James Fallows says that the recent revelations of widespread sexual abuse and harassment by powerful people in so many areas of work share one significant feature with the revelations in the new book Fire and Fury about how all the people working in the White House or who have come into contact with Donald Trump have known all along that he is utterly unsuited to the job. In both cases, the situation was an ‘open secret’, in that insiders knew what was going on and yet did nothing about it, except whisper the truth among themselves and warn those whom they happened to know personally.
He says that the open secrets culture that keeps the truth within the cognoscenti and does not sound a wider alarm is dangerous.
Who is also in on this open secret? Virtually everyone in a position to do something about it, which at the moment means members of the Republican majority in Congress.
They know what is wrong with Donald Trump. They know why it’s dangerous. They understand—or most of them do—the damage he can do to a system of governance that relies to a surprising degree on norms rather than rules, and whose vulnerability has been newly exposed. They know—or should—about the ways Trump’s vanity and avarice are harming American interests relative to competitors like Russia and China, and partners and allies in North America, Europe, and the Pacific.
They know. They could do something: hearings, investigations, demands for financial or health documents, subpoenas. Even the tool they used against the 42nd president, for failings one percent as grave as those of the 45th: impeachment.
They know. They could act. And they don’t. The failure of responsibility starts with Mitch McConnell and Paul Ryan, but it doesn’t end with them. Every member of a bloc-voting majority shares responsibility for not acting on their version of the open secret. “Independent” Republicans like Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski share it. “Thoughtful” ones, like Ben Sasse and Jeff Flake. Those (in addition to Flake) who have nothing to lose electorally, from Bob Corker to Orrin Hatch. When they vote as a majority against strong investigations, against subpoenas, against requirements for financial disclosure, and most of all against protecting Robert Mueller and his investigation, they share complicity in the open secret.
We are watching the political equivalent of the Weinstein board paying off the objects of his abuse. We are watching Fox pay out its tens of millions to O’Reilly’s victims. But we’re watching it in real time, with the secret shared worldwide, and the stakes immeasurably higher.
It has been clear for some time that the Republican party is now on a “Damn the torpedoes! Full speed ahead!” mode. They know that they may have just this year as the window where they still control both branches of congress and the presidency. They will try to ram through everything on their wish list: lower taxes for the wealthy, dismantling of regulatory agencies that protect the public from the rapacity of corporations, packing the federal judiciary with extreme ideologues, and dismantling the social security system.
They are not going to risk that ambitious agenda by pointing out that Trump is intellectually and temperamentally incompetent to be president and thus a danger to the nation and the world. They will continue to whistle nonchalantly that everything is just fine until the system collapses entirely at which point they, like those who surrounded the sexual abusers and enabled them to continue because of their silence, will try to shift the blame to everyone else for having done nothing to stop the rot. It is hard to say what that trigger that the end has arrived will look like, given their willingness to overlook pretty much anything so far,
The problem with open secrets is similar to the one where when everyone is responsible for something, then no one is responsible.
And conversely, when no one is responsible for something, everyone is… or should be.
It’s coming up to a year since the Donald was sworn in. What’s the state of the nation and world?
Let’s (cherry) pick a few indicators:
What is the unemployment rate in the US today, compared with 12 months ago?
What is the Dow Jones industrial average today, compared to 12 months ago?
How are ISIS doing lately, compared to 12 months ago? Or Syria, generally?
How is the situation in North Korea, compared to 12 months ago? (For instance: 12 months ago, what were the chances of a Nork athlete at the Winter Olympics? How was communication between the North and the South?)
How many foreign wars has the President initiated?
I’m interested to see a list of indicators (cherry) picked to make him look different to how an honest look at those figures does. Anyone?
A mushroom cloud?
sonofrojblake@2,
No, I’m not interested in playing your silly games. But I’m interested to see you’ve returned to relaying Trumpery propaganda, as you did during the election campaign.
I can understand why those observations made you uncomfortable to the point that you have to find some weasel way of not responding to my question. They had the same discomfiting effect on me when I heard them last week, from the mouth of a comedian on a BBC radio comedy show. I wanted to say “Well, yes, but…”, but I literally couldn’t think of any objective piece of information about life in the USA that would work as a comeback. I was hoping that someone who actually lives there, or at least knows more than me about it, would be able to come up with something.
Seriously: during the election campaign, I made my contempt for Donald Trump absolutely clear. I made it clear that, IF I had a vote, I’d hold my nose and give it to Hillary, hoping she’d perhaps die of some horrible painful disease a month after being inaugurated or something and passing on the Presidency to someone less warmongery and who could more convincingly impersonate a human. What seemed to annoy people, however, was that I confidently predicted Trump would win, and I totally get that it really boils your piss that I was right. This time last year people were making “mushroom cloud” style jokes all the time. Trump was portrayed as an imminent danger to world peace, and was constantly compared to Hitler. It seemed a little hysterical at the time.
I’m absolutely serious in this question: WHAT HAS CHANGED? By what objective measures is life in the USA or elsewhere worse now than it was a year ago as a result of Trump’s presidency? I need this information, if only for my own peace of mind. Yes, I believed and baldly stated that Trump would win the Presidency, but I was very, very clear that I considered that a BAD thing, and the American electorate a bunch of appalling morons for permitting it. And for me to go on believing I was right, and that it was and is a bad thing, I really need someone to tell me some stuff, because the cognitive dissonance is starting to itch for me like it obviously is for you.
