Contents
- Part I: The Republican Travelogue to Hell
- Part II: Trump’s Special Master Lawsuit Backfires
Part I: The Republican Travelogue to Hell
Tim Miller’s Why We Did It: A Travelogue from the Republican Road to Hell opens with a splash.
America never would have gotten into this mess if it weren’t for me and my friends.
He describes his task in writing this book:
Why We Did It aims . . to dig through the wreckage of the party I once loved and come to understand how so many of my friends allowed something that was so central to our identity to become so unambiguously monstrous. And why they had continued to do so once the monster became uncontrollable.
Miller entered politics in 1998 at the age of 16. For him, politics was a game and the goal was to win. If this required nefarious means, he told himself that the ends justified those means:
I saw myself as someone who could channel the dark arts of politics to positive ends. If the more rational, reasonable, compassionate side of the party was going to win the battle for the soul of the GOP, we were going to have to do so as slash-and-burn executioners. We were also going to have to throw some elbows on behalf of the conservative base so they would know we had their back. At least, that was the story I told myself.
Here is how he describes the Republican primary voters:
[The] most vocal constituents, the Republicans who turn out to vote in primaries . . . don’t give a shit about incremental progress or the plight of their fellow man or a serious and nuanced response to a deadly pandemic anyway. Boring. They are only made upset if a politician doesn’t satiate their desire to see hot-fire slams savaging their perceived enemies, further incentivizing the pols to prioritize this fight over all else.
And here’s how the Republican elites inflamed the angry mob (the highlights are mine):
You’ll also see how the Republican ruling class dismissed the plight of those we were manipulating, growing increasingly comfortable using tactics that inflamed them, turning them against their fellow man. How often we advanced arguments that none of us believed. How we made people feel aggrieved about issues we had no intent or ability to solve. How we spurred racial resentments and bigotry among voters while prickling at anyone who might accuse us of racism. And how these tactics became not just unchecked but supercharged by a right-wing media ecosystem that we were in bed with and that had its own nefarious incentives. . .
Even moderate Republican candidates like McCain were forced to adopt racist and anti-immigrant sentiments to appease the mob:
[McCain] had transitioned from taking a confrontational stance with the audience to using the politician’s “comforting lie.” The comforting lie centers the mob’s feelings, their anger, their passion, over the uncomfortable realities of governing. It was a small change but a meaningful one.
Did any of this bother Miller?
. . . you might assume I would have had some pause about becoming a professional partisan axe thrower in service to these extremists. Nope. Not a one. Honestly.
It was actually a bit unnerving how openly Miller describes how he and his friends lied and stoked racial resentment. I’ll go farther than that. For someone who watched for decades as Republican leaders riled a bloodthirsty racist mob, it was disturbing. You know those moments when Shakespeare’s Richard III basically tells the audience, “Now watch me do evil!” Reading the first half of Miller’s book was like that.
Miller jumped ship when Trump won the nomination in 2016. He voted for Hillary Clinton, worked hard to sink both Trump’s presidential campaigns, and has been an outspoken critic of what the Republican Party has become.
During the Trump era, he puzzled over his pals who lined up to kiss Trump’s ring. To understand them, he looked inward because he figured he knew something about soul-sellers. He then categorized the various character failings which caused former colleagues to go full MAGA.
He eviscerates them, one and all.
Elise Stefanik is a “striver” high on the drug of ambition willing to jettison personal integrity for the thrill of moving with the powerful. Sean Spicer is a social nerd who thought bowing to Trump would make up for his lack of personal charisma. “Enablers” include Jeff Sessions (who “has a lust for the blood of immigrant children”) and the “slithery” Stephen Miller.
I won’t lie. That part was fun to read. However, I wasn’t persuaded by the theory that these slithering enablers and strivers knew all along they were lying, and then those who went full MAGA did so because of character flaws. Everyone has character flaws so this doesn’t really explain how a major political entirely lost its moral compass.
To understand the radicalization of the Republican Party, we need some history. (Some of the next few sections will be familiar to longtime readers, but I think it offers valuable context for Tim Miller’s observations.)
