[Linkspam] Linkspam during wartime (week 3)

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""Life During Wartime" Talking Heads LIVE" (Watch on YouTube)

Talking Heads, "Life During Wartime"

A Trump presidency would literally be unconstitutional. Would? Will?

Electoral College must reject Trump unless he sells his business, top lawyers for Bush and Obama say, by Judd Legum for ThinkProgress (2016-11-24).

This is where the Electoral College comes in. Tribe notes that the Electoral College was “originally conceived by Framers like Alexander Hamilton as a vital safeguard against the assumption of the Presidency by an ‘unfit character’ or one incapable of serving faithfully to ‘execute the Office of President of the United States [and] preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States.’”

“[T]o vote for Trump in the absence of such complete divestment… would represent an abdication of the solemn duties of the 538 Electors,” Tribe said.

This view is not a position of disgruntled liberals. Richard Painter, Bush’s Chief Ethics Counsel, was in complete agreement with Tribe and Eisen during a recent appearance on CNN. “I don’t think the electoral college can vote for someone to become president if he’s going to be in violation of the Constitution on day one and hasn’t assured us he’s not in violation,” Painter said.

Resisting normalization

• No, Trump, We Can’t Just Get Along, by Charles M. Blow for the New York Times (2016-11-23).

  Let me tell you here where I stand on your “I hope we can all get along” plea: Never.

  You are an aberration and abomination who is willing to do and say anything — no matter whom it aligns you with and whom it hurts — to satisfy your ambitions.

  I don’t believe you care much at all about this country or your party or the American people. I believe that the only thing you care about is self-aggrandizement and self-enrichment. Your strongest allegiance is to your own cupidity.

  I also believe that much of your campaign was an act of psychological projection, as we are now learning that many of the things you slammed Clinton for are things of which you may actually be guilty.

  You slammed Clinton for destroying emails, then Newsweek reported last month that your companies “destroyed emails in defiance of court orders.” You slammed Clinton and the Clinton Foundation for paid speeches and conflicts of interest, then it turned out that, as BuzzFeed reported, the Trump Foundation received a $150,000 donation in exchange for your giving a 2015 speech made by video to a conference in Ukraine. You slammed Clinton about conflicts of interest while she was secretary of state, and now your possible conflicts of interest are popping up like mushrooms in a marsh.

  You are a fraud and a charlatan. Yes, you will be president, but you will not get any breaks just because one branch of your forked tongue is silver.

  I am not easily duped by dopes.

  I have not only an ethical and professional duty to call out how obscene your very existence is at the top of American government; I have a moral obligation to do so.

  I’m not trying to convince anyone of anything, but rather to speak up for truth and honor and inclusion. This isn’t just about you, but also about the moral compass of those who see you for who and what you are, and know the darkness you herald is only held at bay by the lights of truth.

• Making White Supremacy Respectable. Again., by Katherine Franke for the Los Angeles Review of Books (2016-11-21). Franke connects the dots excellently between the normalization of white supremacy and brocialist class-only analysis that decries identity politics:

  Let me be blunt: this kind of liberalism is a liberalism of white supremacy. It is a liberalism that regards the efforts of people of color and women to call out forms of power that sustain white supremacy and patriarchy as a distraction. It is a liberalism that figures the lives and interests of white men as the neutral, unmarked terrain around which a politics of “common interest” can and should be built. And it is a liberalism that regards the protests of people of color and women as a complaint or a feeling, ignoring the facts upon which those protests are based — facts about real dead, tortured, raped, and starved bodies. The liberalism Lilla espouses reduces these facts of human suffering and the systems of power that produce that suffering as beside the point.

• Prejudice, “Political Correctness,” and the Normalization of Donald Trump, by Julia Serano (2016-11-22). Lots of great points to take away here about the blame game that white male leftists play to blame their own failures on vulnerable groups:

  So unsurprisingly, in the wake of the most shocking U.S. presidential election outcome in recent history, many pundits have decided to place the blame, not on the horribly blundered mainstream media election coverage, nor the millions of people who actually cast their votes for Donald Trump, but rather on activists on the left who have pushed too fiercely for “identity politics” or “political correctness.” Their thesis (whether stated explicitly or implicitly) is that if Democrats simply ditch all this “political correctness” nonsense, then they can win back many of those voters.

  And frankly, I cannot think of a worse possible takeaway message from this election....

