CSotD: The Willingly Blind

I’m already sick of responses to the Mueller Report and have begun sarcastically asking people to share their copies, since they obviously couldn’t be so sure if they hadn’t read the whole thing.

So I like Ann Telnaes‘s take, which nicely combines the little information Barr has released with the fact that, even if he is being honest and Mueller is correct, the issue of whether Trump and his associates were active participants or passive beneficiaries of Russian efforts is a very small issue in a very large manure pile.

 

Jack Ohman goes into more detail, but it’s important to point out that, while these alliances may be repugnant, they aren’t necessarily illegal. There may be corrupt details in how particular alliances operate, but there’s no law against being supported by scoundrels.

The principle, rather, is that, as Jefferson said, the people may be led astray, but, as long as they are provided with full information about what’s going on, they’ll make the appropriate course corrections.

Which is why the Mueller Report should be released, and I suspect that somebody is going to get their hands on that document eventually.

That despite the fact that Trump is attempting to follow through on his election promise to control the press, with a memo to news producers urging them not to give air time to critics of his regime whom he has proclaimed to be dishonest.

It has already been pointed out that, if barring liars were the rule, we’d never see Sarah Sanders or Kellyanne Conway on television or, for that matter, the Dissembler In Chief himself.

Trump demanding honesty in politics is a bit like Elizabeth Taylor coming out against divorce, and, come to think of it, it’s a bit like Donald Trump coming out against divorce.

But Lindsey Graham wants answers.

And people ask why Trump doesn’t have a dog!

Jefferson’s ideal of a well-informed citizenry that would keep the country going in the right direction may be too firmly based on the things for which progressives hate him: He lived in an era when voting was, in most states, the privilege of landowners and others who had proved their capabilities with a modicum of success in the marketplace.

I’m in favor of universal suffrage, but it changes the proposition, even taking into account Jefferson’s qualifier that not only should voters be given full information in a vibrant press, but that they be educated so they could read the newspapers.

We have schools today and information comes in forms that don’t even require literacy, but Jefferson’s ideal remains theoretical.

 

Jim Morin suggests that Trump’s decision to eliminate the ACA entirely will be a greater threat to his presidency than rumors of an alliance with Russia, and I hope he’s right.

 

But I think Chan Lowe has an equally valid opinion.

We’ve worked our way into a partisan divide in which people will defend one side or the other not so much out of loyalty, certainly not out of rational consideration of the facts, but simply because they don’t want to admit they were wrong.

Then there is the prediction Nancy Pelosi was mocked for, which was that, complex as the ACA might seem, once it was up and running, people would find they liked it.

Well, it’s up and running — albeit in a truncated, GOP-amended form — and it works well on several levels beyond simple, routine visits to the doctor.

But it’s already a piece of litmus paper and people like it or dislike it based on tribal allegiance rather than actual experience.

 

The issue that will eventually come up, as Mike Thompson points out, is that Trump has only addressed half of the GOP’s “repeal and replace” promise, despite his promises that we’re gonna love his new health care system.

Which he hasn’t quite got yet, but he’s going to come up with it soon and it’s gonna be fabulous.

Sweet Jesus, we’ve elected Ralph Kramden.

 

On the other hand, Betsy DeVos’s inexplicable war on the Special Olympics may hit more people with more immediacy, because, as Bill Bramhall notes, it’s simply cruel, hateful and unnecessary.

Decent people are appalled. But are they a majority?

Pointing out that, if Trump cut five golf trips to Florida, the savings would pay for Special Olympics will have little impact on Deplorables who have forgotten his promise not to play golf and his attacks on Obama for slipping out for a game from time to time.

Nor do they realize how easy it would be for him to play golf at Andrews Air Force Base, or, for that matter, to let his entourage stay at Mar-A-Lago free and comp his Secret Service for the golf carts instead of personally profiting from his Florida junkets.

Besides, we live in a world in which Malificent has not only been rehabilitated and seen simply as misunderstood, but turned into the hero of her own musical.

See, kids? Evil isn’t evil. In fact, it’s how we save the kingdom.

 

Anyway, as Prickly City notes, we’ll get a new set of characters to evaluate over the coming year, and those of us in New Hampshire will see them up close and personal.

I’ve got a picture of one granddaughter with Obama from 2007, and another granddaughter with Elizabeth Warren from this year, and I just missed Cory Booker at a pub two blocks down the street last week.

It’s not the major reason I defend federalism, but when candidates need to campaign in more places than New York, LA, Chicago and Boston, it does allow them to meet people in less frantic venues.

 

I don’t know that we’ll ever duplicate Bobby’s trip to the Mississippi Delta in terms of opening a candidate’s eyes to the reality some of us live with, but there’s still a difference between sitting and casually talking to 40 people and headlining an extravaganza with 400.

Especially when the 40 didn’t each have to pay $1,000 or more to be there.

Sometimes a plain cup of coffee is just the thing.