How the Party of Lincoln Became the Party of Trump
At the time of the Civil War, the Democratic Party was the party of the Confederacy and rural America. Democrats wanted a limited federal government because they knew the North, if given the chance, would end slavery. To keep the industrial north (and the federal government) weak, they vetoed federal funds for canals and highways and other infrastructure.
In 1855 the Republican Party, called the “Freedom Party,” was born as an anti-slavery, pro-industry, pro-federal government party. Its anti-slavery stance made it pro-labor and pro-Civil Rights. (Well, as pro-labor as anyone was back then.)
The Republicans gave us our first income tax. After the Civil War and the crushing defeat of the South, the Republicans had the power to pass pro-industry legislation including the building of infrastructure. The building of infrastructure allowed industries to grow rapidly. As a result, the nation’s wealthiest and most powerful men (they were always men) shifted from plantation owners to railroad and business tycoons.
At the beginning of the 20th century, the Republican Party split into two factions: The conservative pro-industry faction and the liberal civil rights faction. By the 1920s, the pro-industry faction took control. The Republicans dropped racial equality and labor rights from its platform and became the party of business and free-market capitalism.
The Democratic Party base at the time consisted of Southern whites, agricultural America, and factory workers.
Neither party championed racial equality. This ushered in a long period of relative harmony between the parties—they respected each other’s “differences” because they weren’t that different. Both parties were ruled by white men.
In the 1920s, President Harding (a Republican) deregulated industry and repealed taxes. Money flowed into the pockets of business tycoons. Unregulated banks freely lent too much money. It was the age of business. Meanwhile, laborers worked long hours in dangerous jobs at poverty wages.
Then, in 1929, it all came crashing down. First, the market crashed and then came the Great Depression.
Enter, stage left, Franklin Delano Roosevelt and his pro-labor New Deal. The New Deal was a series of legislation intended to improve the conditions for laborers and curb the worst impulses of capitalism through federal regulation. The New Deal thus expanded the federal government. The Republicans pushed back. They had the infrastructure they needed, they didn’t want labor rights, and they didn’t want to be regulated.
The New Deal gave us our first strong middle class, but Blacks and minority communities were still left out. The United States still basically lived under the 19th century patriarchy: a social ordering with White men at the top and Black women at the bottom.
Then, in 1954, everything changed: The Supreme Court declared racial segregation unconstitutional, which ignited the Civil Rights movement, which in turn ignited the modern women’s movement.
In the 1960s the Democratic Party embraced civil rights. Lyndon B. Johnson signed into law the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act. As a result, Former Confederates and white supremacists (for obvious reasons) grew uncomfortable in the Democratic Party.
Meanwhile, the Republicans, as the Conservative party of business, faced what Harvard political scientist Daniel Ziblatt calls the conservative dilemma, which goes like this:
- Conservatives represent the interests of a few wealthy people.
- Their economic policies are unpopular.
- So how can they win elections with economic policies that are unpopular and hurt their own constituents?
The Republicans solved this problem by luring into their party two large demographics: (1) the segregationists and others who were angry over the rapidly diversifying American electorate, and (2) the Christian Nationalists (White evangelicals), who had previously been spread out over both parties.
Nixon talked about being “tough on crime” (which was code for putting Black men in jail). Reagan talked about “welfare queens,” cynically playing into ugly stereotypes of Black women.
By the 1990s, the switch was complete. The Democratic Party was the party of urban America and minority communities. The Republican Party coalition, led by the free-market “elites,” was the party of rural America, white supremacists, and gun-toting militias who armed themselves against what they called a “tyrannical” federal government.
Put another way: The Trump-DeSantis-Fox-Newsmax GOP is a backlash from the the Civil Rights and women’s rights movement which entirely changed the United States, moving us—for the first time—toward a true multi-racial democracy.
Now let’s take a closer look at the mob that Tim Miller and the other free-market “elite” Republicans enflamed.
The Paranoid Style
Historian Richard Hofstadter, in his classic 1964 work, conducted a thorough review of American politics from before the founding of the nation through McCarthyism and noticed a pattern among a small impassioned minority on the fringes of the political spectrum.
He called their behavior the “paranoid style” in politics.
