Newsweek on Donald Trump: What, him, a worry? (photo: Jabin Botsford/Washington Post/Getty)
Yes, there is still a Newsweek magazine, and it says not to worry about Donald Trump.
“Trump isn’t Hitler. He isn’t a fascist either,” the magazine’s Matthew Cooper (3/16/16) assures us:
The unspectacular truth is that a Trump presidency would probably be marked by the quotidian work of so many other presidents—trying to sell Congress and the public on proposals while fighting off not only a culture of protest but also the usual swarm of lobbyists who kill any interesting idea with ads and donations…. Remember Schoolhouse Rock? Trump is no match for the American political system, with its three branches of government….
Could Trump blow up those legendary checks and balances and make America a fascist state? Oh, please…. Trump’s more likely to end up like Jimmy Carter—a poor craftsman of legislation and a crushing disappointment to his supporters.
Why will Trump be like Carter? Because “since World War II, only Dwight Eisenhower, Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton have left office with high approval numbers.” Well, OK then!
If that comparison isn’t reassuring enough, Cooper has more:
Critics should allow that he could be like Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger—a political novice and ideologically flexible Republican whom some California voters feared, yet who turned out to be way more tepid than the Terminator.
Cooper even seems to find reassurance in Trump’s safely alphabetizable name, concluding:
It’s more than likely Trump would wind up being just another president on the alphabetical roll call, nestled between the memorable Truman and the utterly forgettable John Tyler, distinguished more by his hue, his bullying and his encouragement of other bullies than by any lasting damage done to a republic that has endured far worse.
Cooper’s blithe disinterest in any actual victims of Trump’s “bullying and…encouragement of other bullies” is as concerning as his basic argument: that people who worry about a Trump presidency just don’t understand how Washington works. “To actually accomplish even modest legislative goals, let alone become a 21st-century führer, is beyond the mogul’s ken.” If Trump wanted to reinstate torture, for example, “he’d have to get past Sen. John McCain, chair of the Armed Services Committee.” Trump’s “my-way-or-the-highway proclivities…would be worrisome if America were Bolivia and not an enduring democracy.” And his
displays of bigotry during the primary…are abhorrent, but they don’t put the America on a fast track toward the Third Reich—not unless you believe Congress, business, the armed forces, the judiciary and so on are all willing to start setting up internment camps.
But it seems like it’s Cooper who doesn’t know how Washington works—or is pretending not to. (He’s probably most famous as a reporter for helping Karl Rove and Scooter Libby expose Valerie Plame as an undercover CIA officer in retaliation for her husband’s whistleblowing on WMD deception.) When George W. Bush wanted to torture, he didn’t need to change any law; he just had his lawyers change the definition of torture, a maneuver that many in corporate media went along with uncomplainingly.
As for “setting up internment camps”—isn’t Guantanamo an internment camp? The armed forces, unsurprisingly, obeyed their commander in chief when ordered to set it up. Congress’s role has mainly been to resist any moves toward dismantling it—and to assert, in the National Defense Authorization Act of 2012, that the president has the legal right to imprison people without trial. (The Supreme Court for its part responded to that law by declining to review its constitutionality.)
A question Newsweek (6/23/14) asked that President Trump would no doubt love to find out the answer to.
Cooper does note that “when it comes to a president’s powers as commander in chief, Trump would have a lot of discretion.” But he doesn’t acknowledge what that has come to mean in the age of the “War on Terror.” In 2012, the New York Times (5/29/12) revealed that Obama meets weekly with advisers to decide who to put on the “kill list”—a list of targets for drone assassination. These lists can and do include American citizens, whom according to the Justice Department Obama has the right to kill without trial—as Newsweek (6/23/14) has itself reported.
Torture, detention without trial, assassination—not to mention an unprecedented surveillance apparatus: President Trump, like any president henceforth, would start off his administration with all the tools he would need to establish an authoritarian regime.
And any impulse to do so would no doubt be facilitated by an elite press corps ready to wave it all away as so much sound and fury, posing no possible threat.
Jim Naureckas is the editor of FAIR.org. Follow him on Twitter: @JNaureckas.
Messages to Newsweek can be sent here (or via Twitter: @Newsweek). Please remember that respectful communication is the most effective.
