President Trump is cornered and lashing out. Just this week, he has demanded the arrest of political rivals, raged about a “coup” against him and kept firing his incessant fusillades at the “corrupt” and “fake” press. Trump sees the impending congressional impeachment inquiry as a “hoax”; most sober analysts believe House Democrats now have a clear-cut case to prove the president’s abuse of power, as evidence of Trump seeking to pressure a foreign government into giving him dirt on a domestic opponent keeps piling up. On Thursday, in front of cameras and reporters on the White House lawn, he openly called on governments in Ukraine and China to investigate former vice president Joe Biden and his family.But Trump may hope the atmospherics of the showdown — rather than the facts — are still in his favor. Backed by the United States’ right-wing media, Trump intends to hunker down in America’s polarized battlefield and fight for his survival, even if that means dragging the country’s institutions into the morass. The bulk of Republican politicians remain too afraid to turn against him, while administration officials and federal bureaucrats see their personal fate tethered to his moods. “The implicit day-to-day charge for many Trump advisers is simple,” reported my colleagues at the White House. “Figure out how to handle or even polish Trump’s whims and statements, but do not have any illusion that you can temper his relentless personality, heavy consumption of cable news or thirst for political combat.”Trump’s disregard for long-standing norms leaves U.S. politics in a somewhat unfamiliar place. “Authoritarian regimes have this problem all the time … when all government activity is the product of the id of the leader,” Timothy Naftali, a historian and former director of the Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum, told my colleagues. “But in a republic, that’s unusual.”If there is central theme to the age of Trump, it’s precisely that: What was unusual in sophisticated republican democracies is becoming increasingly commonplace. And not just in the United States. The impeachment saga convulsing Washington — where an embattled leader is calling into question the very legitimacy of those opponents challenging his conduct — has, to a certain extent, analogues elsewhere.In Israel, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, a close Trump ally, complained of a “witch hunt” launched by his rivals as the country’s attorney general pursues possible corruption charges against him. In Britain, Prime Minister Boris Johnson — who came to power this year via the votes of a fraction of a fraction of the British public — smeared members of Parliament thwarting Brexit as agents of “surrender” and “betrayal.” In India, the world’s biggest democracy, the country’s Hindu nationalist leaders routinely cast their rivals as “anti-national” liberals who ought to move to Pakistan.On both sides of the pond, talk of “deep state” conspiracy theories is rife, often with an all-too-familiar undertone. Donald Trump Jr., the president’s son, laid the impeachment inquiry at the feet of Jewish financier George Soros — whose support of liberal causes over the years has made him a frequent target of anti-Semites and nativists. On Thursday, Jacob Rees-Mogg, an influential Brexiteer and current leader of the House of Commons, conspiratorially cited Soros as a supposed enemy of Brexit and backer of its British opponents. The remarks led to calls from Jewish politicians in Britain for Rees-Mogg to resign. There are immediate consequences to such demagoguery, not least in the form of far-right terrorist attacks and violence carried out by people inflamed by this sort of rhetoric. But there’s also a long-term toll, one that’s more imperceptible, yet no less corrosive, to the body politic. It’s the kind of erosion on display in places such as Hungary, Poland and Turkey, where majoritarian, nationalist politicians have steadily undermined democratic institutions and the liberal norms they’re supposed to uphold.