Those embracing the paranoid style believe that unseen satanic forces are trying to destroy something larger to which they belong. According to Hofstadter, the “something larger” to which they belong is generally phrased as “the American way of life.”
They “feel dispossessed” and that “America has been largely taken away from them and their kind.” They are “determined to repossess it and prevent the final act of subversion.” They therefore adopt extreme measures. They will stop at nothing to prevent what they see as an impending calamity.
By the time of McCarthyism and Barry Goldwater in the 1950s and 1960s, Hofstadter noticed that these fringe elements were moving into mainstream politics.
Political psychologists call the paranoid style the “authoritarian personality.” Those with this personality type:
- defer to established authorities
- show aggression toward out-groups when authorities sanction that aggression
- support traditional values endorsed by authorities
- respect toughness and power
- exhibit rigidity
- are cynical
- have a low tolerance for complexity (which includes diversity and globalization).
In the words of political psychologist Karen Stenner, those with this personality type prefer sameness and uniformity and are vulnerable to conspiracy theories and theories that include magical thinking.
Stenner (and other researchers) have concluded that about 33% of the population across cultures has this personality. She also says people are born with this predisposition.
Slavery was authoritarian. The 19th century patriarchy was authoritarian. Racial segregation was authoritarian. These eras cover about 80% of American history.
OK, so. If only about a third of the population has an authoritarian disposition, how is it that 80% of our history was dominated by authoritarianism? The answer is simple: Only white men were allowed to vote, and all white men benefitted from a system that put a class of men and all women below them on the hierarchy.
The Authoritarian Dynamic
Those with authoritarian personalities can be good citizens. They will embrace institutions and follow rules when those institutions and rules are endorsed by their authority figure.
However, when riled by what political psychologists call a normative threat, they can become cruel, tolerate cruelty in others, and show aggression toward out-groups.
A normative threat is something that threatens sameness and order.
After the Civil Rights and women’s rights movements, Republican elites were able to rile the mob with normative threats, like this: “Unworthy people [members of minority communities] are trying to replace you and take what belongs to you!”
Yale professor Timothy Snyder coined the word “sadopopulism” to describe how the Republican elite keeps the support of their voters even as they adopt policies that hurt those voters. They follow a simple formula, that goes like this:
- Identify an “enemy” (homeless migrants, minority communities, Democrats, etc.)
- Enact policies that create pain in their own supporters (tax cuts for the rich, take steps eliminate social security and access to health care)
- Blame the ensuing pain on the “enemies”
- Present themselves as the strongmen to fight the enemies
Then Trump, a sadopopulist, came along and perfected the art of creating normative threats, which ultimately resulted in this:
The Cycle of Radicalization
Tim Miller, in his book, Why We Did It, The Republican Travelogue to Hell, talked about how Republican candidates were “in bed with” a right-wing media ecosystem that had its own nefarious incentives. Yale political scientist Jacob S. Hacker and Berkeley political scientist Paul Pierson explained that this happened because Republican politicians outsourced voter mobilizations to right-wing media outlets.
At first, the Fox-GOP partnership was a boon to GOP candidates. Fox turned out voters, and the voters voted Republican. But outsourcing voter mobilization had drawbacks: Soon FOX and other right-wing media outlets were exerting control over GOP officials, who relied on Fox to turn out voters. Meanwhile, Fox personalities cater to their audiences, which moves them further toward extremism. In a cycle of radicalization, the media outlets then force GOP officials to adopt more extreme policies.
The GOP similarly outsourced voter mobilization to the NRA and white Christian evangelicals, which forced the Republican leaders to cater to these groups.
By the time Tim Miller entered politics, Republicans understood that the only way they could win elections was to rile an angry racist mob.
Riling a mob was precisely what worried the ancient and 18th-century political philosophers, who wondered whether democracy could work. Their concern was that without an educated population, the winner of an election would be the person who could con the largest number of voters—or stir them to rage and anger through manipulative lies.
In the Republican mea culpas, I see a blueprint for what not to do: Don’t enflame a mob.
And what to do:
- Constantly check the moral compass.
- Call out all untruths, half-truths, and simplifications.
- Work on educating the population.
- Bring down the temperature. Don’t be like them.
- Offer voters a choice. One party has to be the party that represents rational thought and rule of law.
