The Corrosion of Conservatism: Why I Left the Right (2018)

By Max Boot 

Conservative columnist and military historian Boot immigrated to the US from the USSR when he was only six.  He writes of how he came to love his adopted country, a nation that was anti-communism, supported human rights and seemed optimistic and inclusive.  Writing for his school paper, and later the Daily California at Berkeley, Boot used every opportunity to hone his writer's chops and political experience through interviews, opinion pieces, and even work on political campaigns.  But the moderate Republican party of Reagan and GHW Bush, which he came to identify with, eventually became too centrist and a far right movement, first as a "Tea Party" in the Obama years, eventually made way for Trumpism.  Conservatives liked that Trump would push through a tax cut to benefit them, but Boot was stupefied by evangelical support for some one of Trump's character and politics.  Boot weighs the cost of capitulation by the Republican party:

1. Racism - White anxiety about the reality that whites will become a minority in American drove Republicans to vote for a candidate who emphasized reestablishing the status hierarchies of the past.

2. Nativism - Trump rejects immigrants who don't look like him, driving fear of "the other".

3. Collusion - Republicans have been willing to follow Trump wherever he leads, including defending him against charges of colluding with Russia.

4. Rule of law - Trump fires those who put loyalty to country above loyalty to him (e.g., James Comey, Jeff Sessions, Andrew McCabe).  He demonized the FBI for doing its job.  Republicans endorsed this behavior.

5. Fake news - Trump makes stuff up, and his toadies fall in line.  He says something one minute ("I fired Jim Comey over Russia"), then denies it the next. The free press is "the enemy of the people" (Feb 2017) - almost a direct quote of both Hitler and Stalin.

6. Ethics - Corruption far exceeds Teapot Dome, Credit Mobilier, or Watergate.  Many cabinet secretaries were ousted for travel or other expense abuse.  Many aides (Manafort, Cohen, Flynn, Stone) convicted of crime and imprisoned. Nepotism-Kushners. Trump's tax returns were never exposed - why? Emoluments galore (suggest China was bribing Trump, among other things).  Sexual allegations, bribes, misogyny, bullying, name calling...

7. Fiscal irresponsibility - cut taxes in times of prosperity

8. End of Pax Americana - e.g., imposed tariffs and other trade barriers on allies.

While there were precursors (Goldwater-extremist, racist; Phyllis Schafly-against ERA), none were as ignorant or crude.  Boot warns that Trump won't be the last, and another right wing extremist could be even worse if he lacks Trump's ignorance and lack of discipline.

An enlightening story - tracing Boot's own immigrant history, education and career - and the rise of the far right.

November 23 2020

Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created the World's Most Dangerous Man (2020)

By Mary L Trump

As both a family member and a trained clinical psychologist, Mary Trump brings unique credentials to help Americans understand what makes their president the boastful, cruel and dishonest person he is today.  Fred Trump Sr made a fortune in real estate.  Through his connections to politicians and discrimination against non-whites, he managed to create an empire worth ~$1B at his death in 1999.  When Fred Jr (Mary's father) struggled with alcoholism, Donald became the favored child and heir to the empire, shutting Fred's children out of their share of the inheritance.  Fred provided funding for Donald's first project (turning an aging hotel into a classy Hyatt) and bailed him out of many unsuccessful efforts, especially in Atlantic City where Donald found that, without Fred's political clout, his efforts failed.  Donald still managed to squeak out a fortune, thanks to choosing not to repay investors, stiffing contractors, and creating fake opportunity zones where he could pretend he was building housing for needy renters.  Other efforts beyond real estate, such as Trump University, Trump airlines and Trump wine also failed, but Trump had become a huge media success with his flashy lifestyle, and so left his creditors to pick up the pieces.

I appreciate Mary Trumps insight - but it's still hard for me to see why people voted for a man who is so personally dishonest and unkind, and who has no experience in leading nor trying to building a consensus.

April 28 2020

American Oligarchs: The Kushners, the Trumps, and the Merger of Money and Power (2020)

By Andrea Bernstein

Journalist Bernstein goes back several generations to show how the Trump and Kushner families started from impoverished immigrant roots to rise to the pinnacles of financial and political power, via tax breaks meant for middle class Americans, borrowing from shady foreign sources when American banks would not loan them money, and using secrecy, intimidation and machine politics to gain their objectives.

