MY USA TODAY COLUMN: Trump And The Crisis Of The Meritocracy.
Archive for 2017
February 20, 2017
The FBI’s investigation into former national security adviser Michael Flynn is spurring fresh debate about a controversial law on foreign surveillance that is set to expire at the end of the year.
Republicans have expressed outrage over reports that Flynn’s calls to a Russian ambassador were intercepted by law enforcement.
That’s music to the ears of civil liberties and privacy advocates, who have long argued that the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), and particularly Section 702, should be curtailed.
My question: Is the Obama Administration’s anti-leak program, “Insider Threat,” still spying on journalists? And if so, what has it uncovered, and when and how will that come out?
NOT HIS FINEST HOUR: Trump Mocked Mercilessly for Claiming Imaginary Terror Attack in Sweden.
QUESTION ASKED: Where was McCain when Obama attacked the free press?
SAD: For Generation Z, ‘Live Chilling’ Replaces Hanging Out in Person.
Teens have been hanging out online for 20 years, but in 2017 they’re doing it on group video chat apps, in a way that feels like the real thing, not just a poor substitute. Ranging in age from adolescents to their early 20s—the group loosely defined as “Generation Z”—these young people are leaving the apps open, in order to hang out casually with peers in a trend some call “live chilling.”
This phenomenon is made possible by the sudden ubiquity of video chat, in messaging apps such as Kik and Facebook Messenger, as well as stand-alone apps including Houseparty, Fam, Tribe, Airtime and ooVoo.
Houseparty, which launched in February 2016, says it reached one million daily active users within seven months. Fam, launched in December 2016, reached a million downloads within 12 days, says co-founder and chief executive Giuseppe Stuto.
There’s no good substitute for real human contact, particularly for teens who are still sorting out their identities and discovering how they fit in with the rest of the world.
I DEMAND THAT TODAY’S DEMOCRATS DENOUNCE THAT DICTATOR FRANKLIN DELANO ROOSEVELT: 75 years later, Japanese Americans recall pain of internment camps.
THE BELMONT CLUB: The Intellectual Underpinnings of Trumpism. Though to be fair (1) I do get book advances — nice ones! — and talk-show invites; and (2) I don’t see any sign that I’ve been much of an intellectual influence on Trump or Bannon, more’s the pity.
THE DEEP STATE STRIKES BACK: House intelligence chair claims top Obama official leaking to media on Trump.
The House Intelligence Chair Devin Nunes on Sunday accused Obama-era officials, who are working for President Trump until his administration is staffed up, of illegally leaking intelligence and other reports to the media in an attempt to hurt the Republican leader.
“I think there is a lot of innuendo out there that the intelligence agencies have a problem with Donald Trump. The rank and file people that are out doing jobs across the world — very difficult places — they don’t pay attention to what is going on in Washington,” the California representative told CBS “Face the Nation” host John Dickerson.
“What we have is we do have people in the last administration, people who are burrowed in, perhaps all throughout the government, who clearly are leaking to the press,” Nunes added. “And it is against the law. Major laws have been broken. If you believe the Washington Post story that said there were nine people who said this, these are nine people who broke the law.”
Start naming names and punching back twice as hard.
OUCH: Rand Paul: We’re very lucky John McCain’s not in charge. I think that Barack Obama was the worst president of my lifetime except maybe for LBJ. But I still can’t work up a lot of regret that McCain lost in 2008.
FLASHBACK VIDEO: Andrew Breitbart vs. The Arrogant Bastards.
WELL, YES. Are Liberals Helping Trump?
Jeffrey Medford, a small-business owner in South Carolina, voted reluctantly for Donald Trump. As a conservative, he felt the need to choose the Republican. But some things are making him feel uncomfortable — parts of Mr. Trump’s travel ban, for example, and the recurring theme of his apparent affinity for Russia.
Mr. Medford should be a natural ally for liberals trying to convince the country that Mr. Trump was a bad choice. But it is not working out that way. Every time Mr. Medford dips into the political debate — either with strangers on Facebook or friends in New York and Los Angeles — he comes away feeling battered by contempt and an attitude of moral superiority.
“We’re backed into a corner,” said Mr. Medford, 46, whose business teaches people to be filmmakers. “There are at least some things about Trump I find to be defensible. But they are saying: ‘Agree with us 100 percent or you are morally bankrupt. You’re an idiot if you support any part of Trump.’ ”
He added: “I didn’t choose a side. They put me on one.”
Liberals may feel energized by a surge in political activism, and a unified stance against a president they see as irresponsible and even dangerous. But that momentum is provoking an equal and opposite reaction on the right. In recent interviews, conservative voters said they felt assaulted by what they said was a kind of moral Bolshevism — the belief that the liberal vision for the country was the only right one. Disagreeing meant being publicly shamed.