The Appellate Court (11th Circuit) notes that Judge Cannon is not following the normal procedures, but instead, is carving out special procedures. For example, Trump said, “This isn’t a rule 41 return of property motion but I want the special master to return my property” and Cannon did some twists to accommodate this, for example, by calling his motion a “hybrid motion.” (Hybrid motions are not a thing.)
The appellate court noted that Cannon’s ruling appointing a special master rested on flimsy grounds, for example, she justified her ruling by stating that “a special master might be perceived to be more impartial than the Privilege Review Team.”
Here is how they criticize her failure to explain why Trump needs a special master to review the classified documents:
“And the district court made no mention in its analysis of this factor as to why or how Plaintiff might have an individual interest in or need for the classified documents.”
Next comes some real judicial snark. The 11th Circuit said district courts assume equitable jurisdiction only in extreme cases, as when a government showed “callous disregard” for a defendant’s rights. Since Cannon conceded that didn’t happen, the analysis can stop right there — but the court went on for another 11 pages listing all the other ways that Cannon was wrong. For example:
“For our part, we cannot discern why Plaintiff would have an individual interest in or need for any of the one-hundred documents with classification markings.”
When you present an argument to the appellate court, everything should be discernable. Here they adopt the DOJ’s language about the whole classification thing being a red herring:
In any event, at least for these purposes, the declassification argument is a red herring because declassifying an official document would not change its content or render it personal. So even if we assumed that Plaintiff did declassify some or all of the documents, that would not explain why he has a personal interest in them.
In explaining that Trump would suffer no harm should the criminal investigation proceed, the court said:
“No doubt the threat of prosecution can weigh heavily on the mind of someone under investigation. But without diminishing the seriousness of that burden, “if the mere threat of prosecution were allowed to constitute irreparable harm . . . every potential defendant could point to the same harm and invoke the equitable powers of the district court.”
That would give most people in Trump’s situation a few sleepness nights.
Judge Cannon has been put on notice
Now Judge Cannon knows that if she deviates again from procedures in an attempt to show special favor to Trump, the 11th Circuit will reverse her decision and offer a public reprimand.
Judge Cannon amended her order basically making it impossible from Trump to appeal to the Supreme Court
Thursday morning, Judge Cannon amended her initial order (the one that appointed a special master) entirely removing the classified documents from her order. This basically killed Trump’s ability to appeal the 11th Circuit’s decision to the Supreme Court because there was no longer an underlying order. So even if Trump got the Supreme Court to overturn the 11th Circuit decision (which wouldn’t happen) Trump still wouldn’t have any relief.
Trump would have to appeal Judge Cannon’s amendment, and it’s clear that the 11th Circuit would reject the appeal, and Trump wouldn’t get a temporary stay, so the appeal would do him no good.
Why did she amend her order?
My guess is that she didn’t like being overturned on appeal (a very public humiliation, given that this is such a high-profile case) and it was clear from the way the 11th Circuit framed the issues that the Supreme Court would not touch this one.
Judge Dearie’s Case Management Plan
Also on Thursday, Judge Dearie released his case management plan for the 11,000 documents not marked classified. It’s here and it’s totally fun to read because Dearie is not having any of Trump’s nonsense.
First, he offers Plaintiff a “final opportunity” to raise any factual disputes as to the accuracy of the DOJ’s “Detailed Property Inventory”, but he must do so in the form of a declaration or affidavit. In other words, Trump has to swear under penalty of perjury that there is an inaccuracy in the DOJ’s detailed property inventory.
It’s a put-up or shut-up order. Recall that most of the justification here is that the DOJ and FBI can’t be trusted. Dearie says, “Okay, put specific inaccuracies in writing and sign under penalty of perjury.”
Dearie says that any disputes will be resolved in an evidentiary hearing (meaning he will follow real procedures).
The two parties, the DOJ and Trump, were given a single day to agree on a vendor and enter a contract for document handling. (So much for trying to use this for delays). Then he lays out the procedure for Trump to challenge documents for any of these (my comments in red):
- attorney work privilege
- executive privilege that prohibits dissemination of the document within the executive branch (they won’t be able to do this so the DOJ will get everything)
- the document is a presidential record within the PRA (meaning it goes to the National Archives)
- the document is a personal record within the PRA
But this is on a document-by-document basis (on a rolling basis) and Plaintiff has to include “a brief statement explaining the basis for the designation.”
