The Clinton Campaign Continues to Help Trump Ensure That Policy Won’t Matter in This Election
Time Magazine serves up a fascinating look at Donald Trump’s evolving campaign strategy, in which Trump and his top advisers leave little doubt that they think they can win mainly by dominating the media environment, in a way that will smash all the old rules of politics.
The piece recaps several recent episodes in which Trump was able to suck up all the media oxygen simply by being himself, and details some frustration in the Clinton camp with the same. But the Clinton team thinks that this dynamic doesn’t necessarily work in Trump’s favor, because much of that media attention is negative, such as when his attacks on a Mexican-American judge exploded across days of critical coverage. All that media focus is only deepening his hole with key general election constituencies. Besides, Clinton is breaking through at key moments, such as when she delivered her recent speech dismantling Trump as dangerously unprepared for the presidency, in part by drawing a sharp contrast between the two candidates’ policy preparedness, or lack of it.
— Donald Trump just said policy won’t matter in this election. He’s wrong., Greg Sargent, Washington Post, today
No, actually Trump’s right, because Clinton and her campaign are ensuring that policy won’t matter in this election.
Two weeks ago when the details from the Trump University deposition and other documents emerged after the judge ordered them released I thought the Trump campaign could not survive it. But as the headlines and details became a major news story Trump made his big play: the judge is biased because he is, Trump thinks, Mexican, and what he’s doing is an outrage and he should be looked into.
Voila! Gone were the headlines, and the media conversations, and consideration by the Clinton campaign (if there had been consideration) of running ads detailing these reports, about the Trump University scam operation and exactly whom it targeted, and how. Instead, the last 10 days or so have been about what Trump said about the judge.
Mission accomplished.
Early this week the Washington Post ran a lengthy article about more details from the release of the lawsuit information. The information was extensive, and the reporter had by then read most of it. As I read the article I thought, maybe this new information will break through the look-what-Trump-said-about-the-judge-because-he’s-Mexican-American loop repeated again and again because another Republican pol said something about it or because Hillary Clinton did or because her campaign released yet another comment, ad, tweet about it.
Mission continues on-track.
The Democrats are nominating someone who believes fundamentally that nothing matters unless it’s about race, ethnicity, gender or religion. She won’t change, even if she actually ventures beyond a rope line in Ohio or Michigan or Indiana and talks to a few blue-collar workers who were laid off because their manufacturing plant closed, and now work for half of their old income and receive no benefits. Some of them have voted Democratic all their lives.* And now they think Trump might be their savior.
So they’re considering voting for him, despite, rather than because of, his “Build the Wall” and “Ban Muslims.” They know about the-judge-is-biased-because-he’s-Mexican. They think it’s ridiculous. But it’s not what they care most about.
Yes, the “Mexican” judge comments were ugly. But in a different and also important way, so is what Trump University was. So are the details of that. In fact, Trump believes they’re more important than the judge comments. Which is why he made the judge comments.
Trump says, “Jump.” And everyone does. But especially Clinton does, because Trump knows what to dangle in front of her, and exactly when to dangle it.
Trump University isn’t exactly policy. But it’s bait to get into economic and fiscal policy. Or it would be if Clinton could figure out that there are some things that are already getting all the publicity needed. And some things that matter that aren’t. And that it might be a good idea to inform the public about the latter.
The specifics of what those documents and transcripts show cut to the very heart of who Trump is, just as much, and in just as significant a way, as the race and ethnicity baiting. The difference is that everyone doesn’t already know about most of them. Or know that Republican pols now know about them but also think he’ll help enact the Ryan fiscal plan.
Even that Japanese WWII soldier still hiding in a cave because he doesn’t know that the war has ended knows about the latest ethnic or racial or gender insult by Trump. But not about much else, because Trump and Clinton and her campaign, along with the news media, partner to ensure that.
____
ADDENDUM: *I inserted that link into that sentence this morning after reading the comments thread to this post. The link is to a gut-wrenching May 14 Washington Post article by Eli Saslow titled “From belief to outrage: The decline of the middle class reaches the next American town.” The town is Huntington, Ind., and it details the closure over a period of several months this year of a United Technologies plant there, which is moving its operations to Mexico although the plant has been very profitable. It focuses on one family but also mentions others. Here are the money excerpts:
As second shift finished in Huntington, several of those UTEC workers gathered at an Applebee’s that displayed construction hats on the wall. Earlier in the day, an employee had been suspended for taping a “Run for the Border” bumper sticker to one of the company’s roving robots — the biggest act of rebellion yet. A few employees had been trying to popularize a boycott of United Technologies products, and others had started using their regular 10-minute breaks to campaign for Trump in a traditionally Democratic factory. But for the most part their work was continuing unchanged, with attendance steady and factory production on the rise. They couldn’t risk losing their jobs or their UTEC severance packages, so the only way to vent was to come here, where the discussion on this night was of a country in decline.
“This is how it feels to be sold out by your country.”
“It’s pure greed.”
“They wanted to add another 6 feet to their yachts.”
…
Setser had begun looking for his next job, too, because he had heard rumors that UTEC might begin layoffs sooner than he originally thought. He had inquired about work at a local milk factory and at the General Motors plant in Fort Wayne, but both places already had waiting lists and both would likely require a shift change and an initial pay cut.
“We’re getting to the point where there aren’t really any good options left,” he said. “The system is broken. Maybe its time to blow it up and start from scratch, like Trump’s been saying.”
Krystal rolled her eyes at him. “Come on. You’re a Democrat.”
“I was. But that was before we started turning into a weak country,” he said. “Pretty soon there won’t be anything left. We’ll all be flipping burgers.”
“Fine, but so what?” she said. “We just turn everything over to the guy who yells the loudest?”
