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The Post's Ruth Marcus explains why Donald Trump Jr. is in legal jeopardy. Hint: stupidity is not a legal defense. (Adriana Usero,Kate Woodsome/The Washington Post)

The key insight from a week of gobsmacking revelations is not that the Russia scandal may finally have an underlying crime but that, asDavid Brookssuggests, over the past few generations the Trump family built an enveloping culture that is beyond good and evil. (Remember when the media collectively oohed and ahhed that, Say what you will about Donald Trump, but his kids are great!? Add that to the heap of inane media narratives that helped normalize Trump to the voters.) We now see that, sure enough, the Trump legal team (the fastest-growing segment of the economy) has trouble restraining its clients, explaining away initial, false explanations and preventing self-incriminating statements. (The biggest trouble, of course, is that the president lied that this is all fake news and arguably committed obstruction of justice to hide his campaign teams misdeeds.)

Let me suggest the real problem is not the Trump family, but the GOP. To paraphrase Brooks, It takes generations to hammer ethical considerations out of a [partys] mind and to replace them entirely with the ruthless logic of winning and losing. Again, to borrow from Brooks, beyond partisanship the GOP evidences no attachment to any external moral truth or ethical code.

Lets dispense with the Democrats are just as bad defense. First, I dont much care; we collectively face a party in charge of virtually the entire federal government and the vast majority of statehouses and governorships. Its that partys inner moral rot that must concern us for now. Second, its simply not true, and saying so reveals the origin of the problem a woe is me sense of victimhood that grossly exaggerates the oppositions ills and in turn justifies its own egregious political judgments and rhetoric. If the GOP had not become unhinged about the Clintons, would it have rationalized Trump as the lesser of two evils? Only in the crazed bubble of right-wing hysteria does an ethically challenged, moderate Democrat become a threat to Western civilization and Trump the salvation of America.

Indeed, for decades now, demonization of gays, immigrants, Democrats, the media, feminists, etc. has been the animating spirit behind much of the right. It has distorted its assessment of reality, giving us anti-immigrant hysteria, promulgating disrespect for the law (how many respectable conservatives suggested disregarding the Supreme Courts decision on gay marriage?), elevating Fox News hosts blatantly false propaganda as the counterweight to liberal media bias and preventing serious policy debate. For seven years, the party vilified Obamacare without an accurate assessment of its faults and feasible alternative plans. Obama bad or Clinton bad became the only credo leaving the party, as Brooks said of the Trump clan, with no attachment to any external moral truth or ethical code and no coherent policies for governing.

We have always had in our political culture narcissists, ideologues and flimflammers, but it took the 21st-century GOP to put one in the White House. It took elected leaders such as House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.) and the Republican National Committee (not to mention its donors and activists) to wave off Trumps racists attacks on a federal judge, blatant lies about everything from 9/11 to his own involvement in birtherism, replete evidence of disloyalty to America (i.e. Trumps Russia first policies), misogyny, Islamophobia, ongoing potential violations of the Constitutions emoluments clause (along with a mass of conflicts of interests), firing of an FBI director, and now, evidence that the campaign was willing to enlist a foreign power to defeat Clinton in the presidential election.

Out of its collective sense of victimhood came the GOPs disdain for not just intellectuals but also intellectualism, science, Economics 101, history and constitutional fidelity. If the Trump children became slaves to money and to their fathers unbridled ego, then the GOP became slaves to its own demons and false narratives. A party that has to deny climate change and insist illegal immigrants are creating a crime wave because that is what conservatives must believe, since liberals do not is a party that will deny Trumps complicity in gross misconduct. Its a party as unfit to govern as Trump is unfit to occupy the White House. Its not by accident that Trump chose to inhabit the party that has defined itself in opposition to reality and to any external moral truth or ethical code.

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The GOP's moral rot is the problem, not Donald Trump Jr. - Washington Post

In Paris on Thursday, Donald Trump said, A lot of people dont know that France is Americas first and oldest ally. That may be true. But commentators noted that when Trump uses the a lot of people dont know formulation, its usually a sign that he didnt know himself.

Its called projection. And Trump does it with remarkable frequency. You may have noticed that over the last few days, Trump and his allies have begun talking a lot about the Hillary Clinton campaigns alleged collusion with the governments of Russia and Ukraine. On Wednesday morning, for instance, Trump tweeted a quote from the conservative Washington Times that claimed, Democrats have willfully used Moscow disinformation to influence the presidential election against Donald Trump.

Why is Trump suddenly interested in the Democratic Partys ties to the Russian government? Perhaps because on Monday, The New York Times broke a blockbuster story about his campaigns ties to the Russian government.

Its a pattern that has repeated itself again and again since Trump launched his presidential bid. Last June, as Hillary Clinton was finishing up her primary campaign, she began testing a line that she would use against Trump throughout the summer and fall: Hes temperamentally unfit. In her speech at the Democratic National Convention, she added that, A man you can bait with a tweet is not a man we can trust with nuclear weapons. Soon, Trump was making the same argument about her. I dont think shes all there, he declared in August. In September he called her trigger-happy and very unstable.

