Scott Boehmer

Category: Politics

  • Trump & Putin

    President Donald Trump emerged today from his summit with Russia’s Vladimir Putin without a deal and without much to say. Trump rarely misses a chance to take advantage of a global stage. But when he stood next to Putin at the conclusion of their three-hour meeting, Trump offered few details about what the men had discussed. Stunningly, for a president who loves a press conference, he took no questions from the reporters assembled at a military base in Alaska.

    Jonathan Lemire

    Well, What Did You Think Would Happen? (The Atlantic)

  • State Capitalism

    If “state capitalism” were proposed by Democrats or progressives, it would be considered socialism or communism. Done by a neofascist president — as chronicled by the The Wall Street Journal — it’s simply considered inefficient (as the Journal concludes).

    Robert Reich

    Trump’s “State Capitalism” (Robert Reich)

  • The President’s Police State

    “This is liberation day in D.C.,” Trump said. Nothing says liberation like deploying hundreds of uniformed soldiers against the wishes of the local elected government. District residents have made clear that they would prefer greater autonomy, including congressional representation, and they have three times voted overwhelmingly against Trump. His response is not just to flex power but to treat the District of Columbia as the president’s personal fiefdom.

    David A. Graham

    The President’s Police State (The Atlantic)

  • Pete Hegseth & Christian Nationalism

    Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has reposted and praised a video interview of a self-described Christian nationalist pastor whose church doesn’t believe women should be allowed to vote.

    Julia Simon

    Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth reposts video of pastors saying women shouldn’t vote (NPR)

    He thinks America should adopt a Christian theocracy. And he’s finding a new audience under Trump (CNN – YouTube)

  • The Most Nihilistic Conflict on Earth

    Meanwhile, the countries that might once have banded together to stop the fighting have lost interest or capacity. The institutions that might once have helped broker a cease-fire are too weak, and can’t or won’t help. “We live in a very interesting, many people call it, new world order,” Hamdok, the former Sudanese prime minister, told me. “The world we got to know—the consensus, the Pax Americana, the post–Second World War consensus—is just no more.”

    Anne Applebaum

    The Most Nihilistic Conflict on Earth (The Atlantic)

  • Boiling Water

    There’s a thought that sunlight is the best disinfectant, that by exposing fascists as fascists and Nazis as Nazis, it will raise awareness of the truth of what they are, and thus will turn people away from them. This seems to hold a certain logic, but my problem with it is that by any reasonable metric we have been testing the theory out to the maximal degree for at least the last decade, and the exact opposite effect has happened. I think we have to assume that actually sunlight has a normalizing effect.

    A.R. Moxon

    Boiling Water (The Reframe)

  • Trump vs Facts

    Fumbling around in a fog of vibes and misinformation and things you saw on Fox News is good enough for the president; why should the rest of us ask for anything better? Soon, no one will know what is happening—what the problem is, or what remedies to apply. What sectors are booming and which are contracting, whether interest rates should be higher or lower, whether it’s hotter or colder than last year, whether mortality has gone up or gone down. It will be vibes all the way down. Soon we will all be bumping around helplessly in the dark.

    Alexandra Petri

    Trump Gets Rid of Those Pesky Statistics (The Atlantic)

    In a different era, each of these stories would have defined months, if not more, of a presidency. Coming in such quick succession, they risk being subsumed by one another and sinking into the continuous din of the Trump presidency. Collectively, they represent an assault on several kinds of truth: in reporting and news, in statistics, and in the historical record.

    David A. Graham

    A Terrible Five Days for the Truth (The Atlantic)

  • How Do We Get Out of This Mess?

    Robert Reich shares 15 ways that he thinks we could improve things in the United States.

    How Do We Get Out of This Mess? (YouTube – Robert Reich)

  • Impeachment is a Duty

    Happily, it so happens there is a very specific remedy set aside within our Constitution specifically for the occasion of a president posing a threat to our democracy and its people and the Constitution itself. This process is known as impeachment. There is a new reason to impeach Donald Trump every day—one reason at least. And yet motions to impeach are few and far between. There have only been 14 attempts so far, and only 3 this year, which is amazing in a dismaying sort of way.

    A.R. Moxon

    Impeachment is a Duty (The Reframe)

  • Liberal Dissents

    But look closer at the dissents, and it is evident that, whatever their differences, the three liberals agree on an overarching theme: They no longer see the Court playing by the old game of constitutional law. Their dissents suggest anything but an assumption of business as usual. The three liberal justices are writing about a majority unbound by law and its tiresome technicalities—about a majority that is no longer doing law as that term has come to be understood.

    Aziz Huq

    The Court’s Liberals Are Trying to Tell Americans Something (The Atlantic)