Setser leaned into the table and banged it once for emphasis. “They’re throwing our work back in our face,” he said. “China is doing better. Even Mexico is doing better. Don’t you want someone to go kick ass?”
“That doesn’t really seem like you,” she said, and for a few seconds she stared back at him, as if examining someone for the first time. The spices were alphabetized on the shelves. The family schedule was printed on the wall. Theirs was a happy home, a stable home.
You said it always evens out,” she told him.
“Maybe I was wrong,” he said, but now his voice was quiet.
“You said things just have a way of working.”
“Maybe not,” he said, because with each passing day he was seeing it more clearly. The town was losing its best employer, and all around him stability was giving way to uncertainty, to resentment, to anger, to fear.
A few days ago I read that conservative Republicans were pushing the RNC to pass a rule that would release the delegates on the first ballot. This crowd is leaning toward supporting Scott Walker for the nomination. I laughed out loud. Then I said to myself: “Yes! Please, please nominate Scott Walker.”
That itself tells you all you need to know about how highly the Republican Party itself values Rust Belt union members. They’re also the people who are now feeding Trump “scripts” to read. Literally, according to Mitch McConnell.
Not sure why so many Democrats, including Clinton and her campaign, think this is trivial–not worth talking about when you can talk instead, constantly, about the slurs Trump spews out that everyone already knows about.
And, btw, Obama won Indiana in 2008 by a smidgen. The difference? Two or three northernmost counties that border Michigan and that have ties to the UAW. They’re very white counties.
Added 6/11 at 9:46 a.m.
” Some of them have voted Democratic all their lives. And now they think Trump might be their savior. ”
Perfect issue for Hillary to leave Sanders (and Warren) in her progressive dust and Trump in her blue collar dust: make union busting a felony. Only market in which one side may use unchecked market muscle by firing the other side’s bargaining organizers — to prevent monopsony (employer, one buyer) from being equally balanced in deal negotiating (that’s “deal” as in Donald :-]) with a natural monopoly (organized employees, one seller).
DD,
No media room for neolibs debating lesser con artists!
By ‘dominating the media environment” Trumpsters won’t take up war crimes and violations of the NSA!
Who could be less qualified than a felon?
The problem with issues, like Obama, Hillary talk is not her walk.
Beverly Mann,
Your postings are always so sharp – sharply interesting.
I do think Sargent is right, ultimately. There are grownups in the room, and not just among the elites. Trump’s tactics are effective in diverting attention back to the ground of his choosing, and he’s convinced this will work for him in the general as it did in the primary. He himself has said as much. Hillary is expected to reach her $1 billion; reports now among GOP fundraisers are that Trump won’t reach a third of that, and that he thinks he won’t need it. After having trounced Krauthammer’s “best slate of delegates in a generation” in the primaries, why should he? And he did it without paying the slightest attention to the issues.
But the general is not like the primaries. In the latter all he had to do was feed red meat to the howling banshees of the base, who ate it up – and swallowed the 17 whole. Among the voters in the general are a ton of disaffected moderate Republicans and Independents with families and businesses and shared anxieties who take their lives seriously and act responsibly. Trump will not be able to get away with feeding them the same red meat. They want some answers, some direction. They want someone who is serious and will lead. They will not be satisfied with someone who attacks and belittles, who “plays” at governing. They can smell a vanity project. They will not be content simply to be members of his audience. All he has to offer is himself. He is dark. He is mean. He is selfish. He is a bully. Americans see it in him. As the campaign unrolls it will only get worse. And it turns them off.
Then there are the institutional players. It is stunning to realize the dynamics on the GOP side. The Speaker of the House of Representatives, a Republican, said his party’s nominee’s comments are textbook racism. The Senate Majority leader, a Republican, literally said his party’s nominee doesn’t know much about the issues. The 2012 GOP nominee said Trump is creating “trickle down racism.” Yet another neo-con announced yesterday he will vote for Clinton (“she is the true Republican in the race,” he said). The entire Movement Conservative establishment – Buckley’s heirs, Reagan’s heirs – are overtly hostile to the GOP presidential nominee.
On the other hand, the Democratic institutional establishment – the other group of grownups in the room — is completely united in bringing him down, including Obama, Biden, Warren, Bernie, etc., all ready to pounce, all ready to contextualize the vain and vapid stupidities of Trump on a daily basis. And all those moderates and Independents will be listening.
Trump U. is a perfect example. Yes, it’s true that Trump was able to divert attention from the details of the fraud he perpetuated – for now. (The next hearing in that case, just one of his Achilles Heels, is scheduled for the day after the end of the GOP convention.) But read the piece, also in Time, discussing Warren’s speech to the Constitution Society, which included her entire speech. She made it perfectly clear that the bigger issue than the criminal fraud case against Trump the businessman is that Trump the presidential candidate used his platform as a candidate to attack a sitting Federal judge, and was therefore undermining confidence in a fair and independent judiciary to serve his own purposes. (Biden made the same point the same day in another speech.) She also told the story of this judge – 13 years prosecuting the cartels, one year in hiding from a plot by them to kill him, his appointment by a Republican governor in CA who called him a hero – and compared his story to Trump’s – the inherited fortune, the selfishness, the greed, the bragging. This is what the grownups in the Democratic party are going to do.
Given the dynamics of American presidential elections, if you had to put your entire life savings on the line, who would you bet on?
Thanks so much, ms 57. I appreciate that.
I disagree strongly, though, that the bigger issue than the criminal fraud case against Trump the businessman is that Trump the presidential candidate used his platform as a candidate to attack a sitting Federal judge, and was therefore undermining confidence in a fair and independent judiciary to serve his own purposes.