After Trump asserts any of the above, first the parties “meet and confer” to work out any differences. Within 7 days, any disputes that can’t be resolved get submitted to Dearie.
If Trump and the DOJ have a dispute over whether the property is personal, Trump has to explain why he can’t submit a normal rule 41 motion to the magistrate that approved the search warrant (which is what is supposed to happen.) So what’s very likely is Trump says, “This is my personal property but the DOJ says they need to keep it,” and Dearie says, “Go submit a 41 motion to the magistrate judge who issued the warrant because he’s in a better position to evaluate whether the documents fall under the purview of the warrant.”
The plan also contains an explanation of the expenses that will show up on Trump’s invoice. (Trump wanted to split costs with the DOJ. The DOJ said that Trump should pay because he wants this. Cannon said Trump pays, so he has to pay the entire bill.)
Dearie needs to make a few hires, including a former judge at $500 per hour, and staff members. He may also need to hire expert consultants. Any disputes that Trump can’t resolve with the DOJ will cost him extra money because he has to pay the consultants. So he has a huge financial incentive not to dispute anything.
Finally, Dearie reminds Trump that failure to pay would subject him to court sanctions.
I suspect Trump was primarily worried about the documents marked classified. Those are the documents for which he has the most criminal liability. That’s why he’s making all that fuss about “classified.” But the classified documents have been entirely removed from the special master’s review. The DOJ can continue its criminal investigation with those.
So now Trump must pay for a special master to look through everything else while the DOJ continues a criminal investigation of the docs that matter.
Trump’s lawyers tried to slow down the process. In this case plan, Dearie sped up the process. It looks like everything will be wrapped up in October.
Another reason this all makes Trump’s venture a waste of time and his money. I think Trump had another aim in bringing this lawsuit: To discredit the DOJ and FBI, but Dearie isn’t going to help him do that, and after that appellate thrashing, Cannon is highly unlikely to overrule Dearie.
Yet another reason: Trump is soon to be a defendant in a criminal case and all the stuff he has been saying can (and will) be used against him. This is why defense lawyers tell their clients to shut up.
Finally, the 11th Circuit case taking Cannon’s ruling apart was cited by a federal court in Minnesota when denying relief to Mike Lindell (the pillow guy) who had his phone seized by the FBI as part of the investigation into the events of January 6. Lindell sued to get his phone back. The court told him no, and included this quotation from the 11th circuit ruling: “It is a familiar rule that courts of equity do not ordinarily restrain criminal prosecutions.”
So the 11th Circuit’s reasoning for denying Trump’s silly special master lawsuit was used by another federal court to deny relief to Trump’s buddy and co-conspirator, Mike Lindell.
A follower on Twitter asked:
Don’t know how case law happens but is Trump. vs. US (Trump’s special master lawsuit) establishing new case law?
Given how the 11th circuit ruled, it is establishing a precedent that hurts people in Trump’s position and helps the DOJ. District court rulings are never governing precedent for other courts. Those are the lowest courts. Other district courts can look to see what they did in an advisory capacity, but only appellate rulings create precedent. This is because lower courts are obliged to follow the rulings of higher courts. So the 11th Circuit (an appellate court) ruling now governs all courts below it. Because the Supreme Court is the highest court, when it creates a rule all federal courts must follow it, and when it rules on the Constitution, all courts must follow it.
“I work all day long. I tell you anytime a mail carrier, delivery person, squirrel, pigeon, personal walking a baby carriage or other danger comes near the house. So why don’t I get the good stuff?”
Thank you for the rundown on Tim Miller’s travelogue. I think all these “tell all” books are too little, too late. These guys did significant damage to the country, and as Miller claims, they didn’t have any pause in doing so. That kind of ruthlessness and disregard for the people of this country should be a wake up call to everyone. That so many people are taken in by it is terrifying.
