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WASHINGTON It would have been a swell party. There was an oyster tower made from solid ice and charcuterie tables piled high in every room. The Charles Orban Champagne was flowing. And the site of this annual soiree, hosted by the French ambassador at the official residence, is one pretty pile of bricks.

What there wasnt: anyone recognizable from the White House. Not even Kellyanne Conway, the counselor to the president, who used to attend.

Who cares? The packs of journalists and foreign service officials who prowled the rooms of an imperial manse in search of someone who mattered, thats who. As any of them will tell you, this holiday season, spotting someone by the punch bowl with the ability to whisper into the presidents ear has been harder than ever.

Going out in Washington is work. Parties are places for D.C. officials and members of the press corps to meet, mix and move the pieces on the chess board. (Booze helps.) Money or beauty is irrelevant. Power, and the proximity to it, is the only metric. It has always been so.

President Trump has, as promised and to his supporters glee, disrupted Washingtons way of life. And sure, as during Watergate, the news business is booming and random bureaucrats have been thrust onto the national stage. But its been hell on the social life.

Two nights after the French ambassadors holiday party, which was held Dec. 10, the situation wasnt quite as dire at the British embassy. Mick Mulvaney, perhaps celebrating the one-year anniversary of being named Mr. Trumps acting chief of staff, dropped in for a moment while partygoers watched the votes pile up for Boris Johnson, Mr. Trumps blond buddy across the pond.

Ronna McDaniel, the chairwoman of the National Republican Committee, also attended. Still, this shindig wasnt what it once was.

Big-name White House officials used to come out en masse. When the last British ambassador described the Trump White House in cables to 10 Downing Street as a uniquely dysfunctional environment, his unvarnished assessments came from two years of cultivating and kibitzing with many of those aides who are now too skittish to attend.

The ambassador was run out of town after his cables leaked in July; Britain has yet to send a replacement.

There were only ever a handful of cabinet secretaries and Trump aides who would brave the night life of a city that reviles, and is reviled by, President Trump. (You know its bad when Wilbur Ross, the 82-year-old secretary of commerce who both falls asleep and wears $600 velvet slippers in public, is considered the social butterfly of this administration.) And the slow march to impeachment has made aides even less willing to mingle.

In the beginning, though, people such as Ms. Conway, Steven Mnuchin and Ivanka Trump could be counted on to show up at parties and interpret the latest presidential paroxysm in an effort to soothe the freaked-out establishment. Three years in, relations have soured.

Its like a siege mentality, said Kevin Chaffee, a senior editor at Washington Life, a society magazine that is read by President Trump. They dont want to go out and court confrontation. Trump has cast a pall.

Part of that pall may also come from the hyperpolarization that has gripped D.C., along with much of the nation. People with warring political affiliations may simply be less interested in socializing together, at least at semipublic events.

People dont even realize what it was like when President Reagan was here, Mr. Chaffee said. Every night he went out to peoples homes, the embassies, there were dinners. Even under Bush 1, the whole cabinet went out.

Sally Quinn, the Georgetown hostess, said: This has been a long time coming, in the sense that things started to slow down a while ago. But when Trump got in, there was immediate division starting from Day 1, when Sean Spicer got up and said it was the biggest crowd, period.

Division indeed. When Ms. Quinn gave a party earlier in December for the CBS anchor Norah ODonnell by most counts, one of the better parties of the season Ms. Quinn spared but one invitation for the Conway household.

It did not go to Kellyanne, but to her husband, George, a man whose popularity with the media is predicated on the last tweet he has hurled at his wife or her boss.

Still, he made something of a sorry plaything. His arm was in a wrap, and it was hard not to wince as he endured the same joke about his injured limb and bruised marriage from several different people, which went something like: Did Kellyanne do this to you because you wouldnt put the phone down? (At least Bob Woodward was interested enough in this spectacle to scribble down Mr. Conways email address.)

The turnover in this White House is so high that the diplomatic corps cant even figure out who to suck up to. After November 2016 all the ambassadors were desperately scrambling, trying to find the Trump people, and the worst part was that after three or four months, they were changing overnight, said Grard Araud, the previous French ambassador.

The ones who have found themselves suddenly in the sun, thanks in part to Mr. Trumps son-in-law, Jared Kushner, are the emissaries of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. But an autocratic embassy does not a swinging party make.

I can count on one hand the embassies that are really that active, Mr. Chaffee said. It used to be more like two and a half hands.