Actually, I was appalled to read her comments, because they do indeed seem to suggest that. I almost always agree with Warren, but definitely not on this. I recognize that her speech was to the Constitution Society, but it sure would have been nicer, in my opinion and (I’m betting) in the opinion of some members of her audience if she had talked about substantive judicial (especially Supreme Court) rulings. Citizens United, the Voting Rights case, and the Supreme Court’s awful mandatory-arbitration opinions, come quickly to my mind.
She’s, I think, uniquely qualified to educate the public on the Supreme Court’s outlandish rewriting of the Federal Arbitration Act, and its effects. And sure hope she does. It would be nice if Clinton did, but I doubt it’s her thing, and I doubt that she even could explain it. (It doesn’t make for snappy soundbite, and it has nothing to do with race, ethnicity, gender or religion, y’know.)
But also very, VERY important: It’s seriously damaging to the progressive cause to push the notion that judges are beyond reproach because they’re judges. The judicial system is veritably rife with judges who are profoundly intellectually corrupt—just outright dishonest in what they do and say. That’s really important.
What Trump said about this particular judge, and why he said it, were indeed outrageous. But so is the notion that judges are beyond strong criticism and that any criticism of a judge should be seen as improper because it undermines confidence in the judicial system. Well, hell, YES, legitimate criticism of a judge, and spot-on accusations of intellectual dishonesty undermine confidence in the judicial system. As indeed they should.
Trump: Mexicans Swarming Across Border, Enrolling in Law School, and Becoming Biased Judges
By Andy Borowitz, The New Yorker
10 June 16
Unless the United States builds a wall, Mexicans will swarm across the border, enroll in law school en masse, and eventually become biased judges, Donald J. Trump warned supporters on Monday.
At a rally in San Jose, the presumptive Republican nominee said that “making America great again” meant preventing the nation from becoming “overrun by Mexican judges.”
“We don’t win anymore,” he told the crowd. “We don’t win at judges.”
While Trump offered no specific facts to support his latest allegations, he said that he had heard about the threat of incoming Mexican judges firsthand from border-patrol agents.
“They see hundreds of these Mexicans, and they’re coming across the border with LSAT-prep books,” he said. “It’s a disgrace.”
In a line that drew a rousing ovation from supporters, Trump blasted Mexican leaders for their role in the crisis, claiming, “They’re sending us their worst people: lawyers.”
“No, actually Trump’s right, because Clinton and her campaign are ensuring that policy won’t matter in this election.”
“The Democrats are nominating someone who believes fundamentally that nothing matters unless it’s about race, ethnicity, gender or religion. She won’t change, even if she actually ventures beyond a rope line in Ohio or Michigan or Indiana and talks to a few blue-collar workers who were laid off because their manufacturing plant closed, and now work for half of their old income and receive no benefits. Some of them have voted Democratic all their lives.”
Well Bev, with that kind of outlook, analysis and persistence you might actually see your dreams come true. That’s if you had the influence that some bloggers seem to have. Good thing not. You’re beginning to sound as shrill as you suggest that Clinton comes across. What you’re missing is that there are things for the candidate to focus on in the positive and things to be critical about the other candidate. Then there are the PACs that have the job of skewering the opposition at every turn and in every detail.
While I’m not thrilled that the party could find no better candidate than Clinton, I recognize that she has many strengths and staying power and visceral combativeness are two of them. The opposition, whether Trump or the Republican Party leadership in general,
are as dishonest as the day is long at the height of the summer. Clinton has to try to stay away from head to head spitting matches with the clown that now represents the focus of the opposition. Don’t fight the Trump fight. That’s what the surrogates are for. People like E. Warren are a good example. She’s not running for office and can get down in the street and brawl a bit. I wish that others like Schumer, Pelosi and Reid would start doing the same. Then the PACs should be getting as low as the facts of the Trump “empire” will allow, and there’s great depth to Trump’s dishonest and disgraceful history in the business world.
It continues to amaze me that so many Democrats claim Clinton’s “toughness,” “combativeness,” as this great plus for anyone but Clinton herself. Clinton’s certainly tough and combative in defending herself against the Republicans’ personal charges against her, and on her email mess, and the like.
But really, someone who puts her finger to the wind to see which way it’s blowing–including on such things as whether children sent here illegally from Central America by their parents for fear that they would be killed there should be sent back as an example, because that seemed to be the way the wind was blowing in the summer of 2013–isn’t all that tough about much other than defending and advancing her own interests.
And I’m not sure who you have me confused with, but I’ve never described Clinton as shrill.
And btw, I’m a woman. And I take deep, deep, deep offense at being called shrill. I have my Women’s Card in my wallet and am pulling it out to swipe it.
Please read the addendum to my post that I added a few minutes ago.
Bev:
I am withholding comment for now. I want to see how much further you go with this line of attack.
I guess the first couple of days at the Presidential campaign is enough for some people to determine that the entirety will be about negative claims as opposed to policy differences. For some people.
I am sure right now that there will be no debates between the candidates. I am sure there will be no ads about policy. There will be nothing substantial in this campaign other than the different slurs used, and scandals exposed.
And that seems to be because Sanders lost to Clinton.
I thought this kind of thing would end when the primary was over. Now I know how wrong that thought was, and the reason why.
I have spent most of the past 8 years fighting against the insanity of the Green Lanterns. I have seen how they have railed against good versus perfect, without any regard for the facts.
Now I see that there will be more Green Lanterns. Nothing will be good enough, and everything would be better if Sanders was the nominee. The next four(or at least two0 years will be as depressing as the last eight in terms of substantive discussion, let alone rallying together to actually allow the changes the Lanterns want(and so do I).
The simple truth right now is the fact that unless the Dems gain a super majority in the Senate and turn the house, the next several years will be the same as the last several years and Clinton will be roasted for it.
