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Has there ever been a president as humorless as Donald Trump? Doubtful. Trump traffics in bombast, braggadocio and bluntness. He is a master of insults, self-praise, and mangled syntax. But he is no John F. Kennedy or Ronald Reagan both presidents who were masters of the well-aimed witticism. The current occupant of the Oval Office is only funny unintentionally. He is a joke, but he doesnt make jokes.

Recall his remarks at the Alfred E. Smith Memorial Foundation Dinner in New York on Oct. 20, 2016. These events are supposed to be a time for political leaders to be light-hearted and to poke fun at themselves. Trump barely managed to get off a couple of ghostwritten one-liners before veering into a cringe-inducing denunciation of his opponent, Hillary Clinton, who was sitting right behind him. He went on to accuse Clinton (inaccurately) of being so corrupt, she got kicked off the Watergate Commission, of being hypocritical (Hillary believes that its vital to deceive the people by having one public policy and a totally different policy in private) and, finally, of pretending not to hate Catholics. The audience reacted with boos rather than the more typical laughs.

Yet if you listen to Trump defenders, you would think that he is the Marx Brothers, Mel Brooks, Chris Rock, Amy Schumer and Aziz Ansari, all wrapped up into one rolling-on-the-floor package of hilarity.

Last week, Trump thanked Vladimir Putin for expelling 755 personnel from the U.S. Embassy in Moscow Im very thankful that he let go of a large number of people because now we have a smaller payroll, the president said. Most observers interpreted this as further evidence of Trumps toadying to the Russian dictator, who helped him win the presidency. But Rep. Ron DeSantis (R-Fla.) claimed to detect wit of a high order. Trump, he said, was speaking tongue-in-cheek.

This brand of lame excuse has actually become the go-to explanation for Trumps outrageous remarks. As noted by CNN and the Huffington Post, among others, the presidents apologists often detect unsuspected humor in his offensive and inane comments.

In July, for example, Trump endorsed police brutality, telling a convention of cops please dont be too nice when throwing suspects into the back of a paddy wagon. There was not a trace of a smile on his face as he spoke, nor did anyone laugh (although, disturbingly, a lot of the audience applauded). The next day, as police departments across the country condemned the presidents remarks, White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders offered this defense: I believe he was making a joke.

A year earlier, in July 2016, Trump told the press he hoped Russia would hack and release private emails from Hillary Clintons private server: "Russia, if you're listening, I hope you're able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing," Trump said. White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer later claimed, He was joking at the time. We all know that. We do?

Trumps humor apparently extended to telling then-FBI Director James Comey to stop investigating fired National Security Advisor Michael Flynn. Comey testified to Congress under oath that the president told him: I hope you can see your way clear to letting this go, to letting Flynn go. Hes a good guy. I hope you can let this go. Rep. James Comer (R-Ky.), a member of the House Oversight Committee, tried to excuse what looks very much like obstruction of justice by claiming that Trump was just kidding it looks different on paper. The punchline, of course, was that Trump fired Comey for ignoring his instructions.

Trump himself has embraced the I was joshing defense. In August 2016 he claimed that President Obama was the founder of ISIS, and refused to back down when questioned about that ludicrous claim by radio host Hugh Hewitt. But later Trump explained that he had been kidding. So, too, in January 2016 he claimed was just kidding when he said that global warming was a Chinese hoax a claim he had first made in 2012 and repeated many times without a hint of levity.

Trump also hides behind the cloak of humor when demeaning those around him. At a lunch with the Security Council, Trump solicited views of his U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley: Does everybody like Nikki? Otherwise she can easily be replaced. Ha ha, from a man notorious for actually firing aides right and left.

This kidding/not kidding routine is a way for Trump to preserve a shred of plausible deniability and for his spokesmen to walk away from his crazier comments. But if you think Trump isnt being serious, the jokes on you. Trump would actually be a little easier to take if he had a modicum of wit. But he doesnt. Hes about as funny as that notorious cutup Calvin Coolidge.

Max Boot is a contributing writer to Opinion and a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations.

