spicer spent days attacking the news media for accurately reporting on his shriveled inauguration crowds, and Stephen Bannon has claimed that Trump’s “populist nation-state policies are supported by the vast and overwhelming majority of Americans” — in other words, that a vast silent majority is rooting for Trumpism to succeed. But that’s just nonsense. The effort to falsely inflate impressions of popular support for Trump — and for policies that in reality are deeply controversial and divisive and are being rejected by majorities — is concerted and deliberate. And the unabashed use of obvious and demonstrable lies to carry out this deception campaign is remarkably brazen.

Trump is now claiming that the media is covering up terrorist attacks, saying that “ISIS is on a campaign of genocide, committing atrocities across the world,” and that “in many cases, the very, very dishonest press doesn’t want to report it.” The larger context here is crucial, too: The media has in fact been invaluable in rooting out the dangerously incompetent process that led to the creation of this ban, as well as the ugly, discriminatory ideological underpinnings of the idea. In response, Trump, once again, is moving to obliterate the very possibility of shared agreement on the legitimate institutional role of the news media in informing the citizenry — right when it is playing that role to great effect by shedding light on the truth about his latest and most visible exercise of executive power, thus demonstrating that it can function as a check on him.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2017/02/07/trump-is-now-attacking-all-the-institutions-that-could-limit-his-power-later/?utm_term=.3fd948c34752

Yes, SCROTUS and his henchmen are starting a relentless campaign against anyone who might point out their lies or limit their power. I think McConnell's gagging of Senator Warren fits into this too.

[central scrutinizer]

1. Once they've shredded the Constitution

It will be time to confiscate the guns.

[SammyWinstonJack]

3. Right wing gun humpers WILL NOT be pleased. So much for 2nd amendment solutions.

[Snarkoleptic]

2. Know who else consolidated power in this way?

(I know, I lose for mentioning it, but the parallels are unavoidable)

He's banging the drum about the lying press (Lügenpresse in the original lingo ca. 1930's Germany)

That, plus he was known to keep a copy of My New Order, a collection of Hitler's speeches, at his bedside...you know, for a little light bedtime reading.

When pressed on awkward topics—such as whether or not he regularly read Adolf Hitler’s speeches—he turns skittish and, perhaps, inventive.

Last April, perhaps in a surge of Czech nationalism, Ivana Trump told her lawyer Michael Kennedy that from time to time her husband reads a book of Hitler’s collected speeches, My New Order, which he keeps in a cabinet by his bed. Kennedy now guards a copy of My New Order in a closet at his office, as if it were a grenade. Hitler’s speeches, from his earliest days up through the Phony War of 1939, reveal his extraordinary ability as a master propagandist.

“Did your cousin John give you the Hitler speeches?” I asked Trump.

Trump hesitated. “Who told you that?”

“I don’t remember,” I said.

“Actually, it was my friend Marty Davis from Paramount who gave me a copy of Mein Kampf, and he’s a Jew.” (“I did give him a book about Hitler,” Marty Davis said. “But it was My New Order, Hitler’s speeches, not Mein Kampf. I thought he would find it interesting. I am his friend, but I’m not Jewish.”)

Later, Trump returned to this subject. “If I had these speeches, and I am not saying that I do, I would never read them.”

http://www.vanityfair.com/news/2015/08/donald-trump-marie-brenner-ivana-divorce

[dalton99a]

6. "If I had these speeches, and I am not saying that I do, I would never read them."

We know that was a damn lie, as usual.

[BumRushDaShow]

4. The U.S. government's very existence is based on an "honor system"

You keep breaking that "honor" at the highest levels, and the whole thing will collapse into cyclic retributions for flouting the rules...

[Nitram]

8. The honor system is an important component, but Justice and laws back it up.

I expect enough Republicans in the Senate to defect to give Democrats a majority once Dump jumps the shark for real.

[BumRushDaShow]

11. That outcome would be the only thing to keep things going

At the moment, far too many GOP are enjoying their power trip while their leader rants and raves and flaunts every ethics and protocol rule under the sun.

[RobinA]

5. If Trump

wants to attack the mostly white, mostly male, all smart, all entitled, all with complete job security federal judiciary with his pea shooter brain, I'm there waving him on.

The only thing I can't figure is why somebody on the staff hasn't suggested to him (maybe they have), that you don't necessarily want to go up against this cadre in the direct frontal attack of calling their power into question. But hey, carry on.

[Nitram]

7. No way Dump would know which institutions could do that.

Bannon is laying the groundwork.

[Javaman]

9. 1) he gets his ultra right wing cabinet confirmations...

2) he starts the relentless propaganda that the Judicial branch is limiting his power (it has kind of started already but not in full)

3) he kowtows the out-liar repukes that are giving him trouble.

4) then the false flag op.

[bucolic_frolic]

10. Obama wasn't born here?

Trump wasn't elected here

Too bad he's shooting himself in the foot

Aim carefully, Don