Then there are the other bashes. At the festivities around this years Kennedy Center Honors, held the first weekend in December, the secretary of state got dressed down by Linda Ronstadt while House Speaker Nancy Pelosi got a standing ovation you can see why the president skipped.

This White House has enriched the press, but it also stopped throwing a Christmastime party for reporters. The White House correspondents dinner, which reporters from The New York Times do not attend, once boasted truly glamorous after-parties. Those have dried up in the Trump era.

Its not as if President Trump is completely lacking in Christmas spirit, though. He gave most federal workers an extra day off this year, and circulated holiday cards around the Senate, delivered alongside copies of his six-page letter to Ms. Pelosi about this impeachment charade.

Anyone who has been to a family Thanksgiving knows that impeachment doesnt make for fun party talk. Jonathan Turley, the legal expert called by the Republicans to appear this month before the House Judiciary Committee, summed up the mood in Washington: The president is mad. My Democratic friends are mad. My Republican friends are mad. My wife is mad. My kids are mad. Even my dog seems mad. And Luna is a goldendoodle and they dont get mad.

Mr. Chaffee said: Im old enough to have been around during the last impeachment, and it was just the same as it is now meanspirited and evil, on both sides. But President Clinton never 86-ed the White House Christmas party during his impeachment.

Many presidents have understood the power of a good party, especially during a tense political time. When Franklin Delano Roosevelts critics accused him of ruling like a dictator during the Depression, he threw a toga party at the White House and dressed as Caesar.

Andrew Jacksons inaugural party in 1829 open to anyone reportedly got so rowdy that he had to flee it. (He had been elected in a ruthless campaign year and, as the populist candidate, had good reason to want to spite Washingtons elite with some rabble-rousing.)

And though President Barack Obama was thought of as more aloof than his predecessors, he drew many a Hollywood star to the Potomac. Now celebrities make headlines not for partying at the White House, but for protesting it.

When Michelle Obama was first lady, one evening at a restaurant along 14th street could ensure that it would become date-night destination dining. In contrast, Melania Trump is such a Sphinx-like creature that, for a while, many wondered if she even lived in the White House.

Though it wouldnt play into his drain the swamp narrative, Mr. Trump could have been the party animal of Pennsylvania Avenue had he wanted. Sure, hes a teetotaler, but so was Jay Gatsby. And its not like Mr. Trump goes to bed at 9, as George W. Bush did, or unwinds by reading briefing papers and eating almonds, as Mr. Obama did.

In fact, this president is a night owl who spent much of his adult life partying his way on to Page Six, surrounded by movie stars, pornographic actresses and models. He knows that social capital can be wielded as a source of soft power.

David Axelrod, a former senior adviser to Mr. Obama, wrote in his memoir that during his time at the White House, Mr. Trump once called him with a proposal to build a ballroom.

Mr. Trump had taken note of what he called these state dinners on the lawn there in little tents that were not up to Mr. Trumps standards. Let me build you a ballroom you can assemble and take apart, he said to Mr. Axelrod. Trust me. Itll look great.

In 2016, Mr. Trumps tabloid chronicler in chief, Cindy Adams, wrote in her column: Watch for a quickly built Trump White House ballroom.

Quickly turned out to be a hasty estimation. But, then, infrastructure has been delayed all over.

Originally posted here:
Donald Trump Has Drained the Swamp (of Good Christmas Parties) - The New York Times

Photo illustration by Slate. Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images.

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It seems like it was eons ago, but it was actually a fairly recent occurrence: Americans used to be obsessed with civility. Not in the ironic or performative way they are today. We almost forget now, but once upon a time, every mass shooting or public performance of meanness would be followed by earnest talk of the need to restore civility. For a brief flicker of time in 2011, after the Gabby Giffords shooting, members of Congress actually agreed to tone down their partisan vitriol. For the first time in history that year, members of opposing parties sat together during President Barack Obamas State of the Union speech.

The Giffords demonstration was the end result of a long-brewing focus on restoring civility in public discourse. It wasnt just that we all talked about civility all the time; there actually arose a massive Civility Industrial Complex, teeming with think tanks and academic chairs and conferences, all dedicated to the restoration of civility in public discourse. In 2010, a new bipartisan group called No Labels was founded to support politicians who put labels aside and work across the aisle. A study by the Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania found marked improvement in civility on the floor of the House immediately after a series of civility retreats held from 1995 to 2007 for members of Congress. Bipartisan congressional retreats were undertaken to further foster cooperation across the political aisles.

Photo illustration by Slate. Images by No Labels and Brendan Smialowski/Getty Images.