“The death of democracy is now typically administered in a thousand cuts,” wrote the Stanford political scientist Larry Diamond earlier this year. “In one country after another, elected leaders have gradually attacked the deep tissues of democracy — the independence of the courts, the business community, the media, civil society, universities and sensitive state institutions like the civil service, the intelligence agencies and the police.”You don’t need to look further than Trump’s Twitter timeline. The president has lambasted any federal agency, independent civic institution or media organization he sees working against him, even when their employees can only be accused of doing the job they are supposed to do. State-appointed judges are either his judges or enemies. Journalists who say nice things about Trump are good; those who don’t are “fake.” Law enforcement officials posing next to Trump along the southern border are heroes, but those investigating Trump’s campaign or using internal channels to voice their alarm over his dealings are traitors.Diamond placed Trump at the center of “America’s own political decay” and observed how the president’s excusing of “a grim list of dictators” abroad and embrace of nativist politics at home had “shaken the post-World War II liberal order.” He also blamed political cynicism on both sides of the aisle, “calcified systems that don’t deliver public goods and complacent citizens who cannot bestir themselves to vote.”As myriad analysts have already argued, Trump is not a sui generis figure, but a symptom of American politics and, in particular, of the radicalization of the American right. “The GOP has become an insurgent outlier in American politics,” wrote political scientists Thomas E. Mann and Norman J. Ornstein in a prescient piece long ago in 2012. “It is ideologically extreme; scornful of compromise; unmoved by conventional understanding of facts, evidence and science; and dismissive of the legitimacy of its political opposition.”The uproar over impeachment may only underscore these hard-line positions. It gives Trump the fuel to drive an angry, resentful reelection campaign, and it reveals the frailties of an American system bound together by fraying civic understandings and aging conventions.“What makes Trump dangerous is that he exposes parts of liberal democracies that were only shadowily visible up until now,” said Peter Sloterdijk, celebrity German philosopher and frequent critic of the left, in an interview with the New Yorker last year in which he spoke of the American president as a “degenerate sheriff,” happy to flout the rules of the state he leads. “In democracies, there is always an oligarchic element, but Trump makes it extremely, comically visible.”
6TH AND 7TH DIVISION MEMORIAL DAY COLLATION
Engine 45/Ladder 58/Battalion 18 invite you to the 112th annual 6th and 7th Division Memorial Day Collation on Thursday, October 10 from 12:00 – 8:00 PM at Morris Yacht Club, 25 City Island Ave., Bronx, NY. $25 a person includes a pint glass/shirt, food, beverages, raffles, cigars and DJ. Join Engine 45/Ladder 58/Battalion 18 in honoring FF Steven Pollard, L170, FF Christopher Slutman, L-27/USMC KIA, and Lt. Brian Sullivan, Sq41, and FF Michael Reilly, E79, FF Faizal Coto, E245, FF Stephen Brady, E84, EMT Adam Vasquez, BHS, and Capt. Michael Thomas, D8.
QUEENS MEMORIAL DAY COLLATION
A Memorial Day Collation will be held Thursday, October 10 from 1:00 – 5:00 PM at the Bohemian Hall and Beer Garden, 29-19 24th Ave in Astoria. Cost per person includes t-shirt, mug, beer, wine, soda, food and 5 tickets for the 50/50.
FDNY VFW POST 12033 MILITARY MEMORIAL DEDICATION
The FDNY VFW Post 12033 invites members to a Military Memorial Dedication to honor the sacrifices of Lt. Christopher Raguso, FM Christopher Zanetis and FF Christopher Slutman. Also, SSgt Dashan Briggs, 101st Rescue Squadron NY ANG will be Posthumously Sworn In as a member of the FDNY. The Ceremony will take place on November 9, 2019, at 1100 hours at the Fire Training Academy Auditorium, Randall’s Island. All FDNY/Military members are requested to attend in Class A uniform. Civilian dress is business casual. Please RSVP by October 25, 2019 at williamhayes45@ yahoo.com.
20 YEAR REUNION
A 20 year reunion for the 4th class of 1999 will be held on November 15, 2019, at 7:00 PM at Rathbones Restaurant, 1702 2nd Ave, New York, NY 10128. For information, contact FF Kevin Whalen, L147 group 5 at (516) 375-7976.
