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On Wednesday Voxs Ezra Klein publisheda long pieceabout the current crisis in our government. He wrote that our president lacks legitimacy, our government is paralyzed, our problems are going unsolved. I would say that legitimacy, the first of those issues,is the source of all the others.

Donald Trumps legitimacy problem is not just a matter of losing the popular vote. Other presidents have assumed office after such an outcome. In 1824 John Quincy Adams became president after the election was thrown into the House of Representatives. In 1876 Rutherford B. Hayes became president after losing the popular vote to Samuel Tilden by more than 250,000 although corruption was so rife in that election its fair to say no one will ever know for sure who got the most votes. In 1888 Benjamin Harrison won 233 electoral votes to Grover Clevelands 168, but lost the national count by about 90,000 votes. It didnt happen again for 112 years when George W. Bush was installed by the Supreme Court after a virtual tie in Florida and a dubious vote count. And then just16 years later, it happened again.

Throughout that last 16 years questions have been raised about our democracy, including the workings of the anachronistic Electoral College, the fact that every locality and state seems to have a different system andthe way Republicans have systematically disenfranchised voters they believe would be likely to vote for their opponents. There has been underlying doubt about the integrity of Americas electoral system simmering for a long time. This year it has come to a boil.

For at least a year weve been aware of social-media propaganda and foreign actors hacking the systems of various arms of the Democratic Party in order to influence the presidential campaign. The experts tell us that the Russian government has directed a number of similar cyber operations around the worldand that this one was their most sophisticated. Evidently, the idea was to sow chaos and undermine Americans already sorely tested faith in our electoral system.

According toa highly detailed investigative reportby Massimo Calabresi of Time, the evidence suggests that Russias President Vladimir Putin had a particular ax to grind against former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton for what he termed a signal she sent in 2011, which he claimed sparked protests against him. The extent to which Putin truly favored Donald Trump is still unknown, and the question of whether there was any collusion between the Trump campaign and the Russian government is now the focus of various investigations of Congress and a Justice Department special counsel. The odd behavior of Trumps close associates as well as his obsession with shutting down the investigation certainly raise suspicions. But at this point it is pure speculation to think about what kind of deal might have been made.

This weeks story byThe Intercept,reporting on an National Security Agency document that showed evidence the Russian military had made serious attempts to infiltrate voter information rolls around the country, suggests, however, yet another way the goals of Donald Trump and the Russian government were the same. Former FBI counterterrorism officer and cybersecurity expert Clinton Watts (best known for his quip follow the bodies of dead Russians in testimony before the Senate Intelligence Committee) raised some additional questions ina piece for the Daily Beast this week.He believes that the main objective of this operation was not to alter the vote count but rather to instill more doubt about the process.

Wattswrote, I noticed a shift in Kremlin messaging last October, when its overt news outlets, conspiratorial partner websites, and covert social-media personas pushed theories of widespread voter fraud and hacking. He cited aReuters articleindicating that a Kremlin-backed think tank report drafted in October and distributed in the same way, warned that Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton was likely to win the election. So it would bebetter for Russia to end its pro-Trump propaganda and instead intensify its messaging about voter fraud to undermine the U.S. electoral systems legitimacy and damage Clintons reputation in an effort to undermine her presidency.

Its interesting to note that at the same moment the operation shifted in that direction, Trump himself was relentlessly flogging exactly the same accusation, saying in every rally from October on that Clinton and her campaign had rigged the system in her favor. Over and over againhe would suggestthat the outcome was predetermined:

When the outcome is fixed, when the system is rigged, people lose hope they stop dreaming, they stop trying

He routinely told his followers stories likethis:

One of the reasons Ive been saying that the system is so corrupt and is so rigged, is not only what happens at the voters booth and you know things happen, folks.

He passed alongtweets like this:

Trumpeven made bizarre accusations that John Podesta rigged the polls by oversampling and notoriouslyrefused to saywhetherhe would abide by the results if Clinton won. It was obvious that Donald Trump was planning to challenge her legitimacy.