White papers attempting to promote bipartisan consensus were published. Rigorous scholarship went to proving that the decline in civility in American civic life could reasonably be blamed on, variously, the internet, Congress, Citizens United, cable news, segregated neighborhoods, the advent of air-conditioning, the decline of civics education, the absence of trust in American institutions, and the coarsening of political discourse. We knew a lot about civility, and we were going to reverse-engineer our way right back to it.

There was a huge proliferation of think tanks, institutes, proposed rules, conferences, pledges, polls, blogs, and studies on civility and the urgent need for more of it. I know because I participated in a whole lot of them. I took pride in trying to reach across the political aisle to collaborate with conservative thinkers, and I was convinced that listening harder and meeting halfway could knit together well-intentioned people with legitimate differences of opinion. I believedindeed I still believethat most Americans agree about an awful lot, and that polarized media was cashing in on exploiting the places in which they differed. I believed that difficult conversations entered into in good faith could resolve fractures along the broken seams. I didnt love the speeches and conferences and white papers; they always felt a little juvenile. But I loved that we were talking nicely to each other about talking nicely to each other. I was certain it was all leaning toward an America built on small but important good faith interactions, reminding us all that everyone fundamentally wanted the same things and could work together to achieve them.

Photo illustration by Slate. Photo by Access Hollywood.

Almost every justice on the Supreme Court used to plead for civics, civility, and respectful discourse. In 2011, Justice Anthony Kennedy said he thought American law and democracy was failing to set a good example for the rest of the world with rational, quiet, thoughtful, respectful discussion and debate, adding, perhaps presciently, that the verdict on freedom is still out in over half the world, and the rest of the world is looking at us. They see the current dialogue and discourse and they are horrified by it. Sandra Day OConnor similarly used her platform post-retirement to beg for a more civil public discourse. Her rule for civility, as articulated after the Giffords shooting, was a simple one: Before speaking out ask yourself whether your words are true, whether they are respectful and whether they are needed in our civil discussions.

We were sooooo close. Except we never really were. In 2009, an evangelical Christian Republican and a Jewish Democrat launched an attempt to get every single member of Congress to sign a civility pledge in which members would promise to be civil in my public discourse and behavior, be respectful of others whether or not I agree with them, and stand against incivility when I see it. It cost $30,000, garnered only three signatories, and was shut down in 2011. The Republican who initiated it sadly reflected on why everyone hated it: this political divide has become so sharp that everything is black and white, and too many conservatives can see no redeeming value in any liberal or Democrat. That would probably be true about some liberals going the other direction, but I didnt hear from them. No redeeming value in the opposing side. We should have seen this coming.

Photo illustration by Slate. Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images.

Things have gone downhill quickly since. By 2019, 88 percent of voters express concern and frustration about the uncivil and rude behavior of many politicians, according to a new Civility Poll by the Georgetown University Institute of Politics and Public Service. But while calls for civility continue to ring out, the always-elusive definition has morphed over the decade. After the election of Donald Trump, civility stopped being a call to reach across the aisle and listen to the other side; it became instead a call for the other side to shut up and listen to us. When Donald Trump demanded civil treatment during an election campaign in which he demeaned women, foreigners, and journalists, what he was seeking was to be free from criticism. Whenever we hear about the country being ripped apart now, it comes with demands that the other side of that debate be silenced and destroyed.

Civility, like free speech generally, is now something we increasingly demand for ourselves and refuse to afford others. Civility means that we get to wish others a merry Christmas whether or not others celebrate it. Civility means that you can refuse service to an LGBT patron of your business, and that she should be politely accepting of that choice. Civility isnt about bridging the divide so much as it is about being treated civilly regardless of our words or actions.

Something fundamental shifted in the discussion after Donald Trump was elected in 2016. Suddenly, the problem was no longer vicious name-calling and incivility on Twitter (Donald Trump had, after all, tethered his own political fortunes to precisely those behaviors). Suddenly civility was no longer appropriate material for think tanks and academic conferences seeking to have government work more constructively. Instead, it became a defense for why Trump officials, who had crafted an entire government of cruelty, deserved polite service in restaurants nonetheless. In quick succession, Sarah Huckabee Sanders was asked to leave a Virginia restaurant for her support of an avowedly anti-LGBTQ administration; Mitch McConnell, Kirstjen Nielsen, and Stephen Miller all faced similar abuse at dining establishments; and just this month Ken Cuccinelli hotfooted his way out of a D.C. bar after being confronted by former Maryland Gov. Martin OMalley for his role in family separation at the southern border. And suddenly, in the way it was being deployed in defense of all these people, civility had come to mean being nice to terrible people in public because it hurts their feelings when we do not.

