The Method to Trump's Madness

 

By David K. Shipler 

                President Trump’s critics see him as impulsive, willfully ignorant, devoted to immediate self-gratification, and even mentally deranged. He is all of that. But he is something more, too. He is canny and calculating, more skillful at playing the long game than generally recognized.

                Even as he appears candid and unscripted, Trump has cleverly laid the groundwork in managing both public opinion and government for enhancing his power and shielding himself from the consequences of his ethical and legal corruption. And for an heir to moneyed privilege, he is remarkably perceptive about the anxieties and grievances that have driven millions of working-class Americans into his cult of personality. Many thought they were voting for a non-politician, but they got a president with the political instincts of a marksman—at least when they are his target.

                In his first significant play, beginning even before his election, he took a hammer and chisel to chip away at whatever trust Americans retained for news organizations that inform citizens on the workings of society and government. “Fake news!” he cries whenever a press report exposes his lies, incompetence, bigotry, self-dealing, spasmodic policies, defiance of law, and the like. “The enemy of the American people!” he brands the news media, reviving the wording employed by Mao, Lenin, Hitler’s Joseph Goebbels, and Stalin. To anyone who knows history, the phrase is chilling, for millions of Russians under Stalin went into the Gulag or before firing squads after conviction of the charge “enemy of the people.”

Supreme Court or Supreme Legislature?

 

By David K. Shipler 

                The death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and the immediate swirl of politics surrounding a choice of her successor ought to remind Americans of what they are losing in their stressed democracy. The Supreme Court, designed to transcend bitter political divides, now reflects them instead. This is obviously the doing of the justices themselves. But it is also the sin of presidents and senators who nominate and confirm them.

 The judiciary has been the only one of the three branches of government of late to function with reasonable responsibility. The executive branch under President Trump has defied the law, induced chaos, promoted ethnic hatred, and ignored expertise from its own scientists and generals and diplomats. The legislative branch has deadlocked in divisive bickering over police reform, voting rights, prescription drug costs, renewed economic aid during the pandemic, and a host of other urgent matters. Federal judges, meanwhile, have steadied the ship on numerous occasions—though not all—by restraining some radical efforts to curtail immigration, abortion rights, and voters’ access to the ballot box.

But the judicial branch has never been entirely apolitical, if politics means the advocacy of certain policies over others, whether in the law or in social values. Judges ascend to the bench carrying their particular legal and social philosophies. The question is how much they can put aside in the interest of upholding precedent, interpreting the law, and applying the principles of the Constitution. The question is how much they can evolve over years in those exalted positions. And the question is not whether, but to what extent, the courts stand resilient against the vicissitudes of politics and the commands of ideologies.

It is no accident that countries careening toward authoritarianism—Hungary and Poland come to mind—are compromising the independence of their judiciaries, and that longstanding dictatorships—China and Russia, for example—never had true judicial independence in the first place.

As many politicians from Trump on down seek judges whose opinions echo their own, they risk scoring short-term victories at the cost of eroding what the Framers erected as a precious pillar of pluralistic democracy. The latest example is the unseemly struggle over Ginsburg’s replacement.

A Quiz for Trump Supporters

 

By David K. Shipler

 

                Dear Trump Supporter:

                                Here are some questions to consider and then answer for yourself.

                1. Do you tell multiple lies a day about matters both large and small?

                2. Do you cheat on your spouse?

                3. Do you antagonize your friends and suck up to your enemies?

                4. Do you think up mean, derisive nicknames for people you don’t like?

                5. Do you spread rumors and conspiracy theories without knowing if they’re true?

                6. Do you think that Americans who join the armed forces are “suckers?”

                7. Do you think that American soldiers who die in battles for their country are “losers?”

                8. Do you encourage violence against people you dislike?

                9. Do you disparage women?

                10. Do you think that you can grab any woman’s genitals whenever you wish?

                11. Do you ridicule people with disabilities?

                12. Do you harbor and express distaste for non-white Americans?

                13. Do you excoriate illegal immigrants and then hire them?

                13. Do you resent legal immigrants who come to the U.S. to seek a better life?

                14. Do you ignore laws and encourage others to do so?

                15. Do you fail to pay people who have done work for you?

                16. Do you ignore and criticize your doctor’s advice on life-and-death medical conditions?

                17. Do you gather people together in ways that you know will endanger their health?

                18. Do you think it should be difficult for citizens to vote?

                19. Do you think federal officials should be able to profit financially from their decisions?

                20. Do you like dictators more than democratically elected leaders?

                21. If you answered no to these questions—or even to most of them—why do you want such a man to lead your country?

Policing and Poverty

 

By David K. Shipler 

                Imagine walking into a police station for help as a victim of crime and also getting help as a victim of poverty. Think how policing would change if, under the same roof, assistance were available for the problems of hunger, housing, health, addiction, and joblessness.

                This sounds like pure fantasy, especially as unjustified police shootings continue, the country erupts in protests, and white supremacists threaten Black Lives Matter demonstrators with violence that turns deadly. In many black neighborhoods, the police are seen as the enemy—just another gang, as some residents have said.

But the constructive reform of policing need not be lost in the fog of fury. It needs to be kept as a focused goal whose achievement will take unprecedented cooperation among community activists and law enforcement, including police leadership and officers in the ranks.

The problem has two parts. One is the use of force by cops who are scared or bigoted or poorly trained or all of the above. A great deal of study and thinking has gone into that issue, and lots of sound policies have been proposed, though too rarely adopted, in scattered jurisdictions among the nation’s 18,000 police departments.

The other part has been mostly neglected, however: the clustering of diverse services so that officers can be relieved of onerous tasks for which they have no expertise. It’s a good bet that you won’t be able to find a police officer who loves being called to a “domestic dispute,” where parachuting into a home without context can mean encountering unpredictable, split-second dangers. Nor do cops relish dealing with people suffering from mental illness, who account for a large number of encounters. In short, police are confronted by issues they cannot address, and need tools and training they do not have.