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North Korea, Donald Trump and the ticking Doomsday Clock

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Excerpt from:
Did you hear the one about Donald Trump? - Los Angeles Times

Take North Korea. There is no person in this countrynot the generals, not the civil servants, certainly not the Republicans in Congresswho can influence what Trump does vis--vis the Hermit Kingdom. In fact there is evidence that his bellicosity is paying political dividends, which means we can expect more of the same. As The New York Times reported, there are plenty of Trump voters who believe that he should go to the hilt when it comes to aggravating Kim. As one Trump supporter from Colorado told the paper, war with North Korea, which would entail an untold number of deaths on the Korean Peninsula, didnt concern him because he would not personally be in danger. We live in the safest part of the country, he said.

There is so much selfishness and ignorance and hatred in this county, and they have found their concentrated embodiment in Trump, who bludgeons us with the worst aspects of humanity every single day. This is self-evidently traumatic for the body politic, harming our capacity for empathy and reason and decency. And yet it is difficult to express just how awful it is: how it makes us worry for our children in existential terms, how it makes our lives a little more sordid every day, how it slowly bleeds our world of joy and purpose.

The traditional response to bad presidents is to resist, to organize, to prepare for the next electionto have faith, even if everything else fails, in democracy. But democracy already failed us once, handing the presidency to a man who lost the popular vote by a resounding margin. It has been subverted by gerrymandering, and is being weakened by those working to keep minorities and the poor from the polls. It was compromised by the intervention of a foreign government, and the president is reluctant to even acknowledge that fact, let alone make sure it doesnt happen again.

And even if Trump were to be swept from office in 2020, this country will not magically return to the pre-Trump status quo. The damage he has already inflicted, and that he will undoubtedly continue to inflict over, God help us, three more years, will take a long time to undo, if it can ever be undone. A malevolent force has been loosed on the world, moving great invisible gears in unpredictable ways, and no one can say with an iota of certainty where we will be five, ten years from now.

This is the point in the essay where I should say that we mustnt lose hope, that we must impede Donald Trump at every step, and I do believe that. Still, to quote Howard Beale, everyone knows things are bad. I wake up each morning prepared for something terrible to happen. But something terrible is happening, every day, all around us. The most frightening part is that were not sure if Trumps America is rock bottom or if we have further to fall.

Read the original here:
Donald Trump Is Killing Us - New Republic

Vice president Mike Pence has said Donald Trump has made it clear that the U.S. will not stand by while Venezuela crumbles.

Speaking from Colombia in an interview with NBC Newscorrespondent Peter Alexander, the vice president addressed the ongoing issues in Venezuela and Trumps threatened military intervention in the country.

POTUS has made clear we're not going to stand by while Venezuela crumbles, while Venezuela collapses, Pence told NBC News on Monday.

Daily Emails and Alerts - Get the best of Newsweek delivered to your inbox

His comments come just days after Trump told reporters in a question and answer session that he would not rule out military action, in a statement that was immediately criticized by some lawmakers in Venezuela.

"The people are suffering and they are dying. We have many options for Venezuela including a possible military option if necessary," Trump said, in comments branded craziness by Venezuelan Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino.

Over the past week, the situation in Venezuela has deteriorated, as anti-government forces took weapons from a military base after the opposition-controlled Congress found its authority undermined by a new legislative body.

And at the end of a volatile week for the country, Venezuelas president Nicolas Maduro asked to speak with Trump, in a request that appeared to be rejected by the president, the White House said, with Trump reportedly stating there could be a conversation between the pair when democracy was restored to the country.

And it also emerged over the weekend that Florida senator Marco Rubio is believed to be the subject of a death threat from leading Venezuelan lawmaker Diosdado Cabello, after the threat was detected by U.S. intelligence.

A memo obtained by The Miami Herald on Sunday showed there was an order to have Senator Marco Rubio assassinated, although it also acknowledged that no specific information regarding an assassination plot against Senator Rubio has been garnered thus far.

See the original post here:
Mike Pence Pledges Donald Trump Will Not 'Stand By as Venezuela Crumbles' - Newsweek

Despite his huge rallies, President Trumps core base appears to be faltering. Buzz60

President Trump speaks to the press on August 11, 2017, at Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster, N.J.(Photo: Jim Watson, AFP/Getty Images)

There's trouble in Trumpland.