Another, related, Clinton theme was the impact of Trumps bad behavior on Americas children. In its first negative ad, the Clinton campaign depicted children watching Trumps crude, violent, and demeaning comments on TV. Trump soon picked up the theme himself, asking a North Carolina crowd, What should these parents tell their children about Hillary Clintons attacks?

Then in August, after Trump named Steve Bannon to be his campaigns chief executive, Clinton announced she would give a speech on Trumps ties to white nationalists. That same day, Trump told a Mississippi crowd that, Hillary Clinton is a bigot who sees people of color only as votes, not as human beings worthy of a better future.

Pat Robertson Gives Trump a Pass on Russia

The following month, as journalists pressed him to state definitively that he believed President Obama was born in the United States, Trump announced that, Hillary Clinton and her campaign of 2008 started the birther controversy. In October, as numerous women came forward to accuse Trump of sexual harassment, he began accusing Clinton of abusing women.

Trump invited three alleged victims of Bill Clintons sexual harassment to the second presidential debate, and declared from the podium that, Hillary Clinton attacked those same women and attacked them viciously.

During the primaries, Ted Cruz actually tried to diagnose this Trump habit. This man is a pathological liar, Cruz insisted. He lies practically every word that comes out of his mouth. And in a pattern that I think is straight out of a psychology textbook, his response is to accuse everybody else of lying.

Why does Trump do this? Sigmund Freud believed people project onto others impulses that they cannot accept as their own. Erick Erickson suggested that projection may be a response to crisis or extreme stress. Others have linked it to narcissism.

The more important question is why it works, at least among Trumps base. One answer may be that Trump supporters embrace his projection because theyre doing it themselves. Consider Trumps claim that Hillary Clinton is the real bigot. On its face its odd given that Clinton enjoyed overwhelming African American support. But its easier to understand the statements appeal when you realize that, according to a November 2016 Huffington Post/YouGov poll, Trump supporters were twice as likely to say whites face a lot of discrimination as they were to say blacks face a lot of discrimination. When it came to bigotry, in other words, Trumps overwhelmingly white fan base may have been projecting, too.

Or take Trumps claim that Clinton was the real harasser of women. Its easier to understand when you realize that more than 40 percent of Trump supporters think, society seems to punish men just for acting like men, according to a PRRI/The Atlantic poll. And that in a May 2016 Morning Consult poll, 49 percent of Republican men who had an unfavorable opinion of Clinton called her a sexist. A November ABC/Washington Post poll found that 87 percent of Republicans considered Trump more honest than Clinton despite the fact that Politifact judged 50 percent of the Clinton statements they evaluated to be true or mostly true compared to only 17 percent of Trumps.

Maybe Trumps supporters believe his projections because hes not the only one who wants to escape from reality.

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The Projection President - The Atlantic

MSNBC

Donald Trump is already a legend in his own mind MSNBC About a month ago, at his first full cabinet meeting, Donald Trump spoke very highly of himself. Never has there been a president, with few exceptions case of FDR, he had a major depression to handle who has passed more legislation and who has ... How to win a friend and influence a PresidentCNN Read Excerpts From President Trump's Off-the-Record BriefingTIME President Trump spoke with reporters for an hour, but it was off-the-record... or was it?CNNMoney all 41 news articles »

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Donald Trump is already a legend in his own mind - MSNBC

Most of my writing is about the Trump administration. In fact, my mandate from Pacific Standard is Trump and the law. On Twitter, the bulk of my recent follower growth and new relationships with others in the politico-legal sphere have come out of responding quickly when the president tweets and engaging the threads of conversation that flow from those tweets.

So when President Donald Trump blocked me in June, apparently for suggesting that Russia influenced the outcome of the 2016 election, he harmed me professionally. Even though I knew @realDonaldTrump was important to my career, it still took me at least a few days to recognize how being blocked by the president on Twitter would affect me as a public intellectual.

Twitter initially became a haven for me when I recognized it as a great equalizer in the media world. Washington DC, generally, and the world of writing and commentary, specifically, operate on networks and connections that many denizens inherit. Mine are hard won.

Not every tweet is a hit, but when I make a point pithily and its liked and retweeted by thousands of people, some of the people who agree with my point or like the way I make it follow me or reach out. And some of those people are editors, experts, and advocates who become employers, contributors, and collaborators.

Gone now is my ability to participate in the timeliest and most robust conversations around law, policy, and politics on Twitterthose around the presidents tweets. Taking part in these exchanges was an ideal way to stay current on not just facts, but new ideas. These threads make up the marketplace of ideas in which my peers and potential employers, colleagues, and audience are present and participating. Ive been forced out and have no meaningful way to rejoin them.

I didnt think being blocked on Twitter was a big deal at first. Its just a button you can click, a way to mute an ex or tune out trolls attacks. But it turns out that when the person who blocks you is the president of the United States, it can matter quite a bit. Every day Im blocked I lose opportunities to advance my views and engage others'literally the reason a reader follows a writers work, the substance a publication pays a writer forin these conversations. I cant fire off a 140-word tweet, create a thread, or share pieces I write to drive discussion within these very conversations . That quick click I thought was so inconsequential is constraining my career in ways I have yet to fully appreciate.