Let me offer some suggestions: what’s the crime rate doing? The murder rate? The MASS murder rate (since that’s a peculiarly USAian hobby)? Up, or down? I don’t know. Please tell me more people are being murdered with guns in the USA than before, the narrative doesn’t work otherwise.
Is police violence against minorities up? Please say yes. Hate crime spiking? Say it’s so. Increase in sexual assaults/decrease in successful prosecutions? More people dying of preventable diseases? Infant mortality up? Armed forces recruitment higher? Armed forces veteran injury rate increased? There must be something egregious that Trump has done beyond irresponsible tweets. I honestly want to know, because when Simon Evans listed the facts I talked about on the News Quiz last week, it really got my goat.
@ 2 sonofrojblake
How are ISIS doing lately, compared to 12 months ago?
Amazing how effective the Russian Air Force is. And what about those Iranians?
Let’s not forget Hezbollah.
@2 sonofrojblake
Huh??? Didn’t you yourself admit to “(cherry) picking” the “indicators” you listed? I would have thought you would understand that cherry picking is not honest. I would have thought you would understand that correlation does not imply causation. (What does Trump being elected have to do with the Olympics being in South Korea? That likely has a lot more to do with “a Nork athlete at the Winter Olympics” than anything Trump has done. Why should we really care about the Dow Jones industrial average? Are we supposed to believe it strongly correlates to how the economy is doing? I don’t. I could go on, but, for the sake of time, I won’t.) I would have thought you would understand that causes won’t necessarily have an immediate impact. Impacts of climate change come to mind. This has been decades in the making. Further delays in addressing the issue due to Trump’s denialism shouldn’t be expected to be immediately noticeable. Hell, this raises another issue in that we can’t do a controlled experiment. The only way we could really know is if we had a parallel earth where Trump didn’t win in which we could compare. As we do not, you’re essentially asking for near the impossible when you ask for “objective” indicators. Even if, for example, Trump were to start a war with North Korea, we cannot objectively know that this wouldn’t have happened under Clinton. At best we can speculate it would not have.
That all said, if you are truly dealing with cognitive dissonance, then the issue seems to be with your expectations that disaster would occur within a year of Trump being in office. I didn’t have that expectation and, surprisingly*, I don’t have issues with cognitive dissonance. As you yourself note, “Trump was portrayed as an imminent danger to world peace, and was constantly compared to Hitler. It seemed a little hysterical at the time.” OK, so why are you having cognitive dissonance over the fact that there hasn’t been imminent danger??? You look to be contradicting yourself…not surprising from someone with cognitive dissonance, I suppose. Perhaps this is evidence that you are indeed struggling with dissonance. Did you end up accepting those suggestions that Trump would be an “imminent danger,” though you had thought them hysterical? If so, then I again suggest that you ditch that belief of Trump being an imminent danger, accept that such suggestions were indeed a bit hysterical, and maybe that will resolve your issue…or at least ease the dissonance.
* That was sarcasm, by the way.
@Leo Buzalsky: then does it really make any difference who wins the election at all? Why should we care who is president if there is no way of telling whether life is any better or worse under them?
For contrast, One could look at the UK in 1999 and in 2012. Two years of Labour government brought the minimum wage and peace in Northern Ireland. Two years of Tory government ( which is what the Coalition was effectively) brought food banks, free schools and tripling of student tuition fees. I confirm we say that after the first two year period life was better, and after the second it was worse. Not worse than some hypothetical alternative universe, but definitely worse than it had been before
a) I’ll give you a single example of deterioration: Trump’s decision to move America’s embassy to Israel to the city of Jerusalem -- along with the blunt statement that Jerusalem is Israel’s -- led to riots and unrest in the middle east. Additionally, the more extremist clerics gained a whole bunch of rhetorical / political ammunition, while the more moderate and placatory ones have had their authority eroded thanks to Trump’s naked hostility towards the Arab world. Thus the portrayal of Trump being a threat to world peace has been vindicated.
b) The fact that you are experiencing cognitive dissonance does not mean the rest of us are. Please don’t project.
That is the one I could think of too, yes. Although in fairness you are talking about riots and unrest among people known to riot and even kill each other over cartoons. Nothing affecting US voters?
You asked for an example of negative change in life “in the USA or elsewhere” and I gave you an example. Your response was essentially ‘yes yes but aside from that one (which I totally knew already)…’ along with a shift of the goalposts.
Fair enough -- I did at that.
No, they didn’t make me uncomfortable in the least. They afflicted me with an unpleasant mixture of boredom and nausea. Others have dealt adequately with their stupidity, so I’m fortunately spared any feeling of obligation to respond at greater length than this.
Actually, modifying my #11, boredom and nausea are an uncomfortable combination. But not the kind of discomfort of having my expectations disconfirmed that you obviously meant. Millions of people in the USA have of course suffered, but as they are mostly immigrants threatened with deportation, and those with the most immediate reason to fear the far right, I’m not surprised they didn’t occur to you.