In fact, Trump did more to create mistrust and doubt in the U.S. electoral system than the Russian governments highly developed hacking and misinformation campaign. Whether they were working together is still unknown but they were definitely rowing in the same direction. As much as the president likes to whine and complain about the Democrats being sore losers, the irony is that Trump himself played the greatest role in undermining the legitimacy of his win.

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Vladimir Putin, Hillary Clinton and the true cause of Donald Trump's legitimacy crisis his own actions - Salon

But the current era of political obscenity also must be put in historical context. Privately, presidentsranging from Abraham Lincoln to Richard Nixonwere prone to use off-color language. But in public, their political rhetoric was loftier, aiming to be more sacred than profane. When America was on the cusp of the Civil War, Lincoln in his inaugural address evoked the better angels of our nature and the mystic chords of memory. Behind closed doors, though, Lincoln could be as coarse as anyone,and had a predilection for potty humor.

The novelist Norman Mailer was a pioneer in breaking down the division between private language and political speech. In 1969, he ran for New York mayor under the slogan No More Bullshit. He lost, but his political career shouldnt be dismissed as a Quixotic gesture. As a writer, Mailer was attuned to the fact that culture was changing. In his first novel,The Naked and the Dead (1948), he had to replace fuck with the euphemism fug. (According to a famous butapocryphalstory, Dorothy Parker asked Mailer if he was the young man who couldnt spell fuck.) By the late 1960s, due to the weakening of censorship laws, Mailer was allowed to swear all he wanted in his novels. Mailer concluded, accurately although prematurely, that foul language would soon have a place in politics.

The release of the Watergate tapes in 1974 did much to discredit Nixon in the eyes of his conservative supporters,especially since the tapes were littered with four-letter words rendered by newspapers as expletive deleted.The Chicago Tribune, which had long championed Nixon and then called for his resignation, lamented, He is devious. He is vacillating. He is profane.Yet the tapes seem to have opened the doors for greater acceptance of swearing in politics. Once it became know the f-bomb was commonplace in the Oval Office, politicians were freed from unrealistic expectations of public decorousness.Jimmy Carter ran as asqueakyclean alternative to the sordid Nixonian, but in 1979 hesaidof his political rival Ted Kennedy, Ill whip his ass.

The increasing obscenity in politics has a political salience. The word vulgarity is rooted in the Latin term for the multitude; to use coarse language is to speak in the tongue of the common people, and to reject the code of civility prescribedif not always followedby the political ruling class. Trump swore on the campaign trail to establish his populist bona fides and connect with the working class, while at the same timedistinguishing himself from typical Republicans like Jeb Bush, thehigh-minded WASP,or Mitt Romney, theprim Mormon. Trumps foul language showed his followers that he was serious about breaking the rules to upend the establishment.

Democrats use of profanity projects a comparable message. Foul words often come from politicians who are already populists or hope to be seen as such (Gillibrand, Sanders, Perez). And swearing has intensified as Democrats have become more recalcitrant in their resistance to the president. Just as Trump cursed as a way of rejecting the Obama-era politics of 2016, Democrats are now cursing as a way of rejecting the Trumpian politics of 2017. To call bullshit is to renounce compromise or a search for comity. It means you are raring for a fight. To yell obscenities at the president is to say that his politics are themselves obscene.

Excerpt from:
Democrats Should Swear More at Donald Trump - New Republic

UPDATED with video: You can feel the excitement in this room right now.Its the most magical night of the year because its Comey Testimony Eve! Late Shows Stephen Colbert told his audience Wednesday night.

Former FBI Director James Comeys testimony of his various meetings with President Donald Trump began Wednesday with his pre-xplosion of Thursday mornings prepared remarks to the Senate Intel Committee.