Friedrich Trumpf left Germany in the 1890s, heading to Washington state, then to Alaska for the Yukon Gold Rush, making a fortune from taverns and brothels that served the miners.  Returning to Germany to marry, he was unable to stay due to not fulfilling his military duty, so Friedrich and Mary came to Queens, where he started working in real estate development until he died likely of the Spanish flu in 1918 (at age 49).  Mary was industrious and kept the family afloat while young Fred worked, eventually building up his Queens real estate empire.  While not as unscrupulous as his son would become, Fred nonetheless discriminated against black tenants and circumvented estate laws to turn over his holdings to his children.  Donald would move business to Manhattan, bribing officials to get huge tax breaks, hiring non-documented workers but not paying them (and what recourse do they have? [and courting hundreds of lawsuits from disgruntled employees, contractors, and vendors]), lying about occupancy rates to qualify for loans, and building what would be failed hotels in Atlantic City, Toronto, Soho, etc - but he would still profit from the failures; it would be his investors who would lose their money (Bear Stearns being a good example when Trump defaulted on a huge loan).

The Kushners (Jared's grandmother's family) and Berkowitzes (grandfather's family - he took her name) were Polish holocaust survivors who ended up in New Jersey in the late 1940s.  (Thus both Trump and Kushner families benefit from immigration opportunities that Donald Trump would close off to future immigrants.)  Seeing the need for post-war housing, the Kushners brilliantly started building and selling houses, eventually 1000s of single family homes - but money does not buy happiness and Charles (Jared's father) ended up trying to implicate his brother-in-law through taping him with a prostitute, and instead is sent to prison, compliments of federal NJ prosecutor Chris Christie.  Charles made a $2M gift to Harvard, payable when his son is accepted.  As a Harvard grad, Jared buys the New York Observer financial news, using it to take down his enemies and elevate his own agenda.  When Trump is elected (despite a 3M popular vote loss to his opponent), Jared is brought on as his go-to guy.  Chris Christie, whom Trump had tasked with putting together a transition team, is then sacked by the vengeful Jared and his extensive work is literally thrown in a dumpster.  Together, Jared and Ivanka follow in their parents' footsteps, as Ivanka and Don Jr's lawyer (Kascewicz?) makes a huge contribution to DA Cyrus Vance's campaign, and a truth-in-lending suit against them is mysteriously thrown out.  Today's White House is an extension of the Trump-Kushner style of doing business via vendetta [eg, lifting of all environmental protections proposed by perceived Obama], lies [I don't know anything about hush money paid to Stormy Daniels], and corruption [emoluments, emoluments, emoluments].  God help us.

September 19

The Death of Truth: Notes on Falsehood in the Age of Trump (2018)

By Michiko Kakutani

New York Times literary critic Kakutani looks at writers (Orwell, Huxley, Arendt) who assailed totalitarianism in the past and compares today's White House.  The 45th president made 2140 false or misleading claims in his first year in office (regarding his popularity and achievements, investigation into Russian interference, etc).  He attacks the press, the justice system, civil servants.

She notes that Alexander Hamilton stated that the constitution's architecture was based on a rational system of checks and balances and that - while not perfect - has endured for over 200 years, thanks to its resilience and capacity to accommodate change.  Today, an irrational countertheme in US history has arisen - one that ignores reason, facts, informed debate, and policy making.  "Science is under attack, as is expertise of every sort...in foreign policy, national security, economics, or education." (p 23)

In today's culture wars, we see a relativism where politicians create their own truth and social norms (eg, those who assailed Bill Clinton's sexual peccadillos in the 90s now give Trump a pass for his affairs with porn stars).

Because she is a literary critic, Kakutani brings the perspective of both novelists and social commentators to bear.  For example, Daniel Boorstin's 1962 book The Image foresaw reality TV and the rise of a celebrity known for his "well-knownness", images were replacing ideals, credibility replacing truth.  A study by Alice Marwick and Rebecca Lewis on online disinformation concludes that "it's a surprisingly short leap from rejecting political correctness to blaming women, immigrants or Muslims for their problems".

In chapter 5, "The Co-opting of Language", Kakutani quotes Victor Klemperer's war diaries that chronicle how swiftly and insidiously an autocrat can weaponize language to suppress critical thinking, inflame bigotry, and hijack a democracy.  They have an obsession with numbers and superlatives, everything had to be the best or the most.  "Hitler says in the Reichstag that Napolean fought in Russia in temperatures of minus 25 degrees, but that he, Commanding Officer Hitler, had fought at minus 45, even at minus 52." (p 93)  Trump's inauguration crowd claim is a good example, and he accuses opponents of the things he himself does (Lyin' Ted, Crooked Hillary, etc).