Photo illustration by Slate. Photos by Daniel Carde/Getty Images and Crown Forum.

Yes, there are still college seminars to be touted, and public fora to be attended, and strategies to be deployed. But the words have lost all meaning. Civility now has something to do with not talking, as opposed to how we talk. Mitch McConnell recently opined that civility is about angry tones, as opposed to corrupt actions, at least in the Senate: We have plenty of incentive to get angry. But as you may have noticed, I try to stay calm, be respectful and dont get caught up in these intense debates that we have. Part of the reason we stopped speaking about civility, it seems, is that civility is now limited to how we speak. The other part, obviously, is that the same McConnell who doesnt like being shouted down in public derides (in the same speech) young people, incentivized I think by the faculty actually on college campuses, who dont want to hear anything they may disagree with. So civility ultimately comes down to the thing students owe Mitch McConnell, but that he owes nobody.

And that is the other big reason we stopped talking about civility and spending money on civility and pining for civility after 2016. Because civility also became code for capitulation to those who want to destroy us. As Adam Serwer summarized it in this months Atlantic: There are two definitions of civility. The first is not being an asshole. The second is I can do what I want and you can shut up. The latter definition currently dominates American political discourse.

In that vein, Joe Biden caused a stir in June when he thought back fondly to a more civil era in politics: Recalling his debates with avowed segregationists like Mississippis James Eastland, Biden lamented, At least there was some civility. We got things done. We didnt agree on much of anything. We got things done. We got it finished. But today you look at the other side and youre the enemy. Not the opposition, the enemy. We dont talk to each other anymore.

The problem of course is that getting things done by meeting unabashed racists halfway no longer feels like a win-win, so much as capitulation. Serwer made this point eloquently: The true threat to America is not an excess of vitriol, but that elites will come together in a consensus that cripples democracy and acquiesces to the dictatorship of a shrinking number of Americans who treat this nation as their exclusive birthright because of their race and religion. This is the false peace of dominance, not the true peace of justice. Until Americans current dispute over the nature of our republic is settled in favor of the latter, the dispute must continue. In other words, there will be no civility if it means powerful men colluding to harm the powerlessnor should there be.

Neil Gorsuch, whose new book also tackles the issue of civility, starts from the same misconception Biden offered: Self-governance turns on our treating each other as equalsas persons, with the courtesy and respect each person deserveseven when we vigorously disagree. In a country, and under a Supreme Court, that does not treat citizens as equals, for economic, free speech, voting rights, or civil rights purposes, the demand that we speak to one another as if that were somehow the case, as opposed to a strangled dream, sounds a lot like performance. But probably nobody did more to kill civility than Donald Trump himself, who at a campaign rally last October in Charlotte, North Carolina, soberly intoned that, everyone will benefit if we can end the politics of personal destruction. It is time for us to replace the politics of anger and destruction with real debate about the issues. Civility started as a call for listening. Trump has turned it into a demand for silence.

On the evening of his impeachment, the president attacked a dead member of Congress. In response, his widow pointedly asked for a return to civility. Trumps spokespeople said in his defense that he is simply a counterpuncher. (Whom he was punching against, given that the subject of his attack is, again, dead, is unclear). Somewhere between Donald Trumps speech and his wifes selective anti-bullying campaign, the irony around demands for civility collapsed in on itself. Civility is no longer something that is achievable, or even useful. When its sought now, you can be certain its coming from the powerful asking you to be civil as they take away your rights and destroy lives. And that makes civilityonce the promise of listening across difference, now the demand for cowed fealtymore than just a moral punchline. That the call for civil discourse has been weaponized to chide and marginalize the vulnerable makes it an apt metaphor for a decade that started with the faint promise of bipartisan unity and closes with promises of partisan annihilation.

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See the original post here:
The Decade Civility Died, and Civility Replaced It - Slate

On January 29, 2002, in his State of the Union address, George W. Bush, the president who fumbled and lurched us into a disastrous war in Iraq, did something that made sense:

He introduced the term the axis of evil.

As we all know, this club was originally comprised of Iran, North Korea, and Iraq. (Since then, nations such as Russia, China, Syria, Venezuela, and Cuba have been assigned to this camp of oppressive military dictatorships, and more recent additions may include Turkey and the Philippines.)