12TH ANNUAL JIMMY’S RUN & GOLD STAR MEMORIAL
Registration is open for Jimmy’s Run Down Hero Highway & Gold Star Memorial Presentation on Sunday, November 17, at Pier 45 and the Lighthouse at Chelsea Piers, NYC. Don’t miss out on this family-friendly and Patriotic day where those who made the Ultimate Sacrifice defending our freedom are honored. This year, SGT Joshua P. Rodgers , SGT Cameron H. Thomas and MSGT Christopher J. Raguso will be honored. Early and online registration is preferred and guarantees your commemorative T-Shirt and size preference. Cost: Adults –$90; Students – $50; Under 12 – $25 (Kids under 5 Free). For a schedule of the day’s events, more information or to register, click HERE or visit www.leadthewayfund.org.
‘I don’t care if Northern Ireland falls into the f***ing sea.’( Dominic Cummings, Boris’ key adviser). Brian Feeney. Irish News. Belfast. Wednesday, October 2, 2019
You read here a few weeks ago that the only way to make sense of the chaos in Westminster is to turn every statement of the British government on its head.
That still applies now, only more so. In the words of Joris Luyendijk, author, foreign correspondent and Guardian banking blogger, the ‘Tory party has elected the most callous, ruthless, mendacious and superficial politician in living memory as leader.’
We’re told, they’re working ‘incredibly hard’ to get a deal before October 31. They’re not. Not only are they not negotiating, they haven’t even made a proposal. Occasionally the truth slips out, as when the provocatively indiscreet Dominic Cummings said a fortnight ago, the so-called negotiations are ‘a sham’. Their first proposals are expected in the next few days. There’s no chance of a deal before Halloween. An extension for serious negotiations is necessary. MPs don’t believe Johnson; that’s why they’ve passed the Benn Act to force Johnson to ask for an extension.
Johnson will leave the EU on October 31 without a deal. If he’s forced into an extension until January he will still leave without a deal, but after a general election. He will leave without a deal because he doesn’t want a deal. You apply the usual test. He says he wants a deal and is working to get one, so that means he doesn’t want a deal and isn’t working to get one. Simple.
Look:even if negotiations were taking place, it’s too late now to complete a deal to present to the European Council on October 17-19. Some innocents think Johnson and his cronies envisage Theresa May’s deal minus the Irish Protocol and some other aspects they don’t like. Their plan is nothing like that. Johnson explained his aims in his infamous letter to Donald Tusk on August 19. There he laid out his ‘final destination’ as he called it.
He will leave the Single Market and Customs Union; no surprise there. However, unlike May who wanted to remain as close as possible to the EU’s arrangements, an inherently contradictory objective, Johnson doesn’t. He wrote, ‘Although we will remain committed to world-class environment, product and labour standards, the laws and regulations to deliver them will potentially diverge from those of the EU.’ Then, in a key sentence he said, “That is the point of our exit and our ability to enable this is central to our future democracy.’ He added, ‘The “Backstop” is inconsistent with this ambition’, which is true. He said staying aligned with EU rules is ‘unacceptable’ to the UK government.
What are the consequences of this position? Very straightforward. There will be no deal. Johnson doesn’t want one at this stage. Instead, he plans to negotiate a free trade deal after leaving. There will be a British/EU customs border in Ireland. There has to be, because the British are going to diverge from EU standards to try to gain trade advantage. All the notions the British have suggested in their ‘confidential, technical non-papers’ have already been rejected months ago by the EU.
In broader terms, it means there will have to be direct rule to enable emergency measures to be brought in here; plans to introduce it are already in train at Westminster. Unless and until DUP leverage on a British government ends, the northern Assembly and Executive are dead. Johnson and his accomplices don’t care about a Border in Ireland or the fate of agriculture and manufacturing here. Indeed, according to the Sun, Dominic Cummings helpfully explained to a Conservative minister, ‘I don’t care if Northern Ireland falls into the f***ing sea.’
Unlike Theresa May, Johnson’s people know that you can’t leave the Single Market and Customs Union and maintain the status quo in Ireland. To maintain it here has to be the “Backstop,” but not if you don’t care about a Border or the Good Friday Agreement which neither the DUP nor Johnson does.