  So how do activists accomplish changing these social norms? Well, there are a number of ways, although they tend to fall into one of two camps. There are “soft appeals,” in which the activist makes a thoughtful, well-reasoned case on behalf of the group, or in which members of the group demonstrate (through their everyday actions) that they are non-threatening, competent, moral, etc., and thus deserving of acceptance. In a perfect world, soft appeals would be sufficient to bring about increasing acceptance, but unfortunately there is one big problem: Soft appeals only work if members of the dominant majority are open to changing their minds. Some are, of course, but many others are stubbornly resistant to relinquishing their prejudice....

  To put it another way, “political correctness” is not an ideology, nor is it a specific set of behaviors. It is simply a slur that people utter when they want to dismiss an expression of social justice activism that they do not like. One person’s “political correctness” is another person’s common decency or righteous activism....

  It is also crucial to note that, while many people resent activist attempts to change social norms, we are not the only ones engaged in such actions: Those who harbor prejudices are also constantly trying to assert and/or change social norms, albeit in the opposite direction. And yet, these latter attempts do not face similar scrutiny or smearing. If I promote gender-neutral restrooms or pronouns, I will be dismissed as being “politically correct,” whereas North Carolina Governor Pat McCrory (who championed HB2, the law that criminalizes trans people who use public restrooms) is never described as “politically correct” (even though he has clearly engaged in political attempts to enforce a social norm of his own creation).

  Trump repeatedly bragged about wanting to destroy “political correctness” — once again, the term acts as a euphemism for dismissing or dismantling social justice norms. Trump ran the most explicitly racist and xenophobic national campaign of my lifetime. He made numerous blatantly misogynistic comments, and we learned of numerous accusations that he sexually assaulted women (not to mention his own bragging to that effect). He openly mocked a disabled reporter and called deaf actor Marlee Matlin “retarded.” In any other recent election cycle, any one of these incidents would be disqualifying, let alone all taken together. These acts would have been disqualifying because, after many decades of social justice activism and advocacy, we had firmly established social norms that deemed these sorts of blatant discriminatory acts to be beyond the pale, to be simply unacceptable. Granted, prejudice most certainly had not completely gone away, but the fact that there was a steep social price to pay for overt expressions of discrimination helped to keep the most extreme bigots at bay....

  And now, in the face of the biggest potential rollback of social justice norms in the last fifty years, some political pundits are urging Democrats to reject “political correctness” (by which they mean social justice activism). Seriously, are you kidding me?....

  You know what: I would *love* to stop talking about being transgender. It would be absolutely wonderful to live in a world where I didn’t have to constantly consider that aspect of my person. But you know what? I don’t have the privilege of not thinking about it, because there are shit-tons of people out there who hate me, harass me, and who wish to criminalize and silence me *because* I’m transgender. “Identity politics” is not an expression of narcissism (as some pundits seem to believe), but rather a form of organized activism to resist those who wish to disempower and disenfranchise us. Donald Trump ran a campaign that constantly stoked hatred against minority/marginalized groups; he selected one of the most anti-LGBTQ+ and anti-women’s reproductive rights politicians in the nation to be his running-mate; he is now tapping white nationalists to play high-level roles in his administration. All of these prejudices have long histories. And yet somehow, these pundits have the gall to claim that *we’re* the ones who are making this about identity?

• Americans are no wiser than the Europeans who saw democracy yield to fascism, Nazism, or communism. Our one advantage is that we might learn from their experience. Now is a good time to do so. Here are twenty lessons from the twentieth century, adapted to the circumstances of today., by Timothy Snyder (2016-11-15). I don't agree with all of this, but "Do not obey in advance" is a good reminder.

Moral courage

• [CW: Nazis, Holocaust] Trump: The Choice We Face, by Masha Gessen for the New York Review of Books (2016-11-27):

  The difficulty stems from the realist tradition in politics. In contrast to what is sometimes called idealism, the realist position holds that the political world is governed not by morality but by clear and calculable interests. Alliances and conflicts turn into transactions with predictable outcomes. The realist reasoning is applied most clearly and most often to international relations, but it has seeped into all political life, turning virtually every conversation into a discussion of possible outcomes.

  Realism is predicated on predictability: it assumes that parties have clear interests and will act rationally to achieve them. This is rarely true anywhere, and it is patently untrue in the case of Trump. He ran a campaign unlike any in memory, has won an election unlike any in memory, and has so far appointed a cabinet unlike any in memory: racists, Islamophobes, and homophobes, many of whom have no experience relevant to their new jobs. Patterns of behavior characteristic of former presidents will not help predict Trump’s behavior. As for his own patterns, inconsistency and unreliability are among his chief characteristics....