Tomorrow, bars in the capitol are opening early and offering drink specials like the Covfefe CocktailsPeople are calling Comeys testimony Washingtons Super Bowl. Animal Planet is even airing the Puppy Comey Testimony.

Colbert began to read Comeys seven pages of remarks, full of juicy details, because Comey wrote a memo after each of his interactions with Trump.

Dear Diary: I needed to write down my thoughts immediately, because that guy is so normal, the late-night host joked.

Comey, Colbert told his viewers, said he first met with Trump on January 6, to let him know about some salacious intelligence pee pee tape Colbert translated explaining he agreed to the meeting alone in order to minimize potential embarrassment to the President-Elect.

Remember this was back when we thought it was possible for him to feel embarrassment, Colbert reminded.

At one of their meetings, Colbert noted, Comey says Trump had told him he had nothing to do with Russia, had not been involved with hookers in Russia.

Comey also described a dinner he had with Trump just after his inauguration, in which he was surprised to discover the two of them were dining alone. Thats when Comey says Trump told him I expect loyalty from the director of the FBI.

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Stephen Colbert Shares James Comey's Testimony About Donald Trump Meetings - Deadline

The testimony, which Comey is set to deliver Thursday in one of the most highly-anticipated Congressional hearing in decades, reads like a point-by-point dismissal of Trump's version of events -- casting Comey as wary from the get-go of a chief executive who seemed to presume too much and know too little.

In the wake of their first interaction, ever, on January 6, Comey decided that it was necessary to have written documentation of any time he spent with Trump.

"I felt compelled to document my first conversation with the President-Elect in a memo. To ensure accuracy, I began to type it on a laptop in an FBI vehicle outside Trump Tower the moment I walked out of the meeting. Creating written records immediately after one-on-one conversations with Mr. Trump was my practice from that point forward. This had not been my practice in the past. I spoke alone with President Obama twice in person (and never on the phone) -- once in 2015 to discuss law enforcement policy issues and a second time, briefly, for him to say goodbye in late 2016. In neither of those circumstances did I memorialize the discussions. I can recall nine one-on-one conversations with President Trump in four months -- three in person and six on the phone."

It only gets worse from there for Trump in Comey's opening statement.

Comey says that he was surprised to learn that a dinner invitation extended to him by Trump on Jan. 27 was for just the two of them ("It turned out to be just the two of us, seated at a small oval table in the center of the Green Room," Comey writes. "Two Navy stewards waited on us, only entering the room to serve food and drinks.") and that the goal of the meeting was "an effort to have me ask for my job and create some sort of patronage relationship."

Twice in that meeting Trump, recounted Comey, made a direct request for loyalty from the FBI director. "I need loyalty, I expect loyalty," Trump told Comey. Later, he returned to the subject. Here's Comey's recollection:

"He then said, 'I need loyalty.' I replied, 'You will always get honesty from me.' He paused and then said, 'That's what I want, honest loyalty.' I paused, and then said, 'You will get that from me.'"

Comey also confirmed in his written testimony that Trump directly asked him to "let go" of the investigation into deposed national security adviser Michael Flynn. Quoting Trump, Comey writes of the Feb. 14 meeting in the Oval Office: "I hope you can see your way clear to letting this go, to letting Flynn go. He is a good guy. I hope you can let this go."

I mean. Holy crap.

Then there is this, from Comey's after-action report of that meeting: "I had understood the President to be requesting that we drop any investigation of Flynn in connection with false statements about his conversations with the Russian ambassador in December."

While Comey noted that he did not believe Trump was asking for the entire Russia investigation to disappear, that the sitting FBI director did believe the sitting president was asking to have a federal investigation of any sort dropped is, well, stunning.

In their final conversation -- a phone call from Trump to Comey on April 11 -- the president again sought to secure Comey's loyalty, according to the former FBI Director's re-telling.