And that would be the case if Sanders was the President.
The Lanterns seem to enjoy screaming out “NeoLiberal” (see Cornell West’s latest proof of his declining relevance) too much, rather than actually engaging in the process necessary to change things.
It is going to be beyond depressing.
It’s hard to see how someone who is sitting on the committee of 15 to write the democratic platform can be accused of declining relevance.
The meaning of the word “neoliberal” doesn’t change whether it’s whispered or screamed out loud. It either applies or it doesn’t, and in Hillary’s case it is definitive: neoliberal in terms of the global economy, neoconservative in terms of military policy. Those who support her, by hook or by crook, support those policies. It doesn’t have much to do with Beverly’s post, but there it is.
Ms,
Please refrain from commenting on my posts and I will refrain from commenting on your posts.
I do not trust you one bit. We’ll leave it at that.
Beverly,
She didn’t say judges are beyond criticism. She said attacking a judge based on ethnicity is unacceptable. She explicitly attacked Citizens United, which in and of itself is a criticism of those judges who sit on the Supreme Court and ruled it constitutional. She explicitly attacked McConnell, Cornyn, Sessions for their ideological obstructionism. She attacked Trump for his comments.
Here are Warren’s full remarks from the event in Washington D.C.:
“Four simple words are engraved above the doors to the Supreme Court: Equal Justice Under Law. That’s supposed to be the basic promise of our legal system: that our laws are just, and that everyone — everyone — will be held equally accountable if they break those laws.
We haven’t always fulfilled that promise — but it is the absolute standard to which we hold ourselves even when we fall short.
A vital part of that struggle is the fight for a truly professional, independent, and impartial judiciary. A place governed not by politics, not by money, not by power — but by those four simple words: equal justice under law.
Three years ago, I came to the American Constitution Society to deliver a warning about how that promise is under threat.
I talked pretty bluntly about how we are losing the fight over whether our courts will remain a neutral forum, faithfully interpreting the law and dispensing fair and impartial justice, or whether rich and powerful interests will completely capture our judicial branch.
I talked about how year after year, for more than thirty years, powerful interests have worked to rewrite the law and tilt the courts to favor billionaires and giant corporations. Cases that protected giant businesses from accountability. Cases that made it harder for individuals to get into court. Cases that gutted longstanding laws protecting consumers from being cheated. And cases like Citizens United, which unleashed an avalanche of billionaire SuperPAC dollars and secret corporate money in a mad dash to tilt the rest of the government in favor of the wealthy.
Today, I’m here to update that warning. Because what we’ve seen over the past three years — accelerating over the past three months, and even the past three weeks — is alarming. Powerful interests are now launching a full-scale assault on the integrity of the federal judiciary and its judges.
This assault has two major elements. First, tearing down our centuries-old process for appointing judges. Second, viciously attacking judicial nominees, potential nominees, and even sitting federal judges, at the first sign that they might put the rule of law above devotion to the rich and powerful.
Earlier this week, I released a comprehensive report on the Republican campaign of obstruction against President Obama’s nominees. It details how Senate Republicans have delayed or blocked votes on key nominations throughout the entire Obama Presidency. The purpose of this obstruction is to hold open federal positions for as long as possible.
The purpose is to hamstring the President’s ability to protect consumers and workers, to hold large corporations accountable, and to promote equality. In other words, to undermine the fundamental principle of Equal Justice Under Law.
The centerpiece of that strategy has been a blockade of federal judicial appointments — and it’s much bigger than just the Supreme Court.
From the day President Obama was sworn in, Senate Republicans have used every procedural tool at their disposal to slow down his nominees. They spent months abusing the filibuster in a naked effort to preserve a right wing majority on the D.C. Circuit. After capturing the Senate in 2015, they have slowed judicial confirmations to a trickle.
Judicial emergencies multiply. Cases pile up. Courts are starved for help. And now the Supreme Court of the United States sits paralyzed, unable to deal with its most challenging cases. All because extremist Republicans who reject the legitimacy of President Obama are determined to make certain our courts advance only the agenda of the wealthy and the powerful.
It is outrageous — and it is up to us to fight back.
Senate Republicans, do your job. Give District Court nominees their votes.
Do your job. Give Circuit Court nominees their votes.
Do your job. Give Merrick Garland his vote!
The nominations blockade is the first part of this assault on the judiciary. But there is a second, even uglier line of attack — intimidation.
Justice demands a judiciary made up of independent lawyers who can provide insight and expertise from every corner of the profession. But Senate Republicans and their big business allies don’t like nominees whose resumes reflect insufficient devotion to the interests of the rich and powerful — so they smear them. Defense lawyers, public interest lawyers, plaintiff’s attorneys — nominees with these professional experiences are regularly slandered. Their integrity is questioned. And scores of Republicans line up to oppose them.
Senator Jeff Sessions of Alabama has attacked the integrity of several of President Obama’s nominees for having some association with the American Civil Liberties Union. Apparently being connected to with an organization whose central purpose is to defend rights guaranteed by the Constitution is an automatic disqualification. Sessions vowed that the nominations process would become “a more contentious matter if we keep seeing the ACLU chromosome as part of this process” — and he meant it.
During her confirmation hearing to be a District Court judge this year, Senator Sessions insulted Paula Xinis, a former federal public defender and civil rights lawyer who worked on cases of police abuse. He asked if she could “assure the police officers … that might be brought before your court that they’ll get a fair day in court, and that your history would not impact your decision-making.” I’ll let you guess how many times Senator Sessions has questioned a fancy corporate defense lawyer, asking if they would assure victims of fraud or people poisoned by toxic wastes or people injured by shoddy products or employees fired illegally because they tried to form a union — if they would get a fair day in court. Judge Xinis was rated unanimously well-qualified by the American Bar Association.[2] Yet she was barely confirmed, with nearly three dozen Republican Senators voting no.