Manipulation of social media by Russia and other countries has been targeted, with few exceptions, in favor of Trump; current targets include stirring up trouble over the NFL payers taking a knee and increasingly on special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation into the election.  Current concerns are the 2018 midterm elections, targeting Mexico, and advances in virtual reality that can fabricate images of politicians saying things they never said, thus further blurring our ability to distinguish the fake from the true.  Kakutani writes

• The sheer volume of dezinformatsiya unleashed by the Russian firehose system -- much like the more improvised but equally voluminous stream of lies, scandals, and shocks emitted by Trump, his GOP enablers, and media apparatchiks - tends to overwhelm and numb people while simultaneously defining deviancy down and normalizing the unacceptable.  Outrage gives way to outrage fatigue, which gives way to the sort of cynicism and weariness that empowers those disseminating the lies.  As the former world chess champion and Russian pro-democracy leader Garry Kasparov tweeted in December 2016, 'The point of modern propaganda isn't only to misinform or push an agenda.  It is to exhaust your critical thinking, to annihilate truth.'"

She adds

• Trump's lies, his efforts to redefine reality, his violation of norms and rules and traditions, his mainstreaming of hate speech, his attacks on the press, the judiciary, the electoral system - all are reasons that the democracy watchdog group Freedom House warned that year one of the Trump administration has brought "further, faster erosion of America's own democratic standards than at any other time in memory', and all are reasons that Orwell's portrait of an authoritarian state in which Big Brother tries to control all narratives and define the present and the past is newly relevant.

George Washington, in his farewell address of 1796, admonished the young country to guard its constitution and remain vigilant about efforts to sabotage the separation and balance of powers.  Madison noted that "a popular government, without popular information, or the means of acquiring it, is but a Prologue to a Farce or a Tragedy; or perhaps both."  Our government must recognize this truth today.

July 10

Russian Roulette: The Inside Story of Putin's War on America and the Election of Donald Trump (2018)
By Michael Isikoff and David Corn

I have wondered: Why does Donald Trump so publicly praise Vladimir Putin? Why does he ignore Putin's human rights abuses, his takeover of Crimea, and his cyber attacks on our democracy?  Is it all about his wish to build a Trump hotel in Moscow, and his need to obtain Putin's blessing - or is it more than that?  A recent book examines connections between Putin and members of Trump's campaign.

One reason for Trump's admiration for Putin might be Putin's dislike of Hillary Clinton. During the 2011 Russian presidential election, voter fraud was rampant: stuffing of ballot boxes, observers harassed, their websites cyberattacked.   As US Secretary of State, Clinton noted these concerns at a meeting on Afghanistan held in Bonn shortly the Russian election.  Thus, when the Russian people protested the suspicious election results, Putin appeared to place the blame (and his hatred) upon Clinton.

Yet, Putin had clearly been on the attack - against both the US, and other democratic nations. In February 2013, the chief of staff of Russia's armed forces had published an article recommending Russia adapt its military strategies to the modern world - e.g., cyberattack.  One example that played out in 2008 was Russian operatives seeding bazaars where US soldiers shopped with thumb drives embedded with malware.  Once one soldier plugged the drive into a laptop hooked up the the US Central Command network, the Russians had access to US military battle plans.  Additionally, mysterious killings and poisonings of Russian nationals in other nations (Litvinenko in UK, Timoshenko in Ukraine, etc), as well as the more obvious arrests/deaths within Russia (e.g., Sergei Magnitsky in 2009), all pointed to Putin.

Back in the US, as the presidential conventions drew near, New York businessman Paul Manafort offered his services to Donald Trump, who made Manafort his campaign manager and chief strategist on May 19, 2016.  (Manafort had maintained a very lucrative lobbying business for the likes of such corrupt foreign leaders as Ferdinand Marcos, Mobutu Sese Seko of Zaire and Jonas Savimbi of Angola.  [Savimbi, for example, has been accused of recruiting child soldiers and raping and torturing civilians.]  Manafort had met with US congressional aides and convinced them that the accusations against these leaders were overblown and that they deserved US government support.  More relevant is the fact that Manafort had also earned millions of dollars working for a Ukrainian pro-Russian political party tied to Russian oligarchs, a fact he concealed.)