What do these so-called axis-of-evil governments have in common? A penchant for weapons of mass destruction, for one. But more importantly, they all stand in firm opposition to the United States.

Despite this qualification, theres good reason to believe that, more than anything, the US president Donald Trump aches to be a part of the axis of evil cohort. The fact that recent hearings just resulted in a 230 to 197 vote in favor of impeaching Trump offers some support to this argument.

But theres an abundance of other proof that Trump wants to be part of the axis of evil.

Theres a tendency for authoritarian regimes to be run by dictators for life. Russias Vladimir Putin, Chinas Xi Jinping, North Koreas Kim Jong Un, Irans Ayatollah Khamenei, Syrias Bashar al-Assad, Venezuelas Nicols Maduro, Cubas Raul Castroand those two axis hopefuls, Turkeys Recep Tayyip Erdogan and the Philippines Rodrigo Duterte all show signs they are settling into life-long appointments.

Trump has joked about breakinghis two-term limit.And his current campaign manager, Brad Parscale, has bragged openly that The Trumps will be a dynasty that lasts for decades.

In March of 2018, Trump hinted to a private group of Republican donors at Mar-a-Lago that hed like to be a dictator for life, likeChinas Xi, reportedly saying, I think its great. Maybe well want to give it a shot someday.

Theres nothing wrong with wanting to belong. In fact, it might be one of Trumps most human traits.

One call from Erdogan was enough to persuade the US president to pull out of Syria virtually overnight, abandoning the Kurdish allies who have been instrumental in evicting ISIS from their territories. Shortly after the Turkish government launched an offensive on those same Kurds, driving more than 160,000 out of their homes, Trump entertained Erdogan in the White House.

Meanwhile, Trump has more or less handed Putin what he wants the mostthe dissolution of the Western alliance. Leading up to recent NATO talks,Trump trashed NATO and did everything in his power to telegraph his feeling that NATO is obsoletebut somehow still cheating the US out of money.Trump delivered an even more ominous message to NATOin October when he pulled out of Syria pretty much overnight, handed the Middle East to Putin, and left our Kurdish allies to be ravaged by Turkish forces.

Not convinced that Trump wants to join the axis of evil? Lets look way back in time.In 1987, the Russian government flew Trumpmerely a fraudulent real estate magnate at the timeand his then-wife Ivana to Moscow for an all-expenses-paid trip to discuss developing a Trump tower in Moscow.

Trump reportedly came back from the trip and immediately began to spout a Kremlin-implanted, Western-alliance-breaking memethat Americas allies were ripping us off.

Or, as his spokesperson at the time put it, Hes sick and tired of seeing other countries take advantage of America.

Trump felt so passionately that this Russian propaganda was true that he took out full-page ads in the New York Times, the Washington Post, and the Boston Globe to promote the Moscow-crafted meme.

Its becoming more difficult to deny that ideas go directly from the mouth of Putin to Trumps tongueor more often, his Twitter feed.

During a February 2017 Budapest press conference with another eager axis of evil candidate, Hungarys Viktor Orban, Putin said, As we all know, during the presidential campaign in the United States, the Ukrainian government adopted a unilateral position in favor of one candidate.

He continued, More than that, certain oligarchs, certainly with the approval of the political leadership, funded this candidate, or female candidate, to be more precise.

According to Putin, the real meddlers in Americas 2016 presidential campaign were a crew of Ukrainian rich guys who bankrolled Hillary Clinton.

Trump has picked up this story and run with it,right down to reportedly proclaiming that Ukraine is a terrible place, theyre all corrupt, theyre terrible people, they tried to take me down.

Yes, thanks to Putin, Trump believes that it wasnt the Russians who sabotaged the American presidential election of 2016. It was the Ukrainians.

Even the favors Trump tried to extort from the new Ukrainian president are based on the ideas Putin spoon-fed him, from investigating Hunter Bidens Burisma deal in Ukraine to Ukraines alleged interference in the 2016 American presidential election.

Or, as Trump put it in this White House transcript of his July 26thphone call with Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky:

I would like you to do us a favor though because our country has been through a lot and Ukraine knows a lot about it. I would like you to find out what happened with this whole situation with Ukraine, they say CrowdStrike I guess you have one of your wealthy people The server, they say Ukrainehas it.

For a quick glossary:

The server is Hillary Clintons alleged missing server.

CrowdStrike is the firm that ferreted out the Russian penetration of Hillary Clinton and former White House chief of staff John Podestas emails five months before the election,a company that Trump believes is owned by Ukrainians (its not, its owned by Dmitri Alperovitch, who came to the US as a child from Russia).