This approach is corrosive to the legal profession. It is corrosive to our courts. It is corrosive to the rule of law. It is the responsibility of every lawyer — no matter who their clients are — to stand up and fight back.
The attacks around the current Supreme Court vacancy have been even uglier. At one point, Senator John Cornyn of Texas — the #2 Republican in the Senate — announced that any nominee — ANY NOMINEE — put forward by the President would be beaten like “a piñata.” And his right-wing billionaire and big business allies have made good on that threat.
When rumors circulated that Jane Kelly, a highly respected federal judge, might — might — be under consideration, the Judicial Crisis Network — a shadowy right-wing group financed with dark money from the billionaire Koch brothers — ran television ads attacking her for her service to the nation as a federal public defender.
The President eventually nominated Merrick Garland — a judge so revered for his professionalism that days before he was announced, Republican Senator Orrin Hatch called him a “fine man” who the President could “easily name” to fill the vacancy. And what happened?
Scores of Republican Senators refused to even meet with him. The Judicial Crisis Network started spending millions of dollars on television ads demeaning him.
The NFIB — a right-wing Washington lobbying group that claims to speak for small businesses but is swimming in cash from conservative billionaires — announced that it would oppose Garland’s nomination because “[i]n cases involving federal agencies, the Judge ruled in their favor 77 percent of the time.” Every lawyer in this room knows that federal law requires judges defer to most agency actions. But apparently, it doesn’t matter anymore whether Judge Garland follows the law — what matters is that he doesn’t bend the law to suit giant corporations.
Judge Garland is not a politician. He is a judge with an unimpeachable record of putting the law first. And for that sin, he faces a nonstop, national campaign of slime. He faces historic disrespect from the Republicans who control Senate. It is despicable. It must end. We must end it.
The goal is to tilt the game, and it’s working — 86% of President Obama’s judicial nominees have worked as a corporate attorney, a prosecutor, or both, while less than 4% have worked as lawyers at public interest organizations. Professional diversity is missing from the federal bench — and justice suffers for it.
But even disqualifying judges based on their professional background isn’t enough for Donald Trump.
Trump tells everyone who will listen that he’s a great businessman, but let’s be honest — he’s just a guy who inherited a fortune and kept it rolling along by cheating people.
When that’s your business model, sooner or later you’re probably going to run into legal trouble. And Donald Trump has run into a lot of legal trouble. Ah, yes — Trump University, which his own former employees refer to as one big “fraudulent scheme.”
Many of the Trump University victims ended up deep in debt — sometimes tens of thousands of dollars with no way to pay it off. Trump’s employee playbook said to look for people with financial problems — because they make good targets. He even encouraged his salesforce to go after elderly people who were trying to create a little financial security.
I taught law for more than 30 years. Ask any lawyer in America and they’ll tell you that sounds like fraud. And that’s exactly what Donald Trump is being sued for — fraud, and worse, for targeting the most vulnerable people he could find, lying to them, taking all their money and leaving them in debt.
Some of those people are fighting back. Because in America, we have the rule of law — and that means that no matter how rich you are, no matter how loud you are, no matter how famous you are, if you break the law, you can be held accountable. Even when your name is Donald Trump.
But Trump doesn’t think those rules apply to him. So at a political rally two weeks ago, and almost daily since then, the presumptive Republican nominee for President of the United States has savagely attacked Gonzalo Curiel, the federal judge presiding over his case.
“We are in front of a very hostile judge,” Trump said. “Frankly, he should recuse himself. He has given us ruling after ruling, negative, negative, negative.”
Understand what this is. Trump is criticizing Judge Curiel for following the law, instead of bending it to suit the financial interests of one wealthy and oh-so-fragile defendant.
Trump also whined that he’s being been treated “unfairly” because “the judge … happens to be, we believe, Mexican.” And when he got called out, he doubled down by saying “I’m building a wall. It’s an inherent conflict of interest.” He’s personally directed his army of campaign surrogates to step up their own public attacks on Judge Curiel. He’s even condemned federal judges who are Muslim — on the disgusting theory that Trump’s own bigotry compromises the judges’ neutrality.
Like all federal judges, Judge Curiel is bound by the federal code of judicial ethics not to respond to these attacks. Trump is picking on someone who is ethically bound not to defend himself — exactly what you’d expect from a thin-skinned, racist bully.
Judge Curiel can’t respond — but we can. We can tell his story.
Gonzalo Curiel was born in Indiana — not Mexico — to immigrant parents who worked hard their entire lives and were handed nothing.
He went to Indiana University for undergrad and then for law school.
For thirteen years, he worked as a federal prosecutor in Southern California, fighting the Mexican drug cartels as a leader of that region’s narcotics enforcement division. He collaborated with top Mexican officials to disrupt the culture of corruption between the Mexican government and the most powerful and deadly cocaine smugglers in North America.
The effort was impressive. On both sides of the border, money launderers, street gangs, and assassins were arrested and prosecuted.
But that success came at great cost. Witnesses were killed. Mexican officials were murdered. Judge Curiel himself was the target of an assassination plotand spent the better part of a year living officially in hiding, under the protection of U.S. Marshals.
Later, after his years of service as a prosecutor, Judge Curiel was appointed to the California state courts by a Republican governor who calls him an “American hero.” He was nominated to the federal bench by a Democratic president, and confirmed by a voice vote in the Senate.
That’s what kind of a man Judge Curiel is. What kind of a man is Donald Trump?
Donald Trump says “Judge Curiel should be ashamed of himself.”