Twitter also brought me to where I am today: Pursuing a lawsuit with others against President Trump for his decision to block us on Twitter. It was because I tweeted about being blocked that I eventually connected with the Knight First Amendment Institute and became involved in the legal effort.

When it comes to Twitter, I thought my fights would be confined to threads and direct messages. It never occurred to me that Id end up in court. I cant say Im glad I have, but I am proud to stand up for the right to free speech, which is essential to not only to individual peopleand entire professionsbut democracy. Each day my appreciation grows for the magnitude of what I am part of. How I respond to being excluded from the presidents Twitter may be more important than anything Ive ever said on Twitter.

Rebecca Buckwalter-Poza is a legal analyst, advocate, and author based in Washington DC.

Continued here:
Trump Blocked Me on Twitter and It's Costing Me My Career - Fortune

The leaders appeared downright chummy during a joint press conference on Thursday in Paris, mostly skipping by their political differences and focusing on shared priorities like Syria, terrorism and what Macron described as "free and fair trade."

"Thank you for the tour of some of the most incredible buildings anywhere in the world," Trump said as he began his own remarks. "It was a very, very beautiful thing to see."

When asked about Trump's decision to pull the US out of the Paris climate deal, Macron soberly reiterated his own position, but didn't press or attempt to publicly shame his counterpart. The schism on that issue would "absolutely not" prevent France and the US from working together on other matters, he assured, turning kindly in his Trump's direction.

Trump was clearly charmed, echoing Macron's declaration of "friendship" before enthusing at the prospect of a shared dinner later on at the Eiffel Tower. Of the climate deal, he offered: "Something could happen with respect to the Paris accord, we'll see what happens. But we will talk about that over the coming period of time and if it happens, that would be wonderful and if it doesn't that will be OK too."

Perhaps it was all a bit of stagecraft. No one expects Trump to seriously reconsider his position on the climate pact. More instructive here were Macron's machinations. In a country where leaders prove themselves in their dealings with Europe, the new president stands to gain influence at home if he proves capable of influencing Trump where others, like German Chancellor Angela Merkel, could not.

The prospect is less of a stretch than it might seem on paper.

Macron entered office this year under ostensibly different circumstances than Trump. But like the President, he pitched voters on a demolition of the status quo and a French take on Trump's promise to "drain the swamp." Macron also upended the traditional partisan hierarchy in France. Though he served as a minister in his predecessor's French Socialist government, he rules now under the banner of his own centrist party, "En Marche!" Trump, though he came to power as a Republican and governs alongside them, sold himself as a right-wing populist. The fiscal conservatism championed by Republicans like House Speaker Paul Ryan was, at least during the campaign, very much an afterthought.

The parallels and similarities have some fairly strict limits. Trump is a nationalist. Macron is a proud globalist who came to power by routing the far-right nationalist Marine Le Pen. Trump prefers bilateral diplomacy. He cheered Brexit. He wants to share a private dinner, not a microphone with dozens of world leaders. Macron believes in a robust European Union and has been among the President's foremost critics on climate change policy. Temperamentally, they are also opposites. The handshake drama is resonant, to a point, because it provides a neat example of their respective preoccupations with personal power dynamics.

But unlike Trump, who has repeatedly expressed doubts over Russia's meddling in the 2016 US election, Macron has been less circumspect on the question. He earned applause among Democrats when he skewered Russian state-owned media during a joint press conference with Vladimir Putin.

Contrast that with Trump's own meeting with Putin, after which where was no press conference. What exactly was said between Trump and Putin when the American president "pressed" the Russian one on the issue of election meddling, remains the subject of debate between their two camps.

But over the past six weeks, Macron has made waves with a handful of less easily categorized remarks and public observations.

In an address to parliament 10 days ago, he shared plans to bypass lawmakers -- whose ranks he suggesting cutting by a third -- if they slowed or opposed his agenda.

"I want all these deep reforms that our institutions seriously need to be done within a year," he said. "These reforms will go to parliament but, if necessary, I will put them to voters in a referendum."

Those comments, and Macron's tweaks to what top White House adviser Steve Bannon might call the "administrative state" didn't go unnoticed by the President's team. Turning to his French counterpart with a smile on Thursday, Trump cheered Macron's "courageous call for that less bureaucracy. It's a good chant, less bureaucracy. We can use it too."

Macron offered his July 3 remarks at the Palace of Versailles, the 17th century home of the "Sun King," Louis XIV. While past French leaders have used the venue in times of crisis, Macron chose it as a backdrop -- ominously so, critics said -- for what amounted to a policy speech.

And while that might seem at odds with Trump and his hyperactive social media presence, the leaders seem to share a low opinion of the news media covering their administrations.

Trump could only be impressed.

Originally posted here:
Donald Trump is not the only unpredictable leader in Paris today - CNN