This shaming works as a self-herding mechanism among the left, but it’s not very good at winning converts. You want more Trump? This is how you get more Trump.
Related: Why The Resistance Is the Best Thing That’s Happened To Donald Trump.
Sure, it matters that President Donald Trump has a historically low favorability rating. Then again, disliking the president isn’t exactly a courageous act. Plenty of Americans—many of whom supported the president during the general election—don’t like Trump. They do realize that politics is a trade-off. Here’s a more revealing question pollsters might ask people: Do you “like” any better Sens. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) or Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), pussyhatted marchers griping about the patriarchy or the totalitarians blocking Education Secretary Betsy Devos from walking into a public school?
That’s the choice #TheResistance—whose mantra, let’s face it, has synched with the Democratic Party—has created for many moderate Republicans, right-leaning independents and movement conservatives concerned about Trump. That is to say, they offer no choice whatsoever. They offer plenty of hysteria, hypocrisy and conflation of conservatism with Trumpism for political gain.
Plus:
But if it’s a zero-sum choice they’re offering, that includes picking Judge Neil Gorsuch over Planned Parenthood; tax cuts over teachers unions; Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over Iran’s Holocaust deniers; deregulation of the bureaucratic state over legislation; or forcing progressive cultural mores on everyone, and so on.
For example, many former free traders are now embracing the protectionist big-government policies of Trumpism. This is the kind of capitulation many fiscal conservatives feared. Again, the problem is that for free traders, Democrats are as just bad. In fact, the popularity of protectionism among populist movements on the left and right is so strong there’s a good argument that the only way to possibly counteract it is to elect more conservatives to Congress.
The average resistance fighters might dislike Trump. But they hate conservatism. By treating even the most milquetoast, run-of-the-mill Cabinet nominee as the worst thing that has ever happened to America, The Resistance gives conservatives the space to defend such long-standing political positions as school choice, immigration enforcement and deregulation. I imagine many Republicans would happily hand over the scalp of more Michael Flynns if it meant creating a more stable and experienced administration.
But they also understand that people who treat DeVos like a bigger threat to the republic than Trump’s chief strategist Steve Bannon will never be placated. Those who spend weeks after the election acting like the Electoral College was some kind of trick pulled on the country are not interested in rule of law. They’re interested in Democrats.
Yes. And here’s my message for 2017.
Last year it was my message too.
EIGHT YEARS AGO, ON INSTAPUNDIT:
SIDING WITH THE LITTLE GUY!
Intermittently, and for the TV cameras, you might be able hear a Sen. Dodd or a Sen. Schumer raise their voices in indignation over the predations and the self-dealing of the moneychangers. But then you remember that this is the same Chris Dodd who accepted two “courtesy” mortgages from Countrywide’s Anthony Mozillo, and that this is the same Chuck Schumer who backed Wall Street deregulation as he was collecting fat checks from the Street to fill the coffers of his Democratic Senate Campaign Committee.
Yeah, it’s almost like they’re two-faced weasels or something.
At least we got rid of Dodd.
AND ABOUT TIME TOO: Kim du Toit has opened his new blog, Splendid Isolation, at www.kimdutoit.com.
One of his first posts is entitled: “Thank You, Obama, You Bastard” — so not much has changed in the intervening eight years, then. (And a good thing, too.)
Kim du Toit is still recovering from the financial issues left behind by Connie’s protracted fight with cancer. To contribute to his gofundme Surviving Life Without Connie, go here.
THIS IS MY SHOCKED FACE: Medical marijuana has gone corporate.
IN THE EMAIL FROM RUSS MEYER: Common Sense For The Modern Age.
OF COURSE THEY DO: Obama-linked activists have a ‘training manual’ for protesting Trump.
IT’S WHAT YOUR BODY WAS DESIGNED TO DO, AND IT MAKES YOU HUMAN: Having a baby isn’t a miracle and doesn’t make you a goddess.
DRAINING FOGGY BOTTOM: It’s a bloodbath at the State Department.
ROLL LEFT AND DIE, ET TU FORBES? No, Capitalism Will Not “Starve Humanity” by 2050.
PRO TIP FOR GUYS: THIS IS NOT A ROMANTIC GIFT: My day at the designer vagina showcase.
ABOUT TIME SOMEONE NOTICED: The Press is the Enemy.
NOT IN A SNAE WORLD, THEY SHOULDN’T: Valid Concerns About Flynn Shouldn’t Excuse Leaks.
WITH HALF ONE’S BRAIN TIED BEHIND ONE’S BACK: Refuting Occupy Democrats.