No, Donald — you should be ashamed of yourself. Ashamed for using the megaphone of a Presidential campaign to attack a judge’s character and integrity simply because you think you have some God-given right to steal people’s money and get away with it. You shame yourself and you shame this great country.
Donald Trump says “[t]hey ought to look into Judge Curiel because what Judge Curiel is doing is a total disgrace.”
No, Donald — what you are doing is a total disgrace. Race-baiting a judge who spent years defending America from the terror of murderers and drug traffickers simply because long ago his family came to America from somewhere else. You, Donald Trump, are a total disgrace.
Judge Curiel is one of countless American patriots who has spent decades quietly serving his country, sometimes at great risk to his own life. Donald Trump is a loud, nasty, thin-skinned fraud who has never risked anything for anyone and serves nobody but himself. And that is just one of the many reasons why he will never be President of the United States.
And in spite of these shameful attacks, nobody doubts that Judge Curiel will continue to preside over Trump’s case as a fair and neutral judge. Because Judge Curiel is a lawyer with integrity — and that’s what lawyers with integrity do.
Judge Curiel has survived far worse than Donald Trump. He has survived actual assassination attempts. He’ll have no problem surviving Trump’s nasty temper tantrums.
When first asked if he would condemn Trump’s comments about Judge Curiel, Senator Mitch McConnell, the Senate Republican leader, said, well, gee, you know, “Donald Trump is certainly a different kind of candidate.”After days of pressure, McConnell finally said that attacking the judge is “stupid” and that Trump should “get on script.”
“What script is that, exactly? And where do you suppose Donald Trump got the idea that he can personally attack judges, regardless of the law, whenever they don’t bend to the whims of billionaires and big business?
Trump isn’t a different kind of candidate. He’s a Mitch McConnell kind of candidate. Exactly the kind of candidate you’d expect from a Republican Party whose “script” for several years has been to execute a full-scale assault on the integrity of our courts. Blockading judicial appointments so Donald Trump can fill them. Smearing and intimidating nominees who do not pledge allegiance to the financial interests of the rich and the powerful.
Trump is also House Speaker Paul Ryan’s kind of candidate. Paul Ryan condemned Trump’s campaign for its attacks on Judge Curiel’s integrity. Great. Where’s Paul Ryan’s condemnation of the blockade, the intimidation, the smears, and the slime against the integrity of qualified judicial nominees and Judge Garland?
Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell want Donald Trump to appoint the next generation of judges. They want those judges to tilt the law to favor big business and billionaires like Trump. They just want Donald to quit being so vulgar and obvious about it.
Donald Trump chose racism as his weapon, but his aim is exactly the same as the rest of the Republicans. Pound the courts into submission to the rich and powerful.
Senator McConnell recently said he’s “pretty calm” about Donald Trump because “what protects us in this country against big mistakes being made is the structure, the Constitution, the institutions.” That is 100% Our Constitution does not sustain itself. The rule of law does not sustain itself.
There have always been those with money and power who think the rules shouldn’t apply to them. Those who would pervert our system of government to serve their own ends. They have tried it before and they are trying it now. All that is required for the rule of law and our independent judiciary to collapse is for good people to stand by, and do nothing.
Now is not the time to stand by. Now is the time to stand up. Now is the time to say no. No. Not here. Not in these United States of America.
We are not a nation that disqualifies lawyers and judges from public service because of race — or religion — or gender — or because they haven’t spent their entire careers representing the wealthy and the powerful.
We are the nation of John Adams — a lawyer who defended the British soldiers after the Boston Massacre, and went on to serve as President of these United States.
We are the nation of Abraham Lincoln — a lawyer who defended accused killers, and went on to serve as President of these United States.
We are the nation of Thurgood Marshall — a lawyer who fought for racial equality, and went on to serve on the Supreme Court of these United States.
We are the nation of Ruth Bader Ginsberg — a lawyer who fought for gender equality, and went on to serve on the Supreme Court of these United States.
That is who we are. And we will not allow a small, insecure, thin-skinned wannabe tyrant or his allies in the Senate to destroy the rule of law in the United States of America.
It’s time again to fight — as we have in every generation — for those four simple words that define the promise of our legal system. Equal justice under law.”
I don’t think it gets any better.
Wowww. Thank you for posting this. It’s wonderful.
Funny, though, that somehow the only thing that has made the news–the ONLY part of that speech–is the part about Trump’s COMMENTS ABOUT JUDGE CURIEL’S ETHNICITY.
THAT is disgusting. But ever so par for the course.
I should note, though, that I’m no Merrick Garland fan, and that I actually hope he doesn’t get on the Court. My fear is that immediately after the election, which Clinton WILL win–PLEEEEESE, HILLARY CLINTON, RUN A SMARTER CAMPAIGN, SO THAT I CAN RELAX A BIT–and which will turn control of the Senate to the Dems in January, the Senate Repubs will waste not a moment in confirming him.
We have compromised enough too date. Merrick is a compromise we do not need.
EMichael,
I am free to make any comments I wish to make, as are you.
ms 57:
Actually you are not quite that free. Harassment is harassment. EMichael politely asked you to not comment to him anymore. I would hope you would respect his or her request.
Man, woman, black, white, student, worker it doesn’t matter what group you are from as government policy, fraud and corruption does matter greatly. If you do not believe me you should be reading PaulCraigRobert.org more often and you will get a much more educated opinion of why government policy is so important…For a better opinion of Wall St. fraud and corruption take a look at WallStreetonParade.com and you will soon see the revolving door of fraud and corruption. It has been made very clear to me that many voters are uneducated on the important issues and think the presidency is a popularity contest just by what the news media is covering.