The wealthy people are the oligarchs Putin talked about in his Budapest press conference.

And the whole fantasy is very transparently one of Putinsbits of tantalizing misinformation.

Trump has routinely violated the Constitutional principle of the eighth amendment, created to prevent the government from using the power of office for cruel and unusual punishment.

But Trumps policies have been both cruel and unusual.

He seeks to deter immigration by inflicting maximum pain on peopleincluding unaccompanied childrenwho are seeking a better life.

He pardoned three men the military had already convicted of war crimes.

Trumps recent statement about Ukraine ambassador Marie YovanovitchShes going to go through some thingsshows the instincts of an intolerant totalitarian.

Trumps condemnation of the press as the enemy of the people shows his desire for a media that acts only as his mouthpiece (like state media in Russia, North Korea, and China, for example).

For 27 years, we have stood by the Ukrainians and their aspirations for a Western-style democracy. Ukraine has historically been a bulwark against Russia.They are on the Russian border. And they have been attacked and invaded by Russias little green menRussians on the Kremlin payroll whose uniforms dont indicate what country they come from.

Since Russia seized the Crimean Peninsula from Ukraine in 2014 it has run a continuing war in the countrys Donbass region to establish separatist peoples republics in Ukraines Donetsk and Luhansk regions. So far, the war has killed 12,000 Ukrainians, and has forced 1.5 millionto flee their homes. Ukrainian forces have had to dig a World War I-style trench 250 miles long to defend themselves.

In the course of the recent impeachment hearing and rulings, one thing has become clear: Americas Congress and State Department are deeply committed to the Ukrainian cause. Donald Trump is not.

To understand Trumps deep emotional yearning to join his buddies Putin, Xi, and Kim in the axis of evil club house, put yourself in Donald Trumps position. First, you have to get into the mental and emotional mindset of a grammar-school bully. You are a coward when it comes to people your own size, but you know from experience that you can make yourself feel smart and tough by beating up on kids smaller than you. But youve heard of other bullies in other school yards who are even tougher than you are.And when you meet the top bully, the one with the biggest, baddest reputation of all, you simper, you cower, you cringe, and you become a sycophant.

If theres a club where all the bullies meet,you want in.

And who is running the hottest inner circle of bullies on planet Earth today?Vladimir Putin.And Donald Trump wants in.

Most of his presidency so far has been in service of earning the acceptance and admiration of the bullies who established political play yard dominance long before he even entered politics.

Putin has been on the cover of Forbes Magazine more than once. In emulation, Trump had fake Time Magazine covers made featuring himself and placed them prominently on his wall long before he ran for president.

Theres nothing wrong with wanting to belong. In fact, it might be one of Trumps most human traits, one we can actually identify with.

But this particular club just happens to be the axis of evil, the gang that is out to replace American political values of democracy and freedom of speech with totalitarianism.

Totalitarianism and something Donald Trump is trying hard to establish: a cult of personality. A dictatorial presidency. And, in the manner of Kim Jong Uns family, a dynasty.

Satire and ridicule aside, the radical rebalancing of alliances is one of the biggest political shifts a nation can undergo, short of war.Trump has delivered the axis of evils wet dream and has taken the Western alliance off the table. That is a tectonic shift in geopolitics.And in the long run, it will have an impact on your future and mine.

Read more:
Trumps bid to join the axis of evil - Quartz

On Friday, Facebook and Twitter shut down a network of fake accounts that pushed pro-Trump messages all while masquerading as Americans with AI-generated faces as profile photos.

In a blog post, Facebook said that it connected the accounts to a US-based media company called The BL that, it claims, has ties to Epoch Media Group. In August, NBC News first reported that Epoch Media Group was pushing messages in support of President Donald Trump across social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter. Epoch has extensive connections to Falun Gong, an eccentric Chinese spiritual community that has faced significant persecution from the countrys central government.

While the Epoch Times denied any connection to The BL in a statement to The Verge, Facebook begs to differ: With all due respect to the publisher of the Epoch Times, he may not know executives at The BL were active admins on Epoch Media Group Pages as recently as this morning when their accounts were deactivated and the BL was removed, a Facebook spokesperson tells us.

Facebook noted that many of the fake accounts used in the latest campaign employed false profile photos that appeared to have been generated by artificial intelligence. Those accounts would post BL content in other Facebook groups while pretending to be Americans. Pro-Trump messages were often posted at very high frequencies and linked to off-platform sites belonging to the BL and The Epoch Times. The accounts and pages were managed by individuals in the US and Vietnam.