  We cannot know what political strategy, if any, can be effective in containing, rather than abetting, the threat that a Trump administration now poses to some of our most fundamental democratic principles. But we can know what is right. What separates Americans in 2016 from Europeans in the 1940s and 1950s is a little bit of historical time but a whole lot of historical knowledge. We know what my great-grandfather did not know: that the people who wanted to keep the people fed ended up compiling lists of their neighbors to be killed. That they had a rationale for doing so. And also, that one of the greatest thinkers of their age judged their actions as harshly as they could be judged.

  Armed with that knowledge, or burdened with that legacy, we have a slight chance of making better choices. As Trump torpedoes into the presidency, we need to shift from realist to moral reasoning. That would mean, at minimum, thinking about the right thing to do, now and in the imaginable future. It is also a good idea to have a trusted friend capable of reminding you when you are about to lose your sense of right and wrong.

• Thanksgiving Discussion Guide by Showing Up for Racial Justice. Thanksgiving is past, but study now for your holiday gatherings with racist family members (if your family is white).

Calling it what it is

• Hey, Republican parents who said you didn't know how to explain gay marriage to your kids: any tips on explaining neo-Nazism to mine? -- cberedjick (2016-11-22).
• If you voted for Donald Trump... by Tess Rafferty (2016-11-21).

  I am tired of trying to see things your way while you sit in your holier-than-thou churches/white power meetups, refusing to see things mine. Did I just lump you in with white supremacists? No, you did that to yourselves. You voted for the same candidate as the KKK. You voted for a candidate endorsed by the KKK. For the rest of your life, you have to know that you voted the same way as the KKK. Does that feel good to you? Here's a hint---it really shouldn't, especially if you call yourself a Christian.

  I'm tired of pussyfooting around what offends your morals while couching what offends mine, because racism, misogyny, homophobia, and xenophobia offend mine.

  Let me say it right here---if you voted for Trump, I do think you are a racist. I do think you're homophobic. I do think you're a misogynist. Racism, and homophobia, and misogyny are all a spectrum, and you're on it. You might not be a 'cheering while a black man gets lynched' racist, but boy, did you just sell them the rope and look the other way.

• The Identity Politics of Whiteness, by Laila Lalami for the New York Times Magazine (2016-11-21). "A common refrain in the days after the election was “Not all his voters are racist.” But this will not do, because those voters chose a candidate who promised them relief from their problems at the expense of other races. They may claim innocence now, but it seems to me that when a leading chapter of the Ku Klux Klan announces plans to hold a victory parade for the president-elect, the time for innocence is long past....

  No, the top issue that drove Trump’s voters to the polls was not the economy — more voters concerned about that went to Clinton. It was immigration, an issue on which we’ve abandoned serious debate and become engulfed in sensational stories about rapists crossing the southern border or the pending imposition of Shariah law in the Midwest.

  If whiteness is no longer the default and is to be treated as an identity — even, soon, a “minority” — then perhaps it is time white people considered the disadvantages of being a race. The next time a white man bombs an abortion clinic or goes on a shooting rampage on a college campus, white people might have to be lectured on religious tolerance and called upon to denounce the violent extremists in their midst. The opioid epidemic in today’s white communities could be treated the way we once treated the crack epidemic in black ones — not as a failure of the government to take care of its people but as a failure of the race. The fact that this has not happened, nor is it likely to, only serves as evidence that white Americans can still escape race."

• White nationalists? Alt-right? If you see a Nazi, say Nazi, by Lindy West for the Guardian (2016-11-22).

  the US press has been floundering in a gyre of panic over the internal taxonomy of racists....

  Not a Nazi, then, just a guy who’s shaken hands with a whole bunch of them. That’s fine. We’ll wait and watch....

  One defining aspect of alt-right white supremacy is that it vehemently denies its own existence … This erosion of language is an authoritarian tactic designed to stifle dissent. If you cannot call something by its name, then how can you fight it?"

• The Rise Of The ‘Alt Right’ And Religious Right Are Chillingly Similar, by Katherine Cross for The Establishment (2016-11-23).

  The history of the Republican Party these last 30 years is the tale of a flesh-eating virus....

  The racists Trump has courted will destroy the Republican Party as we know it, but that slow, violent death will catch us all in its wake, with potentially devastating consequences for American democracy—and what may rise in its place should comfort no one....

  The tragic reality is that just as Reagan exploited the resentment of white Christians, now the resentments of white men in general—especially white people who feel dislocated by social progress—have been harnessed into a potent brew that has actually brought fascism into power here. Though a minority in this new movement, young whites who’ve expressed their nihilism and outrage through trolling and harassment campaigns like GamerGate, or through sites like 4chan, also have been politically aroused. To a party desperate for young blood, they provide a likely target.