After Comey tells Trump that he should contact the deputy Attorney General's office in regards to his repeated request to "get out" the news that he was not a target of the federal investigation, here's how Comey remembers the president's response:

"He said he would do that and added, 'Because I have been very loyal to you, very loyal; we had that thing you know.' I did not reply or ask him what he meant by 'that thing.' I said only that the way to handle it was to have the White House Counsel call the Acting Deputy Attorney General. He said that was what he would do and the call ended."

"We had that thing you know."

If there is a single sentence that will become the symbol of Comey's testimony -- or even of Trump's broader interactions with the FBI director -- it's that. Trump trying to establish some rapport or, really, some sense of "you owe me" while Comey stares blankly.

The broader picture presented by Comey's testimony is deeply damaging to Trump.

That Trump and Comey had nine one-on-one conversations in the space of just over three months -- as opposed to the two one-on-one chats Comey had with Obama in eight years -- is hugely telling. And, in those conversations Trump is repeatedly cast as attempting to secure Comey's loyalty -- and, at times, suggesting his job depends on it. (FBI directors are appointed for 10 year terms but, as we know, can be fired at any time by a president.) That he asks for Comey to end the probe into Flynn is, at minimum a massive breach of protocol.

Trump and his allies will work to dismiss Comey's testimony -- and his answers in front of the Senate Intelligence Committee tomorrow -- as, at best, a "he said, he said" situation and, at worst, "fake news."

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James Comey just went nuclear on Donald Trump - CNN International

Its Infrastructure Week at the White House. Theoretically.

On Monday, the administration announced a plan to spend $200 billion on infrastructure and overhaul U.S. air traffic control. There was a high-profile signing in the East Wing before dozens of cheering lawmakers and industry titans. It was supposed to be the beginning of a weeklong push to fix Americas roads, bridges, and airports.

But in the next two days, Trump spent more energy burning metaphorical bridges than trying to build literal ones. He could have stayed on message for several hours, gathered Democrats and Republicans to discuss a bipartisan agreement, and announced a timeframe. Instead he quickly turned his attention to Twitter to accuse media companies of Fake News while undermining an alliance with Qatar based on what may be, fittingly, a fake news story.

Its a microcosm of this administrations approach to public policy. A high-profile announcement, coupled with an ambitious promise, subsumed by an unrelated, self-inflicted public-relations crisis, followed by nothing.

The secret of the Trump infrastructure plan is: There is no infrastructure plan. Just like there is no White House tax plan. Just like there was no White House health care plan. More than 120 days into Trumps term in a unified Republican government, Trumps policy accomplishments have been more in the subtraction category (e.g., stripping away environmental regulations) than addition. The president has signed no major legislation and left significant portions of federal agencies unstaffed, as U.S. courts have blocked what would be his most significant policy achievement, the legally dubious immigration ban.

The simplest summary of White House economic policy to date is four words long: There is no policy.

Consider the purported focus of this week. An infrastructure plan ought to include actual proposals, like revenue-and-spending details and timetables. The Trump infrastructure plan has little of that. Even the presidents speech on Monday was devoid of specifics. (An actual line was: We have studied numerous countries, one in particular, they have a very, very good system; ours is going to top it by a lot.) The ceremonial signing on Monday was pure theater. The president, flanked by politicians and businesspeople smiling before the twinkling of camera flashes, signed a paper that merely asks Congress to work on a bill. An assistant could have done that via email. Meanwhile, Congress isnt working on infrastructure at all, according to Politico, and Republicans have shown no interest in a $200 billion spending bill.

In short, this plan is not a plan, so much as a Potemkin policy, a presentation devised to show the press and the public that the president has an economic agenda. The show continued on Wednesday, as the president delivered an infrastructure speech in Cincinnati that criticized Obamacare, hailed his Middle East trip, and offered no new details on how his plan would work. Infrastructure Week is a series of scheduled performances to make it look as if the president is hard at work on a domestic agenda that cannot move forward because it does not exist.

