CSotD: The Nation Normally Seen at This Time
Skip to comments
Milbrath is not the only observer predicting that tonight’s speech will be about the 2020 elections and Dear Leader’s “proof” that it was stolen.
Miles Taylor, who served as Chief of Staff at the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) in the first Trump White House, was the anonymous author of a New York Times op-ed (gift link) and then a book laying open the abuses then.
He now heads Defiance.org, and, in his Substack, explains that he researched and authored much of what he expects Dear Leader to reveal tonight.
I’m virtually certain that whatever he presents on Thursday, it will be twice-warmed leftovers of information, cherry-picked and recast to tell a story our intelligence agencies never told because it was never true.
You can read his details of how this material came about here, and his follow-up here, about a secret book in the White House explaining how the president could effectively seize power.
Taylor says the first administration staff purposely did not inform Trump about the book, and Trump either didn’t know it existed or, at least, didn’t know what was in it.
Today, Donald Trump is back in the Oval Office, surrounded not by the lifelong national-security professionals who wouldn’t dream of using war powers to hijack our own democracy, but by loyalists chosen precisely because they will.
In other words, the guardrails are gone. The book is in his hands.
Whatever he says tonight, a certain segment of the population will believe him. As Bagley notes, they cheerfully praise him for not taking his salary while ignoring the cost to taxpayers of his almost-weekly trips back to Mar A Lago, his commercial vending of merchandise and the massive mountains of grift his family is amassing.
Not to mention the Qatari jet he plans to keep when he leaves the presidency. Assuming he does leave.
Ariail offers one of several World Cup-themed cartoons we’ve seen, depicting Dear Leader as a hapless goalkeeper, and it’s certainly true that the courts have delivered some serious blows, both to his person in the form of the E. Jean Carroll decisions, and to his political plans, most recently in the Supreme Court’s split decision affirming birthright citizenship and a harsh smack-down over his attempt to make his family immune to tax courts.
It’s certainly true that he has met with resistance to some of his plans, but he’s also met with victories, as the Supreme Court has granted him levels of immunity that break precedent.
JD Vance said the other day that Watergate would be no big deal these days, and he’s probably right.
Vance was born August 2, 1984. Richard Nixon had resigned nearly 10 years earlier, on August 9, 1974. The median age in the US is 38, so half the country was born in 1988 or later. Whatever they know about Watergate, they got secondhand.
Aside from whatever revisionist filters it may have been passed through since those days, just knowing how it came out blunts the sense of dread with which we watched it unfold.
But Vance is right: This is worse. (I’m pretty sure that wasn’t his point.)
Juxtaposition of the Day
Yesterday’s questioning of Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche brings to mind a pivotal event those too young to remember Watergate have probably missed, the Saturday Night Massacre.
In those days, the Attorney General was not the President’s attorney. He was ours. But Nixon’s AG, John Mitchell, had managed his campaign in 1968, and resigned to run his re-election campaign in 1972, subsequently serving time for conspiracy, obstruction of justice and perjury.
Meanwhile, when Mitchell’s replacement AG, Eliot Richardson, was ordered to fire the Watergate special prosecutor, he refused and resigned, whereupon his deputy AG, William Ruckelshaus, was told to do the deed and also resigned. At last, Nixon got Robert Bork to fire Archibald Cox, which inspired memorable calls to “Impeach the Cox Shucker.”
But, no, it couldn’t happen today. To start with, we wouldn’t likely see this Supreme Court vote unanimously to force Nixon to release the White House tapes that confirmed that he was part of a criminal conspiracy. Richard Nixon felt he had no choice but to obey.
But Nixon was not the type who would have ever encouraged a January 6 uprising.
In 1973, the TV networks cooperated, taking turns running the Senate Watergate Hearings live during the daytime, and PBS ran them live daily, then re-ran them at night.
However, when the House formed a committee to investigate the attempted coup of January 6, 2021, only two Republicans agreed to serve, and they were subsequently drummed out of the party.
Jan 6 hearing coverage drew substantial audiences, but Fox, which hadn’t existed in Watergate days, instead offered alternative programming, summarizing and criticizing the hearings.
You might say that the public’s right to know was preserved, but so, too, was the public’s right to not know.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has announced the minting of a one-dollar coin to commemorate the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. It will be the first US coin to carry the face of a living person, but Bessent said it is intended to honor the occasion: “Featuring President Trump, it celebrates the strength of American values, and the promise of a nation dedicated to preserving freedom for all.”
Benjamin felt a nose nuzzling at his shoulder. He looked round. It was Clover. Her old eyes looked dimmer than ever. Without saying anything, she tugged gently at his mane and led him round to the end of the big barn, where the Seven Commandments were written. For a minute or two they stood gazing at the tatted wall with its white lettering.
“My sight is failing,” she said finally. “Even when I was young I could not have read what was written there. But it appears to me that that wall looks different. Are the Seven Commandments the same as they used to be, Benjamin?”
For once Benjamin consented to break his rule, and he read out to her what was written on the wall. There was nothing there now except a single Commandment. It ran:
ALL ANIMALS ARE EQUAL
BUT SOME ANIMALS ARE MORE EQUAL THAN OTHERS
Mike Peterson has posted his "Comic Strip of the Day" column every day since 2010. His opinions are his own, but we welcome comments either agreeing or in opposition.
Comments 1