Just before the Democratic convention in 2016, WikiLeaks dumped damaging DNC emails showing favoritism to Clinton, enraging the Sanders campaign.  Evidence pointed to Russia (and hacker Guccifer 2.0) as providing the intelligence to gather the DNC emails.  Closer to the election in November, WikiLeaks dumped thousands of John Podesta's emails, while Russian trolls hacked Facebook and other social media with conservative pro-Trump propaganda. (The Trump campaign mined data from Cambridge analytics, owned by Republican financiers Robert and Rebekah Mercer.)

After a lengthy investigation, the US Intelligence Community report stated that "Putin ordered an influence campaign in 2016 aimed at the US presidential election.  Russia's goals were to undermine public faith in the US democratic process, denigrate Secretary Clinton, and harm her electability and potential presidency", most likely because he blamed her for the 2011 Russian protests and begrudged comments she'd made about his years before.  The operation included cyberattacks, information dumps thru WikiLeaks, creation of phone online personas (e.g., Guccifer 2.0 and DCLeaks), use of state propaganda outlets, etc.

This book was written by two journalists and appears to be well-documented.  Perhaps we will have to await the results of the Mueller investigation to fully understand the connections (or not) between the White House and the Kremlin.  One thing is certain: our democracy, and our free elections have been attacked - and they are in danger.

April 30

A Higher Loyalty: Truth, Lies, and Leadership
By James Comey

Former FBI Director James Comey has been a regular news and talk show feature during the 2 weeks since his memoir was published - so I thought I'd better get a copy of the book and read it for myself.

Fired Director Comey is the person both parties have lashed out against in the last couple of years.  Democrats resent him for reopening the Hillary Clinton email investigation days before the 2016 election (and, although finding no further evidence of wrongdoing by Clinton, quite possibly causing the election to go against her).  Republicans, on the other hand, resent him because Pres Trump fired him (for reasons that remain conflicting and suspect), thus prompting the appointment of a Special Counsel to look into possible collusion with Russia by the Trump campaign.  Having read the memoir as an audiobook (narrated by the author) I have to conclude that he actually came across as an honest guy, one who is driven by a sincere, strict sense of duty.  That's not to say that another equally honest and dedicated person in his shoes would have made the same decisions.

The story opens like a detective novel.  Comey is a high school senior, at home with his younger brother on a Saturday night, when an armed intruder breaks into their house.  After the intruder (who turns out to be the infamous "Ramsay rapist") gets away with some cash, the boys think they are safe - until the man returns!  Fortunately, a neighbor hears the commotion, calls the police, and the man flees.  This harrowing night turns out to be a life-changing experience that starts the young James Comey on a path to a career in law.

Throughout the book the author refers to lessons learned along the way, especially from those with whom he worked. He is not afraid to admit some mistakes.  As a high school student, he held a part time job in a grocery store where his boss was Harry Howell, the store owner.  On one occasion, James thought he could load 6 cartons of milk (packaged in paper containers) on a hand cart; he over estimated his skill, and the cartons fell to the floor, breaking apart and spilling gallons of milk.  Another time, he threw a very expensive labeling tool to a fellow worker, only to have it land on the floor and shatter to bits.  On both occasions, Howell mercifully only asked James to clean up the mess, and never spoke again of the incident.  Lessons learned.

After graduating from the College of William and Mary and University of Chicago Law School, Comey held a number of positions, notably with the DA's Office for the Southern District of NY, where he helped prosecute the Gambino crime family, then as Deputy Attorney General in the G W Bush administration.  Notable cases were limiting the Terrorist Surveillance (citizen wiretapping) Program to make it consistent with US law (quite a story, involving a bedside foray to AG John Ashcroft, in intensive care at GWU Hospital) and reigning in enhanced interrogation (torture) techniques when interviewing suspects.

After a stint as a lawyer in the private sector, Comey was tapped by President Obama to head the FBI in 2013.  During this directorship, the FBI's most visible investigations have been Hillary Clinton's email while serving as Secretary of State and Russian interference in the US presidential election.  Ironically, both events were key in the outcome of the 2016 election.  Comey continues on (briefly) into the Trump White House, and is disturbed to discover that the new president operates much like the crime family dons whom he prosecuted, and who expected personal loyalty.  About four months into the Trump era, Comey is giving a talk at the FBI office in Los Angeles when a TV monitor catches his eye; much to his surprise, he learns that he has resigned as Director of the FBI!

The Clinton investigation is complete, with no evidence of wrongdoing.  The Russian interference investigation is ongoing.

This is a very readable, worthwhile story.  Both of the prior cases involved technology (email, internet, Facebook) that I don't believe we, as a nation, have quite come to grips with.  In any case, we still don't know how to protect our information.