And Trump’s legal mess – I have to admit that I am getting a perverse enjoyment in seeing him disintegrate given all he’s intentionally done to put himself where he is. The thing is that there is likely danger to come from that. Once he truly has nothing to lose – his revenge attempts could be even more unhinged aided by his most delusional supporters. Thom Hartmann wrote an interesting piece (https://hartmannreport.com/p/is-something-called-narcissistic) on what he calls “Narcissistic Collapse” to describe how Trump’s disintegration could evolve. It shouldn’t stop the DOJ and state judicial systems from going after him for all of his criminal acts that can be proven in court, but it could get pretty ugly along the way.
Thank you, Teri! Your explanations are so very beneficial. I truly appreciate the clarity you bring to all of this! I also appreciate the other great sources of information so I can better understand important history/background contributions to the present situation. You are a treasure!
I feel better now. Thank you.
Wow. Add the suit filed by New York AG Letitia James, and Donald Trump had a very bad week.
Don’t you hate it when you controversial canine behavior is devilishly cute? It’s very hard not to reinforce with smiles or laughter. ❤️
Do you suppose JJ needs a referral to a good appellate attorney?
This is a masterful explanation of (i) the origins of the “modern” GOP/MAGA and (ii) the rapidly collapsing house of deception & stalling tactics Trump has used to great effect. Thank you! https://bit.ly/3r3gURg
I’ve been doing the Litigation Disaster Tourist thing on some of the Trump filings. The excellence of the DOJ and Dearie filings have been a delight.
It strikes me that an example of Narcissistic Collapse is Putin, throwing untrained people at Ukraine.
That isn’t a term I’ve heard, but an action I’ve experienced when a colleague lost control of his life when his wife finally left, so he shot himself in a revenge killing in their living room.
I grew up in a Trump like family (suing everyone and themselves) where it was considered hilarious (in scare quotes) when a subpoena got served on your birthday, and I had to see the really tragic outcome when “collapse” met “dementia”. It was bad. So bad.
Your dog has earned the good stuff
I feel like I owe tuition and fees after the education I just got on American political history. Thank you Ms. Kanefield. You’ve also provided the most clear and easy to follow explanation of the whole Trump/Cannon/DOJ bamboozlement I’ve ever found. Thank you again.
Thank you, Teri, I love reading everything you write in your letters and updates!
My question: Why is the playbook of Lee Atwater which included Stone and Manafort not part of the history of the republican party?
Terri, you are single-handedly relieving our chronic heartburn with every post and tweet! Thank you.
This piece in particular, is important, in our opinion. We want to share it with the world. Would you consider posting it to your Substack account for posterity (just the REALLY important posts like this).
Thank you so much. You’re wonderful, perceptive, and your views are vital to all of us at this time.
It was a joy to see the Appellate Court’s ruling being cited the very next day in another case against another insurrectionist. Trump is creating precedent at light speed to destroy himself and his kind.
Thanks for this extremely clear and thorough outline of just how we got here.
Thank you for this explanation. I always look forward to reading your well thought out assessments.
Teri, considering the “trashing” the 11c gave Cannon, I wonder if she really believed they were going to see her reasoning and uphold her ruling? Or was it a Hail Mary pass? Or was she blind to her own bias towards Trump?
Because I was trying to fit it all into a limited number of pages, so I had to select what to include.
I deleted my substack account. I don’t think there was any advantage to posting in both places.
A long time ago, I came to believe that most people think they are doing a good job. I believe Cannon believed every word of her decision: Trump, a former president, was searched by the FBI, so it was a good idea to add an extra layer of court supervision so the public could be “reassured” that the DOJ was following correct procedures.
I have a very cynical view of her position. When she wrote in her opinion that the Court should provide “at least the appearance of fairness” to Trump, implying that the FBI and DOJ were engaged in a conspiracy against him I did not think that she was at all serious.
No one can go back and change the past. Tim, like some others, has fully acknowledged and accepted responsibility for the wrong he did and has apologized about 1,247,963 times. He’s now doing everything he can to fight against the darkness.
Patrick, I edited this down a bit to keep it polite 🙂 I hope you don’t mind.
i second Scott’s comments. Thank you Teri! you rock.