The voters who backed Donald Trump like the disruption but are looking for more function from the outsider they helped put in the White House, members of the USA TODAY Network Trump Voter Panel say.

While they still approve of the job President Trump is doing, the collapse of the GOP's promise to repeal the Affordable Care Act has rattled some of his loyalists. Sohave chaos in the White House staff and the public humiliation of Attorney General Jeff Sessions.

"All the bickering, fighting and firings taketime away from solving all of our problems," worried Joe Canino, 62, of Hebron, Ct.

"Thecaveat or the pause there is, he's got to figure out a way to get more done collaboratively with CapitolHill," Barney Carter of St. Marys, Ga.,said. "The Hill to me has the most to blame for it, but he's got to figure out a way to solve that problem."

The loyalty of the president's base voters who tend to be older, socially conservative and mostly white has been a critical source of hispolitical strength. Trump continues to hammer messages that appeal to them on such issues as limiting immigration and reversing Pentagon policy on transgender troops.

That said, the spiderweb of concern among his supporters in these interviews is an anecdotal finding consistent with the results of recent nationwide polls. ACNN survey at the six-month mark of Trump's presidency last week showed his approval rating among Republicansat a healthy 83%, but the percentage of Republicans who "strongly approve" haddropped by double-digits, to 59% from 73% in February.

None of the 25 voters on the USA TODAY panel expressregret for casting a ballot last November for Trump instead of Democrat Hillary Clinton or someone else. They generally trust him to handle the crisis with North Korea, although there is concern about his bellicose rhetoric.

But now some couch their approval of the president with a hedge that wasn't there in three previous rounds of interviews with this group. And their disdain for congressional Republicans and the GOP establishment is rising, a troubling development for the party as it heads into the 2018 midterm elections.

"I approve, but not 100%," Monty Chandler, 46, a disabled veteran from Church Point, La., said of the president.

"I'd have to approve, but with some laughter in the background," said Duane Gray, 63, a truck driver from Boise, Idaho. Asked if Trump was doing better or worse than he expected as president, he said:"I don't know what I expected. I just didn't want Hillary in there."

Another new poll means another new low for President Trump. Buzz60

There's also bit less confidence these days about how history will judge Trump. In January, 21 members of the panel predicted he ultimately would be seen as a "great" or "good" president. In February, there was even more unanimity: 23 gave thatpositive assessment.

Now that number has slipped to 19 still favorable territory, but with signs of some erosion. Four predict he'll be seen as a "fair" president. Twodidn't respond.

Read previous stories on the USA TODAY Network Trump Voter Panel:

Trump voters like the president's actions but not his tweets

Great expectations: These Trump voters expect him to deliver for them

No regrets: 100% approval at 100 days from these Trump voters

The panel of 25 Trump voters from 19 states is drawn from respondents in the USA TODAY/Suffolk University Poll taken in December, just after the election. The group of 18 men and seven women, ranging in age from 31 to 88, agreed to weigh in occasionally for a look at how Trump is faring with his supporters.

The GOP's failure to repeal the Affordable Care Act has enraged some of these voters.

"Killing Obamacare was a key component of the Republican platform, and I believe all Republican senators campaigned on that very issue," Daniel Kohn, of Corpus Christi, Tex., said. "The inability to move forward is embarrassing and disgusting."

For Ken Cornacchione, a 65-year-old financial consultant from Venice, Fla., the issue is personal. "My premiums have doubled and my deductible has increased nearly three times under Obamacare with no claims by either my wife or me," he said.

Asked whom they blame for the failure, not one singled out Trump, although several volunteeredthat everyone involved ownedsome responsibility. Only a handful cited congressional Democrats or the news media, frequent targets of Trump.

Instead, a solid majority placedthe responsibility squarely on congressional Republicans.

"There's some blame to go around with everybody, but I continue to be the most disappointed in Congress," said Carter, 50, who works for a medical device firm."We could have had a plan for this long before Trump was elected, and you would have just had to go to the bookshelf and pull the binder off."

"Seven years: Think about it," railedJoAnne Musial, 65, of Canadenis, Penn."Who are they kidding, too? This whole baloney with all of them any more makes me sick to my stomach."