Facebook said that it removed 610 accounts, 89 Facebook pages, 156 groups, and 72 Instagram accounts that were connected to the organization. Around 55 million accounts followed one of these Facebook pages and 92,000 followed at least one of the Instagram accounts. The organization spent nearly $9.5 million in advertisements, according to Facebook.

The BL is now banned from Facebook, Nathaniel Gleicher, Facebooks head of security policy, said in a statement. We are continuing to investigate all linked networks, and will take action as appropriate if we determine they are engaged in deceptive behavior.

Update, December 20th at 3:51 PM ET: Updated to include that The Epoch Times denies any connection to The BL, and clarified that it is Facebook which is alleging that based on its own internal investigation.

Update, December 20th at 8:10 PM ET: Added additional comment from a Facebook spokesperson.

Read more:
Facebook and Twitter shutter pro-Trump network reaching 55 million accounts - The Verge

North Korea may have been the one issue on which President Donald Trump apparently listened to his predecessor, Barack Obama, when he warned about the serious challenge facing the incoming occupant of the Oval Office. Nevertheless, Trump initially drove tensions between the two countries to a fever pitch, raising fears of war in the midst of proclamations of fire and fury. Then he played statesman and turned toward diplomacy, meeting North Koreas supreme leader, Kim Jong-un, in Singapore.

Today that effort looks kaput. The North has declared denuclearization to be off the table. Actually, few people other than the president apparently believed that Kim was prepared to turn over his nuclear weapons to a government predisposed toward intervention and regime change.

Now that this Trump policy is formally dead, and there is no Plan B in sight, Pyongyang has begun deploying choice terms from its fabled thesaurus of insults. Democrats are sure to denounce the administration for incompetent naivete. And the bipartisan war party soon will be beating the drums for more sanctions, more florid rhetoric, additional military deployments, new plans for war. Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) already has dismissed the risks since any conflict would be over there, on the distant Korean Peninsula. At which point Trumps heroic summitry, which offered a dramatic opportunity to break decades of deadly stalemate, will be judged a failure.

If the president had racked up several successeswars ended, peace achieved, disputes settled, relations strengthenedthen one disappointment wouldnt matter much. However, his record is an unbroken string of broken promises, opportunities squandered, principles violated, and intentions abandoned.

There is no relationship more important than that between the United States and the Peoples Republic of China. Despite Trumps supposed friendship with Chinas Xi Jinping, the trade war rages to the detriment of both countries. Americans have suffered from both the presidents tariffs and Chinas retaliation, with no end in sight. Despite hopes for a resolution, Beijing is hanging tough and obviously doubts the presidents toughness, given the rapidly approaching election.

Beyond economics, the relationship is deteriorating sharply. Disagreements and confrontations over everything from geopolitics to human rights have driven the two countries apart, with the administration lacking any effective strategy to positively influence Chinas behavior. The presidents myopic focus on trade has left him without a coherent strategy elsewhere.

Perhaps the presidents most pronounced and controversial promise of the 2016 campaign was to improve relations with Russia. However, despite another supposedly positive personal relationship, the Trump administration has applied more sanctions on Moscow, provided more anti-Russian aid to Ukraine, further increased funds and troops to NATO Europe, and sent home more Russian diplomats than the Obama administration.

Worse, Washington has made no serious effort to resolve the standoff over Ukraine. No one imagines Moscow returning Crimea to Ukraineor giving in on any other issue without meaningful concessions regarding Kiev. Instead of moderating and minimizing bilateral frictions, the administration has made Russia more likely today than before to cooperate with China against Washington and contest American objectives in the Middle East, Africa, and even Latin America.

Although Trump promised to stop Americas endless wars, as manyif not moreU.S. military personnel are abroad today as when he took office. He increased the number of troops in Afghanistan and is now seeking to negotiate an exit that would force Washington to remain to enforce the agreement. This war has been burning for more than eighteen years.

The administration has maintained Washingtons illegal deployment in Syria, shifting one contingent away from the Turkish-Kurdish battle while inserting new forces to confiscate Syrian oil fieldsa move that lacks domestic authority and violates international law. A few hundred Americans cannot achieve their many other supposed objectives, such as eliminating Russian, Iranian, and other malign influences and forcing Syrias President Bashar al-Assad to resign or inaugurate democracy. However, their presence will ensure Americas continued entanglement in a conflict of great complexity but minimal security interest.