Journalists are beginning to catch on. The administrations policy drought has so far been obscured by a formulaic bait-and-switch strategy one could call the Two-Week Two-Step. Bloomberg has compiled several examples of the president promising major proposals or decisions on everything from climate-change policy to infrastructure in two weeks. He has missed the fortnight deadline almost every time.

The starkest false promise has been taxes. Were going to be announcing something I would say over the next two or three weeks, Trump said of tax reform in early February. Eleven weeks later, in late April, the White House finally released a tax proposal. It was hardly one page long.

Arriving nine weeks late, the document was so vague that tax analysts marveled that they couldnt even say how it would work. Even its authors are confused: Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin has repeatedly declined to say whether the plan will cut taxes on the rich, even though cutting taxes on the rich is ostensibly the centerpiece. Perhaps its because he needs more help: None of the key positions for making domestic tax policy have been filled. There is no assistant secretary for tax policy, nor deputy assistant secretary for tax analysis, according to the Treasury Department.

Once again, the simplest summary of White House tax policy is: There is no plan. There isnt even a complete staff to compose one.

The story is slightly different for the White House budget, but no more favorable. The budget suffers, not from a lack of details, but from a failure of numeracy that speaks to the administrations indifference toward serious public policy. The authors double-counted a projected benefit from higher GDP growth, leading to $2 trillion math error, perhaps the largest ever in a White House proposal. The plan included hundreds of billions of dollars in revenue from the estate tax, which appears to be another mistake, since the White House has separately proposed eliminating it.

Does the presidents budget represent what the presidents policies will be? It should, after all. But asked this very question, Mick Mulvaney, the director of the Office of Management and Budget, made perhaps the strangest claim of all: I wouldnt take whats in the budget as indicative of what our proposals are, he said.

This haphazard approach extends to the repeal of Obamacare, which may yet pass the Senate, but with little help or guidance from the president. Trump has allowed House Speaker Paul Ryan to steer the Obamacare-replacement bill, even though it violates the presidents campaign promises to expand coverage and protect Medicaid. After its surprising passage in the House, he directly undercut it on Twitter by suggesting he wants to raise federal health spending. Even on the most basic question of health-care policyshould spending go up, or down?the presidents Twitter account and his favored law are irreconcilable. A law cannot raise and slash health care funding at the same time. The Trump health care plan does not exist.

It would be a mistake to call this a policy-free presidency. Trump has signed several executive orders undoing Obama-era regulations, removing environmental protections, and banning travel from several Muslim-majority countries. He has challenged NATO and pulled out of the Paris Accords. But these accomplishments all have one thing in common: Trump was able to do them alone. Signing executive orders and making a speech dont require the participation of anybody in government except for the president.

Its no surprise that a former chief executive of a private company would be more familiar with the presumption of omnipotence than the reality of divided powers. As the head of his own organization, Trump could make unilateral orders that subordinates would have to follow. But passing a law requires tireless persuasion and the cooperation of hundreds of representatives in the House and Senate who cannot be fired for insubordination. Being the president of the United States is nothing like being a CEO, especially not one of an eponymous family company.

Republicans in the House and Senate dont need the presidents permission to write laws, either. Still, they too have struggled to get anything done. Several GOP senators say they may not repeal Obamacare this yearor ever. It is as if, after seven years of protesting Obamacare, the party lost the muscle memory to publicly defend and enact legislation.

In this respect, Trump and his party are alikeunited in their antagonism toward Obama-era policies and united in their inability to articulate what should come next. Republicans are trapped by campaign promises that they cannot fulfill. The White House is trapped inside of the presidents perpetual campaign, a cavalcade of economic promises divorced from any effort to detail, advocate, or enact major economic legislation. With an administration that uses public policy as little more than a photo op, get ready for many sequels to this summers Infrastructure Week.

Read more from the original source:
The Potemkin Policies of Donald Trump - The Atlantic