"Big fat con"

We've been trying to keep this blog about the local news as much as possible lately. It's not that what goes on in "the heart of darkness, the true wasteland" beyond the city limits isn't important. It's just that we're trying to work under the assumption that the best way to overturn the corrupt oligarchy there is to start by getting a handle on the corrupt oligarchy here. Anything beyond that is just so much faraway TV drama. Getting caught up in it becomes counterproductive.

So it is with a heavy heart that I admit to you now that I did actually watch this Trump press conference yesterday. He played all the hits, the personal grievance, the "fake news," the suggestion that he makes decisions based on how things look on TV. We know all this stuff by now.  Probably the thing most deserving anyone's attention is this.

At first, during the freewheeling questioning from reporters at the 2018 U.N. General Assembly, Trump painted the accusations against Kavanaugh as purely partisan and faulted Democrats that the allegations had come to the surface in the first place.

"[Democrats] are actually con artists, because they know how quality this man is and they've destroyed a man's reputation, and they want to destroy it even more," Trump told journalists in New York.

"And they know it's a big, fat con job," he continued. "And they go in to a room, and I guarantee you, they laugh like hell on what they pulled off on you and on the public, they laugh like hell."

Trump said the allegations of the three women "are all false to me," bemoaning "what they've done to these children — these beautiful children of [Kavanaugh], and what they've done to his wife."

He later went on to say he might change his mind if the witnesses do well on TV because that is exactly what he would say, isn't it. Still, the stubborn refusal to take the allegations seriously is more significant.

It's more indicative of the Republican strategy anyway. No matter what happens in today's hearings, they're going to confirm Kavanaugh. They're going to confirm him because doing so cements a generational conservative project of crippling whatever small semblance of democracy exists in American government. 

With this book (Democracy In Chains) MacLean joins a growing chorus of scholars and journalists documenting the systematic, organized effort to undermine democracy and change the rules. In “Dark Money,” Jane Mayer tells the tale of the Koch brothers. In “Invisible Hands: The Businessmen’s Crusade Against the New Deal,” the historian Kim Phillips-Fein shows how a small group of businessmen initiated a decades-long effort to build popular support for free market economics. The political scientist Steven M. Teles writes about the chemicals magnate John M. Olin in “The Rise of the Conservative Legal Movement.”

Democrats are gleeful over how today's events might affect the midterm elections. But Republicans don't really care about that. They already know they are probably going to lose the House in November. No doubt someone will argue this business puts the Senate in play but I don't think I would take that bet.  Anyway they don't care about that either. Individuals running for office might care that their polls take a hit this week. But, as a party and as a movement, they really don't care about one week in one election anywhere near as much as they care about the extreme right wing court they're about to get. You can't "punish" the Republicans by voting out this Congress. They're still winning the long game.

It doesn't even matter if the election leads to a Trump impeachment.  The Republicans have already gotten a judiciary packed full of extremists and a massive tax cut for the super rich out of this President. The effects of both of those are much more far reaching than anything that happens in November will be.  Everybody thought it was funny when Trump bragged about his accomplishments at the UN this week. But he might not have been wrong, exactly. Even if he doesn't entirely get why.

Anyway his political instincts are good.  He knows the game here is about asserting dominance.  A few weeks ago Trump picked a public fight refuting the number of deaths caused by and in the wake of Hurricane Maria.  It was an egregiously ugly thing to do, belittling the scope of that ongoing  suffering at the time of its anniversary. But the political calculus was easy. Never admit any fault regardless of circumstances. Deny anything went wrong at all. Bully the victims. Blame them for their own suffering. To this day, Republicans believe George Bush's real failure during Katrina was not being mean enough about it.

And so that is their only option with regard to Kavanaugh.  Stick to your guns. Blame the victim if anything goes wrong. Your side is always the good guys. Any evidence to the contrary is a "big fat con."

Also this Advocate editorial sure did age well, huh?

It’s time to reconnect with the Senate’s principal role as a body called to deliberation, not demagoguery. Trump’s nominee to replace Kennedy has an impressive resume. Unless some compelling reason for a rejection surfaces during the confirmation process, senators should vote to confirm Kavanaugh, regardless of their party.

 LOL somebody got conned, anyway.