Run75441
I do not harass anyone, and the comment I made addressed what he said but was not addressed to him. I did not comment to him but to the community.
ms 57:
Your prior comment was random and I gave it direction. Not a discussion or an argument. Respect the poster’s request and we will be fine. You are intelligent and I like reading your words. Enough said.
Run75441,
The GOP is not the only party to use SC nominees for politics. The Democrats have been using Merrick’s nomination for their own purposes, but you know that.
She points to GOP obstructionism on his nomination — which really is unprecedented and unbelievable — to make a fiery case against their obstructionism on Obama’s judiciary appointments and his agenda at large.
But it has been a very, very long time since I read such an intellectually coherent political attack not just on the GOP but on their masters, “the rich and powerful.” It was blistering, man. She is a righteous warrior for the middle- and working-classes. A year and a half ago my deepest desire was for a Warren-Sanders ticket. Lost opportunities…
The problem with running only on policy is that Trump has no consistent policy positions. If Hillary attacks him on this or that policy proposal (and she should), he is likely to deny that he believes in it. He has already changed his position on so many policies so many times, I have certainly lost count. Such an approach can end up going nowhere.
Barkley:
I understand your point. When the opposition has no policy or no firm policy, answering with policy statements does no work. One (or a PAC) could concentrate on Trump’s constant change of positions similar to a chameleon changing color to match their environment. The old “flip-flop.”
Barkley, I’m by no means suggesting that Clinton run only on policy. Making sure that everyone knows the specifics of the Trump University scan—what the salespeople were told to say to get people to increase their credit card limit or use their retirement savings—is not policy per se, but it sure as hell undermines Trump’s claim that he makes money the old-fashioned way and therefore knows how to run the economy, and his separate claim that he’s really for the little guy.
Same with this jaw-dropping investigative exclusive in USA from June 9: http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/elections/2016/06/09/donald-trump-unpaid-bills-republican-president-laswuits/85297274/?AID=10709313&PID=4003003&SID=ipd0e0vhv700o8yv00dth. It’s received no attention whatsoever, best as I can tell.
And then there’s this stunner in today’s NYT that might actually be getting some attention were it not for the outrage in Orlando during the night: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/12/nyregion/donald-trump-atlantic-city.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=first-column-region®ion=top-news&WT.nav=top-news&_r=0. Again, these aren’t policy issues but they will sink Trump’s campaign if they ever get actual widespread attention. Trump got extremely lucky in that something so major happened to grab the news on the day that that article was published on the front page of the Times. Although, who knows? Trump surely would have made some new outrageous racial, ethnic or gender comment today that would have gotten all the attention—not only from the media but also from Clinton and her campaign.
But my point on policy is that Trump is assuring the Republican establishment that he will help them enact THEIR fiscal and regulatory policies—which haven’t changed in decades other than to get ever more extreme. We know what they are. Paul Ryan announces them regularly.
And the fact is that Trump does have a fiscal-policy plan on his website. It’s been there since last Oct., unchanged. It’s the Ryan plan on steroids.
Clinton needs to educate the public about these—Ryan’s plan, which Trump is promising him he’ll help enact, and the plan posted on his website. She needs to force Trump to say whether or not Ryan is right that Trump will help enact that plan. The way to do that it to tell the public what that plan is. Once they know, and know that Trump says he’ll help enact it, and the Rust Belt blue-collar voters that Trump needs if he’s to have a prayer of winning will start running the other way. Fast.
Run75441,
I’m assuming that you are the moderator here. As long as you’ve been forced today to address issues of incivility or disrespect, I’d like to bring to your attention to something I’ve noticed in the short time I’ve been here, which is the way some of Beverly Mann’s postings have been received. She is not likely to say anything on her behalf; she is a woman, and thus well understands that the same rules don’t apply, that to complain about being treated disrespectfully is not a luxury allowed to her and will likely result in some kind of comment pointing out how, ‘ah, you’re just a woman, of you can’t take the heat, etc., etc., etc. – don’t be shrill, don’t raise your voice, etc., etc.’
I have noticed how dismissively some of her posts have been received, with a level of venom or vitriol that others don’t receive when they post and which smells to me like gender bias. The ink is barely dry before some weigh in on an attack that seems personal. It is disturbing. She’s a big girl and can speak for herself, but I’ve noticed it. For future reference…
Hillary Clinton’s attack on Trump’s foreign policy incompetence suggests to me that she’ll campaign effectively.
JackD
I agree. HRC is not a dumb woman and has demonstrated she can articulate the issues clearly and under stress when questioned on Benghazi.
Ms
thanks for posting Warren’s speech.
but i don’t think you can count on the people being fed up to vote for Hillary. the people are hurting. hurting people don’t think, they strike out. and they are being told to strike out at “the government” by the people
who are hurting.. and to be sure those same people are running the government they blame for the hurting.
and, just to note: Wells Fargo follows the same business plan as Trump U: defraud the customer to maximize profit. Maybe Warren understands this. Not sure about Hillary.
Coberly,
Helluva speech, no?
The questions you raise are perfectly apt, fundamental.
All across the developed world – the US, Europe – citizens are rejecting what is broadly called the neoliberal agenda: globalization. The Brits face a referendum very soon on whether to withdraw from the EU. Major militant strikes are taking place across France. The Far Right has mobilized the electoral forces to take over governments in Austria, France, the Nordic countries, Poland and elsewhere. Populist politicians like Trump are on the rise everywhere. The major political institutions who signed on to, organized and passed measures leading us down this neoliberal path, like the Democrats and Republicans here, are being deserted by the citizens for having betrayed them. When Congress has an approval rating of 13%, one of those factoids that seem to float by on the stream but are deeply significant, they ought to take it seriously. Faith has been lost in the democratic institutions that in principle exist to serve the people but in reality these days serve only the interests of the smallest minority of the citizenry. The democratic center is collapsing, and you need only look at what happened in the 20’s and 30’s in Europe to understand the dangers that presents.
