Be The Power
by Shelton Bumgarner
@bumgarls
I’m really old to do this, but I need a new job desperately and for the time being a part-time job would do perfectly, so I’m going to at least attempt to apply for a job at Crooked Media. But we’ll see. It’s more about me needing to just psych myself up for looking for a job more than anything else.
mulling applying for a job at Crooked Media https://t.co/Aq0G2nfleq
— Shelton Bumgarner ? (@bumgarls) May 16, 2018
by Shelton Bumgarner
@bumgarls
It goes without saying that we live in surreal times. As Trumplandia makes it seemingly inexorable march through the American political landscape, some pretty surreal things have happened. Chief amongst them being the center-Right’s Never Trump movement has almost completely joined forces with the center-Left’s Resistance.
So, for the duration, at least on Twitter, you have a lot of people who would otherwise disagree with each other, agreeing one one thing: Donald Trump is a menace to the Republic that both sides hold dear. It’s a very surreal moment in our nation’s history and a testament to not only to not only the weird nature of Trumplandia but to the power of America’s civil society.
Trump is 70 years old, and simply isn’t going to change. In other words, you can put ice cream on crap, but in the end you still got crap at the bottom of the ice cream cone. So, the warping of our political debate is going to continue for the foreseeable future.
Meanwhile, I have found myself listening to a lot of podcasts and while I listen to some you would expect of someone like me, namely the pods of liberal leaning Crooked Media, I also find the pods associated with the Lawfare blog really insightful and addictive. I sometimes have no idea what they’re talking about, but often I can glean a little bit of insight into how dangerous Trump is to the Republic from a legal standpoint.
None of this is going to change as long as Trump is president. It’s only going to get more and more surreal. It will be interesting to see how long the weird alliance between Never Trump people and The Resistance will continue once Trump is no longer president. Given that that maybe be significantly longer than any of us may hope, the political ramifications of that alliance may be potentially more powerful than we imagine right now.
By Shelton Bumgarner
@bumgarls
In this era of Trumplandia, I find myself turning to podcasts for some relief to the insane world we now live in. So, I have been listening to Crooked Media’s Pod Save America on a regular basis. So, because I’m a “friend of the pod” I thought I’d try to start doing a regular post about the show.
The first thing we have to note is that it seems as though Crooked Media is selling out to the man when it comes to its advertising at the beginning. It used to be that the ads at the beginning of Pod Save America were really funny and loose. But I have started to notice that they’re getting a little bit more professional.
I don’t know if it’s because they are starting to make money or if they’re just taking the whole endeavor more seriously.
They open this show talking about the Trump’s foreign trip. They talk about what a disaster it all was. “Didn’t want to lecture the dictators, did want to lecture the democratic leaders,” is one of the quotes. They also talk about how Obama would have gotten a huge amount of shit for even the littlest amount of what Trump has done. They also talk about Trump’s refusal to re-endorse Article 5 of NATO as well as the Paris Climate Agreement.
“Posture is the most important thing,” says Jon Lovett when it comes to NATO and Article 5. They talk a lot about how Trump seems oblivious to how the American press keeps mentioning how Trump sleeps to slobbing the knob of Putin. They also mention that Trump maybe be signaling that maybe that Putin can take a big chunk of Ukraine if he likes. Which, I think, we need to keep an eye on that. Ukraine could be huge in the coming days.
There is some talk about how Trump’s talk of leaving the Paris Climate Accords. It is interesting that our friends Axios is brought up. “If he pulls out of Paris, this it means its hopeless,” is the general consensus about how the power of the “New York Cucks” may not be really there.
“You’re either a part of this monstrosity or you’re not,” is another good quote from this general moment.
Taking up my view that we need to stop falloning Trump, Lovett says we’re “in a major crisis.”
It is their discussion about Jared Kushner that makes me so angry and makes me wish Crooked Media would produce a blog like Gawker. They talk about all the dump, possibly criminal things that Kushner alledgly did. The thing that everyone is talking about, and thinking about — what was the deal with using Russian “clock and dagger bullshit” that Kushner wanted to do.
“It’s a backchannel to keep things from America,” Lovett says.
The possibly that the backchannel is maybe a way to get Trump to lower the sanctions against Russia at some point in the future. They also talk about the difference between Obama’s Iranian backchannel and Kushner’s efforts. “It’s unprecedented,” is the quote at this point about what Kushner wanted to do.
“It’s all a little to convenient and weird,” is another quote of note.
“It’s so awful, you don’t want to believe it happened,” Jon Faveau says.
The pee tape comes up, with Jon Lovett saying the Pee Tape would be better than if the Russians have some sort of fiduciary power over the administration.
“None of it makes sense without leverage, none of it,” Lovett says about Trump and Russia.
There was a lot of discussion about Kushner getting high-level security information is something they talk about at length. “It’s a risk question,” is the quote on the issue. As well the lack of a denial by Trump’s administration when it comes to the Kushner back channel. They also talked about how complicit the “real” journalists of FOX News are at this point.
“We’re not doing the basic things to protect our country,” is the quote.
The failure of the Vichy Republicans is also the subject of discussion. Lots of picking on Paul Ryan is done, but there is also discussion about Sen. Bob Cooker being enthusiastic about the Russian-Kushner backchannel issue. They talk about the hypocrisy of Sen. Cooker when it comes to Trump versus Obama. They note that Sen. Cooker is up for re-election in 2018 and they think maybe the reason for Sen. Cooker being so fawning about Trump could be he wants to win reelection by not “losing single base vote.”
There was so discussion about the need for a new message on the part of the Democratic Party. This is something I really agree with, but I don’t know what it could possibly be. They mention that the Democrats shouldn’t “over correct” about issues that really matter to the base.
They also talk about how policy is being clouded over by people hoping that the malfesence of the Trump Administration may bring it down. I really agree with this take on things. But I there are no easy answers. I don’t know what path The Resistance should take.
The issue of trying to get people who otherwise wouldn’t vote to vote for The Resistance is something they talk about, which I think is pretty important at this point. The difference between The Resistance and Trumplandia is so great at this point that. The disillusionment of the average person who just doesn’t want to vote is a very important issue.
“What’s next,” is an issue that is addressed and I think that’s really important.
There is an interview with Sen. Elizabeth Warren which you can listen to for yourself. If I get positive feedback for this, I might do something similar for the entire podcast. I really like Crooked Media and I really, really wish they would start an anti-Axios blog like Gawker. They really do a good job with their pods and it would be nice to have a go-to blog for the Trumplandia Era.
Shelton Bumgarner is the editor and publisher of The Trumplandia Report. He may be reached at migukin (at) gmail.com.
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