The Saudi government remains corrupt, incompetent, repressive, reckless and dependent on the United States. Only Washingtons refusal to retaliate against Iran for its presumed attack on Saudi oil facilities caused Riyadh to turn to diplomacy toward Tehran, yet the president then increased U.S. military deployments, turning American military personnel into bodyguards for the Saudi royals. The recent terrorist attack by the pilot-in-trainingpresumably to join his colleagues in slaughtering Yemeni civiliansadded to the already high cost of the bilateral relationship.

The administrations policy of maximum pressure has proved to be a complete bust around the world. As noted earlier, North Korea proved unwilling to disarm despite the increased financial pressure caused by U.S. sanctions. North Koreans are hurting, but their government, like Washington, places security first.

Russia, too, is no more willing to yield Crimea, which was oncepart of Russia and isthe Black Sea naval base of Sebastopol. Several European governments also disagree with the United States, having pressed to lighten or eliminate current sanctions. The West will have to offer more than the status quo to roll back Moscows military advances.

Before Trump became president, Iran was well contained, despite its malign regional activities. The Islamic regime was hemmed in by Israel and the Gulf States, backed by nations as diverse as Egypt and America. The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or JCPOA, sharply curtailed Irans nuclear activities and placed the country under an intensive oversight regime. Now Tehran has reactivated its nuclear program, expanded its regional interventions, interfered with Gulf shipping, and demonstrated its ability to devastate Saudi oil production. To Americas consternation, its Persian Gulf allies now are more willing to deal with Iran than before.

Additionally, the Trump administration has largely destroyed hope for reform in Cuba by reversing the Obama administrations progress toward normalizing relations and discouraging visits byand trade withAmericans. The entrepreneurs I spoke to when I visited Cuba two years ago made large investments in anticipation of a steadily increasing number of U.S. visitors but were devastated when Washington shut off the flow. What had been a steadily expanding private sector was knocked back and the regime, with Raoul Castro still dominant behind the scenes, again can blame America for its own failings. There is no evidence that extending the original embargo and additional sanctions, which began in 1960, will free anyone.

For a time, Venezuela appeared to be an administration priority. As usual, Trump applied economic sanctions, this time on a people whose economy essentially had collapsed. Washington threatened more sanctions and military invasion but to no avail. Then the president and his top aides breathed fire and fury, insisting that both China and Russia stay out, again without success. Eventually, the president appeared to simply lose interest and drop any mention of the once urgent crisis. The corrupt, repressive Maduro regime remains in power.

So far, the presidents criticisms of Americas alliances have gone for naught. Until now, his appointees, all well-disposed toward maintaining generous subsidies for Americas international fan club, have implemented his policies. More recently, the administration demanded substantial increases in host nation support, but in almost every negotiation so far the president has given way, accepting minor, symbolic gains. He is likely to end up like his predecessor, whining a lot but gaining very little from Americas security dependents.

Beyond that, there is little positive to say. Trump and Indias Narendra Modi are much alike, which is no compliment to either, but institutional relations have changed little. Turkeys incipient dictator, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, receives a free pass from the president for the formersabuses and crimes. But even so Congress is thoroughly arrayed against Ankara for sins both domestic and foreign.

The presidents aversion to genuine free trade and the curious belief that buying inexpensive, quality products from abroad is a negative has created problems with many close allies, including Canada, Mexico, Japan, South Korea, Australia, and multiple European states. Perhaps only with Israel are Washingtons relations substantially improved, and that reflects the presidents abandonment of any serious attempt to promote a fair and realistic peace between Israelis and Palestinians.

This is an extraordinarily bad record after almost three years in office. Something good still might happen between now and November 3, 2020. However, more issues are likely to get worse. Imagine North Korean missile and nuclear tests, renewed Russian attempts to influence Western elections, a bloody Chinese crackdown in Hong Kong, increased U.S.-European trade friction, more U.S. pressure on Iran matched by asymmetric responses, and more. At the moment, there is no reason to believe any of the resulting confrontations would turn out well.

Most Americans vote on the economy, and the president is currently riding a wave of job creation. If that ends before the November vote, then international issues might matter more. If so, then the president may regret that he failed to follow through on his criticism of endless war and irresponsible allies. Despite his very different persona, his results dont look all that different from those achieved by Barack Obama and other leading Democrats.

Doug Bandow is a senior fellow at the Cato Institute. He is a former special assistant to President Ronald Reagan and the author of several books, including Foreign Follies: Americas New Global Empire.

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The Tragedy of Donald Trump: His Presidency Is Marred with Failure - The National Interest Online