Has Hillary learned anything from Bernie’s campaign? Is she listening to the people? Is she listening? Or is she simply interested in winning an election and being President? I don’t know. But I do know that the voices in the Democratic Party that are ascendant are those of Warren and Sanders, who get it.
Above and beyond everything else right now, what I do know is that Trump and the rest of his Tea Party yahoos must be taken into the nearest electoral dark alley and have their heads kicked in.
Ms
written in 1919 by William Butler Yeats:
Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
on the other hand Christopher Isherwood wrote Goodbye to Berlin in the 1930’s. The movie made from it “Caberet” showed what happens when head stomping becomes the solution du jour.
Congress has always had low ratings.. mostly because the politicians blame everything on “the government.”
Coberly,
Wonderful to meet a fellow lover of poetry, especially of Yeats. He was exactly who I had in mind when I used the phrase.
Cheers, brother…
Coberly,
Regarding our earlier discussion:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/richard-brodsky/bernie-is-debs-and-dr-kin_b_10393418.html?utm_hp_ref=politics
For each disaffected GOPster there are 2 or 3 disaffect mule partiers, like me. HRC is DNC machine! The machine is at best immoral, at worst dangerous.
She needs to send Warren out as an attack miniature poodle!
On war, neoliberal economic, concern for state information, etc Clinton proves to be always legal in the most amoral definition of “legal”.
I am voting GOP congress so she gets impeached early and often.
ilsm
please don’t do that. voting GOP sends a message that the people are fine with unregulated “capitalism.” they are not okay, but they blame it on “the government, ” and so you get more of the same.
i myself am fine with capitalism for the most part, but “unregulated” just means rule by the criminals. the dems… Hillary… are not much better, but their rhetoric is better and eventually to some extent their rhetoric forces them to once in a while do the right thing.
“For each disaffected GOPster there are 2 or 3 disaffect mule partiers, like me”
Islm
Fortunately for those of us that live in the real world, this is not close to being true.
You are much more “special” than you think.
I hit a home run!
Thanx Cob and Emike!
Beverly
Trump U IS a policy issue. Fraud is the dominant business model in the United States today. That included Wells Fargo and Goldman Sachs.
if you want to help the poor, doing something about fraud might be a good place to begin.
Second, don’t count on rust belt workers understanding policy. they believe the lies they are told by the people who also tell them what they want to hear.
“Trump U IS a policy issue. Fraud is the dominant business model in the United States today.”
That is true.
“if you want to help the poor, doing something about fraud might be a good place to begin.”
That, too, is true.
Far more important than policies in this campaign will be “values.” The reactionaries in the GOP would love nothing more than a malleable Presidential candidate to bend to their program or to believe that Trump will be malleable. No evidence suggests, and his history and personality substantiate, that he bends to any ideas or opinions but his own. A man who has run his own company for decades with no board or stockholders to answer to gives orders; he doesn’t take them.
This fellow takes a self-congratulatory victory dance over the still warm bodies of 53 murdered people. One with a narcissistic personality disorder demands attention at all times, without regard to anyone else or any other circumstances. He lacks all semblance of empathy or compassion.
Asked which candidate ‘better understands the problems of people like you,’ 47 percent of registered voters in a late May Washington Post-ABC News poll chose Clinton, while 36 percent named Trump. On the question of who better represents ‘your personal values,’ 48 percent chose Clinton, and 37 percent went with Trump.
Policies are ideas. Trump isn’t interested in ideas; he never has been. Trump’s only policy is Trump. Folks may line up to listen to one expound on ideas all day long. But as it becomes clear during that day that the speaker is a liar, a braggart, a bigot and a selfish creep who talks on and on only about himself, reasonable and decent people will wander away with disgust.
Are Americans reasonable and decent?
Ms
the problem here is overgeneralization. it depends on which Americans at what time under what circumstances.
but i do find that over 30% of Americans think Trump represents their views and values very scary.
Coberly,
I think the 30% is just about right — hardcore and unchanging. It’s not the happiest thought but it’s better than the reverse, and definitely not a number guaranteed to accomplish a victory in a national campaign. And it is impossible to think that the 70% are going to be won over or change their minds.
Ms
looks like “48%” from here.
and i don’t remember what % of Germans thought Hitler represented their views and values before he got elected.
Coberly,
I will cop to a naïve belief in the essential goodness of people.
I can point to the throngs of people who lined up to give blood in Orlando yesterday as evidence of that goodness.
I will admit they can be swayed to act against their own interests, and even convinced to support the pursuit of evil by demagogues during periods of mass suffering. But Trump lacks the “skills” of Hitler, and the US, thanks to Obama, ain’t Germany in the ’30’s.
ms
yes, people are mostly decent. even the ones who support Trump are mostly decent.
and America is not 1930’s Germany.
still, 30% thinking Trumps views and values are theirs scares me.
but then, people always scare me.
bu
I’m not any more scared than I was in learning that W still had a base of support around 25-30% at the end of his 2nd term. Even after Katrina, after the US atty scandal, after the disastrous Secy of Defense Rumsfeld was forced to resign, after the insane panic of the financial crisis, he still had a significant number of people in this country who thought everything was just fine.
Many of them lived all around me in Texas.
This election seems like more of an unpopularity contest,
>hell of a way to chose a president – which one is the least corrupt, contemptable
Kam:
If you believe the multiples of investigations which have “yet” to make a case for intent, you would be correct. The House did the same in the nineties and spent $millions with nothing to show for it.
Welcome to AB.