That sentiment helps explain Trump's Twitter blasts last week at Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. The attacks may complicate White House efforts down the road to work with the Kentucky Republican on raising the debt ceiling, funding the government and passing a tax bill.

At the moment, though, they reinforce the sentiment that Republican senators, not the president, areto blame for the stunning setback on health care.

"They've been talking about this for seven years, show-boating for seven years passing resolutions they knew (President Barack) Obama would veto," said Rick Dammer, 45, a an IT project manager from Zephyrhills, Fla. "When the rubber needed to hit the road, they chickened out."

"I like that Trump said that," Chandler said of the president's comments welcoming Obamacare's demise. "He's not going to sugarcoat it. You made your bed, now lie in it."

On North Korea, Trump voters like policymakers and experts and nearly everyone else around the globe see no easy answers and worry about what's ahead. Theyare inclined to trust Trump to handle it, albeit not without some nervousness.

"I'm in agreement with how Trump's approached it, kind of," said Francis Smazal, 54, a registered nurse from Marshfield, Wis. "If this guy (in North Korea) is left unchecked, I believe conflict is inevitable."

Several said they hope Trump tries to build an international coalition through the United Nations, or with China and Russia. "I think we need to go through China," said Patricia Shomion, 67, of Mount Gilead, Ohio. She blames Beijing, North Korea's neighbor and ally, for not doing more to block its nuclear program. "That's our solution, becauseall of those nukes and missiles have 'China' written all over them, 'Made in China.'"

But Pat Jolliff, 60, of Rochester, Ind., worriedthat Trump's threat of "fire and fury" riskedmaking a bad situation worse. "I think his words, once again, are some of his worst enemies," she said. "He comes across as a bully, a tyrant, somebody who always has to have his way."

The belief that Trump isn't just another politician, that he has a combative style and is comfortable breaking old norms, is his fundamental appeal for many of his supporters. "Everyone's having a hissy (fit) because a politician isn't the president," scoffed Musial."Cut and dried: He's not a politician and doesn't fit in (your) little clique here, so they're trying to cause a ruckus for him."

"Trump is a different kind of person; he's not a politician," Shomion agreed. "They're not used to that. They don't know what to do with him."

But the continuing soap-opera drama onthe White House staff is worrisome to some: Chief of Staff Reince Priebus, out. Press secretary Sean Spicer, out. ("A sweetheart," Musial said affectionately.) Communications director Anthony Scaramucci: In, then out after 11 days. ("He was horrible," Jolliff said.)

"I am somewhat concerned with all the tension," saidWayne Moore, 60, a procurement manager from Henderson, Ky. "It looks like there are more chiefs than Indians."

Several volunteered dismay over Trump's public humiliation of Attorney General Jeff Sessions.

"I was very disappointed in the way he ripped up Jeff Sessions, who was basically the first one to sign up" to support Trump's candidacy, Carter said. "He's a long-tenured, respected lawmaker, and it just didn't make sense to me."

David McDonough, of Brownsburg, Ind., says he voted for President Trump but considers himself an independent.(Photo: Mykal McEldowney, USA TODAY Network)

David McDonough, 55, a plumber from Brownsburg, Ind., predicted things eventually would settle down. "It's like taking over a new business and some employees don't like the way you run things," he said. "In time, once the kinks are worked out and the leakers are found, I believe the White House will run smooth."

Then there are those tweets.

Some supporters say the president's thoughts in 140-character bursts make them wince. "He comes out looking like a damn fool 60% of the time," Gray said.

But by more than 2-1, his loyalists say he should continue posting on Twitter and acknowledge that he's not likely to stop, no matter what they think.

"I don't necessarily agree on what he's saying, but if Twitter is the only way to get the truth out and the truth only comes from him, then that's OK," Steven Spence, 70, of Mesa, Arizona, said. "He either lives or dies by the sword, and we'll find out four years from now how the American public rates him."

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Trouble in Trumpland: The president's core supporters begin to worry - USA TODAY

Members of the alt-right like to depict their movement as an irreverent response to political correctness.