It gets pretty crazy listening to the TV pundits express shock and awe at Trump’s antics. They’re SHOCKED, SHOCKED. They’ve never seen anything like this before. Well, I guess that’s cuz they aren’t old enough. Thanks for the calmness that comes from seeing things from a historical perspective.
I’m grateful for all the effort you put into these explanations.
I lived through the 80s and 90s, and suffered “friends” of about Tim Millers’ age who, like Miller got swept up in the rise of right-wing media – Fox News, Rush Limbaugh etc. These “friends” were not political operatives, just ordinary people of a particular generation who grew up during the rise of a political movement.
By contrast, I grew up in the 60s and 70s, and got swept up in the glorious, expansive zeitgeist of that time – “the Age of Aquarius” (I’m sure you remember it). I often thank God I wasn’t born five or ten years later, because I know I could easily have become a monster like Tim Miller or worse. The capacity to be a monster is within each of us, and environment is everything.
I also thank God that I witnessed the shocking change from “the Age of Aquarius” to “the Age of Greed”, and saw how movements rise and fall, typically within a generation or two. We’re at or nearing such a point now.
It’s significant to me that this knowledge of how we got here – as told by dozens of authors, from Hofstader to Miller, and beautifully summarized here by yourself – has been out in the public space for some time now. The dots have been connected by many, many people, and I feel that a new movement is building, using this knowledge, consciously or unconsciously, to fight back.
Back to the 80s and 90s – this was a decade of being bewildered by the rising right wing, a shocking counter-reaction to the 60s and 70s that preceded it. I even listened to Rush Limbaugh for awhile, until he said stuff that finally made me realize who he was and what he was selling, and I never listened again. At this time, everyone was coming to grips with this, trying to sort out where they belonged, or if they belonged at all – the beginnings of the polarization that’s in full expression today.
And so movements go through phases – starting with a charismatic figure like Reagan, who exuded optimism and positive charm (“Morning in America”), and who attracted many good, well-meaning people (I personally despised Reagan). They then morph into their demise – sunny Ronald Reagan has long been displaced by Trump and his ugly mob, and the many confessionals / expositions of “how we got here” appear in the public space. That’s one way to know that the cycle is over, its end is imminent.
It’s been a wonderful week, legal news-wise, thanks for the dissection / exposition. Thrilled that Judge Cannon’s nonsense got no traction, and that Team Trump’s nomination of Dearie is not what they expected. Trump with his Jedi DeClassification powers appears as desperate as Putin trying to draft millions into his horror show, with long lines of men fleeing the country, another brain drain. Thanks to last week’s post, I watched “My Name is Pauli Murray”, and was amazed. A really important film.
“So grab some ☕️ (mine is vanilla caramel)”
Mine is from coffee I roasted a couple of days ago. *BIG* difference in flavor…Starting to read now.
Incredible. Thank you for the best how it happened and how it’s still happening because nothing makes sense in terms of critical thinking. Which is why I have trouble understanding feeding the hand that bites you. (you knew I was a snake…)
“I work all day long. I tell you anytime a mail carrier, delivery person, squirrel, pigeon, personal walking a baby carriage or other danger comes near the house. So why don’t I get the good stuff?”
Neighbors 350′ away have a Great Pyrenees who alerts them to my being outside. 🙁
Anyway, the devolution of the Republican Party has been an interest of mine for several decades. Your post here convinced me not to bother reading Miller’s book and to write a too-long-for-a-comment soap box diatribe (well, reaction anyway). It’s one page long. If you’re open to reading it, email me. Either way, editing this or not publishing it is fine.
Occam’s Razor is useful here. For me, it is much easier to believe that she wants to please her benefactors and she believes them to be Republicans. I doubt she sees that party as moribund, as moribund it must be. So she sees her future as being aligned with them and is thus motivated to not see the treason.
Thank you. Well written. I followed a somewhat similar path. Thanks also to Teri for her wonderful summaries and updates.
During the week, I look forward to Nicolle and Rachel. On Sunday, I look forward to you. Thanx!
“How often we advanced arguments that none of us believed. How we made people feel aggrieved about issues we had no intent or ability to solve”
This frustrates me, because it makes mockery of the whole concept of democratic politics. People should advocate for causes they believe in, and believe will make the city/state/country better. What Miller describes is nihilism in the pursuit of of power.