“Torture, detention without trial, assassination—not to mention an unprecedented surveillance apparatus: President Trump, like any president henceforth, would start off his administration with all the tools he would need to establish an authoritarian regime.
And any impulse to do so would no doubt be facilitated by an elite press corps ready to wave it all away as so much sound and fury, posing no possible threat.”
No doubt that would also be true of FAIR Presidential Poster Boy Bernie Sanders, as well. He has sought out as a foreign policy advisor, Larry G. Korb, who “was a Senior Fellow and Director of National Security Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations. From July 1998 to October 2002, he was Council Vice President, Director of Studies, and holder of the Maurice Greenberg Chair. Prior to joining the Council, Korb served as Director of the Center for Public Policy Education and Senior Fellow in the Foreign Policy Studies Program at the Brookings Institution, dean of the Graduate School of Public and International Affairs at the University of Pittsburgh, and Vice President of Corporate Operations at the Raytheon Company.”
In 2005 Korb, Robert O. Boorstin, and the National Security Staff of the Center for American Progress published a position paper called “Integrated Power: A National Security Strategy for the 21st Century. In it they criticized President George W. Bush for invading Iraq and for devoting inadequate resources to the fight against Islamic fundamentalism. The authors also detailed plans to increase the manpower of the United States Army, to prevent terrorists from acquiring weapons of mass destruction, to spread liberal democratic values throughout the Middle East, and to reduce American dependence on foreign oil.” (Wikipedia)
Sounds like another President O’bomber, to me. Are you sure there is a difference between Trump and Sanders? At least, Trump had the mettle to compliment Vladimir Putin, while Sanders has steadfastly “trumpeted” the Corporate Media lie about Russia’s “invasion” of Ukraine, which is utter nonsense.
This is the childish “double super secret” klown that ‘worked’ with Karl “The Live Pig-Boy” Rove against Valerie Plame …
“Mr. Cooper said he spoke to Mr. Rove on “deep background,” saying the sourcing description of “double super secret background” he used in his e-mail message to his boss was “not a journalistic term of art” but a reference to the film “Animal House,” where the Delta House fraternity was placed on “double secret probation.” ”
LINK: http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/18/politics/reporter-says-he-first-learned-of-cia-operative-from-rove.html?_r=0
It can’t happen here
(Because in large measure it already has)
Re this article, you need to look up the word “disinterest.”
“But it seems like it’s Cooper who doesn’t know how Washington works—or is pretending not to. ”
We seem also to have forgotten what a president does, or can do, and the role is one not only of a negotiating administrator but potentially national leader. The presidents that are remembered (and are not infamous) tend to be those who were effective leaders, while the those who failed to move the public were not. Carter was a far better president than he is given credit for, but I recall thinking at the time (as his supporter) that he was a terrible orator. Reagan had, of course, perfected his avuncular stage performance as a Hollywood character actor. The last real leadership I have seen from a president was Bush the Second’s all-stops-out scare campaign to lead us to war with Iraq. As I recall, NYT poll around the Bush re-election showed that Bush did not score so well in with the public with respect to his positions but scored strongly for “decisiveness”, which I take to mean that he stood for something, even if what he stood for wasn’t good. That is not to say that a leader’s position can’t be (it should be) nuanced, but it can’t collapse with the first show of resistance.
Obama is good with words when campaigning, but his style has been remote, dismissive of much of his base, and way more responsive to Wall St. than Main St. Trump is a demagogue, and history indicates that they can be scary, capturing power by manipulating hate. Sanders is dismissed because he is not an insider and part of the goos-old-boy-good-old-girl network plutocracy supports. Yeah, expect tantrums and obstruction if Sanders manages to become the president (but we have been there before, right?) The difference might be is Sanders were to reach out to the people for empowerment ahead of the powerbrokers and fatcats.
“In this age, in this country, public sentiment is everything. With it, nothing can fail; against it, nothing can succeed.” – Lincoln
Renae Ward, you state that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is a “Corporate Media lie” and “utter nonsense”. Please provide evidence and/or objective data to support this spurious claim. Russia may not have invaded Ukraine, but who are these “Ukrainian rebels” and from where does their war materiel come?