On Saturday, in Charlottesville, Virginia, James Alex Fields Jr. drove a car through that faade, in a terrorist attack that killed Heather Heyer and injured 19 others who had gathered in opposition to the white-nationalist movement.

It was a defining moment, but not a moment for a pause. More alt-right rallies are scheduled for the coming Saturday, in at least nine cities. These events will provide an important barometer for the future of this movement, depending on how many people turn out, who those people are, and how they conduct themselves. For the alt-right, the coming weekend represents a critical testwhich may reveal it gathering force, dissipating, or changing in significant ways. By Saturday night, it may be clear where its headed.

Take the Statues Down

The alt-right has become an umbrella community for the American far-right, a loosely defined movement with a strong center of gravity online and which encompasses a large number of subnetworks.

Some of these subgroups identify primarily as the alt-right, but many are affiliated with more specific strains of white-nationalist ideologyincluding the Ku Klux Klan, Odinists, Neo-Nazis, and more, many in full regalia lest anyone miss the point.

The prevalence of white nationalism within the alt-right has led to a deep internal split between its overtly racist wing and its less overtly racist wing. Members of the latter faction might be charitably described as less racist or as non-racist, but most are pretty open about the fact that their primary concern is the specter of bad publicity. The Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville graphically illustrated a couple of important points regarding this internal division.

First, the overtly racist wing of the alt-right is clearly ascendant. White supremacist protests in early 2016 were embarrassingly small. An estimated 500 white nationalists turned out for the rally Saturday. While this is still a small number in the absolute sense, the trend is disturbing.

Second, Charlottesville put to rest the idea that the alt-right can be primarily defined as fun-loving transgressive hipsters or an elaborate practical joke (if anyone still really believed that). Even before the culminating act of terrorism, the rally in Charlottesville illustrated that the umbrella of the alt-right is an effective means to mobilize a highly visible mix of old-school white supremacists and neo-Nazis. Offline, at least, this isnt the new white nationalism; its the old white nationalism as the primary beneficiary of the activity generated by a looser collection of people online.

Third, the composition of the crowd in Charlottesville shows that there are more potential fracture lines in the alt-right than the optics of white supremacy. Since the 1970s, white nationalism in the United States has been a sectarian affair. White nationalists all generally agree white people should be in charge, but they have many different competing beliefs about why that is the case, and how white rule should be implemented. These differences are not trivial, and for decades they have prevented a broadly concerted campaign of action by white nationalists in America. Charlottesville was an example of how the alt-right umbrella community can muster numbers that Odinists or the KKK alone cannot.

The events scheduled for this coming Saturdaya free speech rally in Boston and marches scheduled in nine cities to protest Googles firing of an employee who wrote a screed against diversitywill help clarify where all the chaotic elements that comprise the alt-right are headed in the near-term future. (The anti-Google protests are slated for Atlanta, Los Angeles, Pittsburgh, Seattle, New York, Washington, Austin, Boston, and Mountain View, California. On Sunday, organizers released a statement condemning violence and insisting that they are in no way associated with any group who organized in Charlottesville.)

Prior to Fieldss attack, Charlottesville was on track to be a clear victory for the alt-right. While attendance of 500 people is a pittance compared to most mainstream political events, it represents a marked upswing from 2016. Simply turning out that many people in one place was an unqualified win.

The fact that few participants sought to conceal their identities was a bold statement about the mainstreaming of white nationalism, which did not go unnoticed during an ominous torch-wielding event the night before the formal rally. Even after the Unite the Right rally itself was shut down by authorities as an unlawful assembly in the face of escalating violence, the event was seen as a show of strength.

But the terrorist attack by Fields, who attended the rally alongside a neo-Nazi group known as Vanguard America, was a game-changer. Videos posted online depicted his car accelerating down a street to target a group of pedestrians with devastating effect. The horrifying attack, recorded in graphic detail, sparked a massive national outpouring of outrage and condemnation. When Unite the Right organizer Jason Kessler attempted to hold a press conference on Sunday in Charlottesville, he was chased away by a crowd of people shouting murderer and shame.

The question now is how the alt-right will process the backlash, and an early indicator will be seen in Saturdays marches and rallies.

