An addendum to the last part of the Campaign Promises Retrospective series:
With his baseless claims of widespread voter fraud rejected by dozens of judges and GOP leaders, President Trump has turned to a ragtag group of conspiracy theorists, media-hungry lawyers and other political misfits in a desperate attempt to hold on to power after his election loss.
The president’s orbit has grown more extreme as his more mainstream allies, including Attorney General William P. Barr, have declined to endorse his increasingly radical plans to overturn the will of the voters. Trump’s unofficial election advisory council now includes a pardoned felon, adherents of the QAnon conspiracy theory, a White House trade adviser and a Russian agent’s former lover.
Members of the group assembled in the Oval Office on Friday for a marathon meeting that lasted more than four hours and included discussion of tactics ranging from imposing martial law in swing states to seizing voting machines through executive fiat. The meeting exploded into shouting matches as outside advisers and White House aides clashed over the lack of a cohesive strategy and disagreed about the constitutionality of some of the proposed solutions. …
In [the place of relatively mainstream Administration advisors such as White House Counsel Pat Cipollone], Trump has welcomed figures from the political fringes who have offered him optimism and ideas for how to stay in power. Their brazen proposals have rankled some of the president’s aides and allies, who have warned that attempting to invoke the military or challenge states’ election processes through executive power would violate the Constitution and backfire politically, according to officials who, like others, spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal strategy. [WaPo]
Anyone who wishes to contend that Trump has hired the best must now attempt to justify the appearance beside Trump of the likes of Giuliani, Sidney Powell, MacEnany, and even worse figures who have little respect for democracy – but a hunger for power.
But the striking feature for me is that Trump does not stare hard reality in the face and deal with it. Instead, he seeks those who say what he wants to hear, without regard to the quality of the source. In this, he’s emblematic of the Fox News viewers who flock to Fox News not because of excellence, but because it tells them what they want to hear – especially its editorial side – such as that the election was rigged.
The recent walk-back of Fox News‘ Lou Dobbs’ claims in that arena must have been quite a shock to them.
I have to wonder how many Fox News viewers will find in the loss, and despicable post-loss behavior, of President Trump an allegory for their own behavior – and how they should modify it.
And that doesn’t mean moving on to OANN and NewsMax, who are vying to replace Fox News in the affections of the conservative viewer. It means seeking facts, not lies, opposing viewpoints and not precious coddling.
President Trump didn’t seek out and hire the best of the best for his Administration. He sought and hired those who shared his predilection for conspiracy theories and amateur ideas of America’s place in the world – and how we should behave.
And we’ve been paying the price for that in prestige and lives.