Thank you. This is incredibly helpful in understanding how we got to this point. I follow the amazing Heather Cox Richardson and read about this kind of thing all the time, but you still made it all a lot clearer for me.
I understood that Republicans and Democrats essentially switched places in the 20th century, but never really got a good sense of how that worked till now.
If it’s actually true that Cannon “believed every word of her decision” then she’s even more of a lackwit than I had previously suspected. Which actually makes some sense. TFG probably would want to put someone who was both inexperienced and not overly bright in that position on the assumption that he could ben them to his will.
In which case, he was right. But also too short-sighted to realize that it would accomplish nothing to do so. Which is entirely consistent with his compulsive behavior. This is a guy with no impulse control, as he has demonstrated repeatedly.
Thankfully, the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals prevented the insanity which had been ordered by Judge Cannon from happening as truth and justice prevailed.
Thank you Teri once again for an excellent report on Tim Miller’s book as well as the explanation of recent events with Trump’s special master fiasco. It is so great to have you as a resource and I even used your explanation (giving you full credit, of course) about the impact of Judge Cannon removing the classified docs from her special master order after the 11th Circuit issued its ruling to help my relatives understand the impact. You’re one of my top go-to people right now on Twitter.
Appreciated –
Having just watched the first episode of American Holocaust, reading about Tim Miller’s confession and having watched this 40+ year use of racism and devision of American against American, I’m even more frightened and alarmed. Hitler was put in prison once, then rose to absolute dictator. We have to be ever so informed and diligent from here on out. Thank you for this post. I’m going to share it far and wide.
Since the time of Gingrich, I’ve been wondering what the Republicans are thinking. They invoked populism to create a well armed mob, practiced in the use of weapons of war which they fetishize. That mob is angry, has a limited attention span, and has been carefully immunized against persuasion. It’s been cynically pressed into the service of the very same elites they viciously attack. They have been doing so with the ill-considered expectation that they will continue to be able to direct and control it.
Hubris always gets carried away and brings down avenging anger. I wouldn’t mind witnessing that but for how dangerously destabilizing it is.
.
If you read her actual opinion, not commentary about it, it seems from her tone and phrasing that she thought she was being reasonable.
Just found you, what an excellent piece to familiarize myself with your writing, thank you. That most baleful of curses hold true- “May you live in interesting times”- and while it is true that these times are interesting I for one am encouraged by the course of it all, because this is how change happens, genuine, deep, meaningful change. We are on the cusp of history shaking/shattering evolution in us as a species as we become aware of our impact as technology connects us laterally in a manner never imagined. It is difficult to discern history as it happens, it is best served cold from a distance for any clarity to emerge but we are most definitely going through right now. As ever, our best chances and greatest comfort will come from going through together. I hope to hear from you on the other side.
P.S. I don’t think it’s a contract. 😉
https://twitter.com/Teri_Kanefield/status/1574900717860503552
If you agree to my follow up:
https://twitter.com/bruckorb/status/1574900952343007233
*THEN* we’ll have a contract. 😀
You’re preabsolved! There we go. Valuable consideration. (for anyone happening onto this exchange, Bruce preabsolved me for any errors in my Tweets.)
Excellent writing of the history of the parties and analysis of current Trump court craziness. If you find the time to write that chapter about Atwater and Stone, it would be amazing reading. You keep me sane! I will be sharing this post with many.
Having now read Tim Miller’s Why We Did It “travelogue,” I am once more indebted to your work here. No one else puts such attentive, fact-based, logic-driven, non-ideological information together, to help calm the appetite for getting this whole Darkness behind us, in hopes that we can get back to moving Forward.
Miller’s book sickened me a bit, as I read along. Yes, he writes with a good range of wit and humor and word-play. But he describes a whole, huge bunch of people, all supporting a whole range of horrible acts, too-much of which continues to this day. How do Trump-Republicans say their version of the post-Nazi German, “Nie Wieder”? Sadly, I believe it sounds more like, “See you November 8th.” Yet-Dark Actors, still in Dark Times, indeed.
I had the same feeling. I had a hard time reading it. I compared the experience to watching Shakespeare’s Richard III.