Terrorism is a double-edged sword. While it can help mobilize the most radical segments of an extremist movement, it simultaneously alienates the least radical, including people who are loosely supportive of an extremist movement, or tolerant or dismissive of its rhetorical excesses.

The risk that terrorism entails for extremists was clear after the Oklahoma City bombing, when the anti-government Patriot movement rapidly went from boom to bust, as adherents melted awaysome due to fear of a government crackdown, others in genuine moral dismay over the attack, which killed 19 children and injured many more. The Patriot movement has since recovered from these setbacks, but the process took years, and McVeigh is still a controversial figure for many adherents.

The attack in Charlottesville, while horrific, was not on the scale of Oklahoma City, and it is unclear how those within the alt-right will process its meaning. In the first 24 hours, online adherents responded predictably, with a mix of denialism, whataboutism, victim-blaming, disavowals of Fields, and the advancement of conspiracy theories to explain the problem away. Some glorified the rally while pointedly ignoring the car attack. Others dismissed it as a road-rage incident unrelated to ideology. And somerelatively fewcriticized the attack for portraying white nationalism in a negative light.

Thats the context for Saturdays scheduled events, whose organizers have denied any connection to the Unite the Right organizers, although at least one personality from Charlottesville (Tim Gionet, aka Baked Alaska) is scheduled to appear at the Boston event. Turnout for these events will help illustrate exactly what kind of moment this nation has come to. Heres what to look for:

How each of these questions plays out will reveal something about the future of the alt-right. If attendance is very low, for instance, it may signal that Charlottesville was a sobering moment for the movement, perhaps with some adherents reconsidering their tactics, and with other people reconsidering their involvement altogether.

If attendance is very high, on the other hand, it likely means that the Charlottesville rally was an energizing event for the alt-right, even with its culmination in a terrorist attack, and that would be cause for serious concern. If attendance is high and the participants include more of the same Klansmen, neo-Nazis, and other white supremacists in garish costumes and armed to the teeth, it would be hard to interpret that as anything less than extremely alarming.

If attendance is low, on the other hand, while met with very large and peaceful counter-protests, that would be an extremely encouraging turn of events, highlighting the marginal nature of the movement and helping to reinforce a strong social center standing in opposition to the latest wave of racist extremism to rock America.

And of course, there are many possible outcomes in between these two poles, which will require unpacking. A large turnout from the alt-right but an even larger presence of peaceful counter-protesters might bode well for the overall mood of the country but reinforce the idea that the alt-right is here to stay. A small turnout from both sides would be more difficult to assess. An aggressive showing by antifa groups looking to meet violence with violence could lead to further escalation.

There is one more wild card to consider: the president of the United States, who is scheduled to hold a press conference on Monday. Based on his past failures to repudiate white nationalism, theres a good chance he will continue to hedge his language with weak equivocations. But the political pressure to say more is rapidly mounting, and the president may find himself backed into a corner.

If President Trump somehow manages to issue a convincing and unequivocal condemnation of Unite the Right specifically and white nationalism more broadly, and if he can do it without visibly seething about the necessity, the reaction from the alt-right should be fascinating and informative. Given his history, its a very long shot that the president will be able to successfully check all of those boxes, but its not impossible.

If the president successfully repudiates the alt-right, its anyones guess what happens next. Some portion of the alt-right is more enamored of Trumpism than of white nationalism. These are not mutually exclusive categories at the moment, but if Trump manages to change that dynamic, its unclear where the chips may fall.

Would the alt-right turn against the president en masse, or in part? And if so, what impact would that have on his already flagging poll numbers? Would some be enraged and adopt an even more violent posture? Would they be discouraged? Would they shrug it off? Or would they splinter into yet more factions, stealing their momentum and forcing a massive retrenchment?

The last outcome is probably the most likely, in the unlikely event that the president can muster the moral courage to take and maintain a strong stand without simultaneously undermining it in some way.

The only certainty is that the week ahead is bound to be interesting and consequential. By the time we reach the other side, Americans will likely have a much clearer picture of the shape and direction of white-nationalist extremism in America. I wish I felt more optimistic about what we will see.

Originally posted here:
What the Next Round of Alt-Right Rallies Will Reveal - The Atlantic