Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

I’d like to think you all would remain faithful to me if i ever tried to have some of you killed.

Republican obstruction dressed up as bipartisanship. Again.

This fight is for everything.

Take hopelessness and turn it into resilience.

When do the post office & the dmv weigh in on the wuhan virus?

Nothing worth doing is easy.

If you are still in the GOP, you are an extremist.

Come on, man.

American History and Black History Cannot Be Separated

But frankly mr. cole, I’ll be happier when you get back to telling us to go fuck ourselves.

The party of Reagan has become the party of Putin.

They fucked up the fucking up of the fuckup!

Let there be snark.

White supremacy is terrorism.

You don’t get to peddle hatred on saturday and offer condolences on sunday.

You can’t attract Republican voters. You can only out organize them.

If senate republicans had any shame, they’d die of it.

Incompetence, fear, or corruption? why not all three?

Republicans in disarray!

“Squeaker” McCarthy

Technically true, but collectively nonsense

They love authoritarianism, but only when they get to be the authoritarians.

I’d try pessimism, but it probably wouldn’t work.

Accountability, motherfuckers.

You are here: Home / Past Elections / Election 2016 / Excellent Read: “David Fahrenthold tells the behind-the-scenes story of his year covering Trump”

Excellent Read: “David Fahrenthold tells the behind-the-scenes story of his year covering Trump”

by | 155 Comments

This post is in: , , ,

A well-deserved victory lap, with a promise for the future:

“Arnold and Tim, if you’d come up, we’re going to give you a nice, beautiful check,” Donald Trump said. He held up an oversize check, the kind they give to people who win golf tournaments. It was for $100,000. In the top-left corner the check said: “The Donald J. Trump Foundation.”

Along the bottom, it had the slogan of Trump’s presidential campaign: “Make America Great Again.”…

That was the start of nine months of work for me, trying to dig up the truth about a part of Trump’s life that he wanted to keep secret. I didn’t understand — and I don’t think Trump understood, either — where that one check, and that one question, would lead…

***********

The idea for this story had come from our executive editor, Marty Baron. One night, as we both waited for an elevator, Marty offered a suggestion.

Why don’t you go beyond Trump’s promises to give to veterans, he said, and look at Trump’s giving to charity, period?

The logic was that Trump had just tried to wiggle out of a charitable promise he’d made on national TV. What, Marty wondered, had he been doing before the campaign, when nobody was looking?

Working with one of The Post’s ace researchers, Alice Crites, I went digging for records that would reveal Trump’s charitable giving, going back to his early days as a Manhattan developer in the 1980s. We looked at old news clippings, detailing Trump’s public statements. And we looked at tax filings from the Donald J. Trump Foundation, which had been dug out of storage by New York state.

Those two sources told two very different stories…

I kept looking, posting details of my search to Twitter. Soon I had attracted a virtual army, ready to join the scavenger hunt. I had begun the year with 4,700 Twitter followers. By September I had more than 60,000 and climbing fast. I began hearing from celebrities and even a few personal heroes, offering their assistance out of the blue. The barbecue columnist for Texas Monthly — an idol to me, as a journalist and a native Texan — was watching videos of other people’s parties taken at a Trump golf resort. He thought he’d spotted the painting in the background (he hadn’t). Kathy Griffin, the actress, called me with her memories about visiting the set of Trump’s “The Celebrity Apprentice.” Mark Cuban, the Dallas Mavericks owner, was sending me links on Twitter, new leads on Trump promises…

The point of my stories was not to defeat Trump. The point was to tell readers the facts about this man running for president. How reliable was he at keeping promises? How much moral responsibility did he feel to help those less fortunate than he?

By the end of the election, I felt I’d done my job. My last big story about Trump started with an amazing anecdote, which came from a tip from a reader. In 1996, Trump had crashed a ribbon-cutting ceremony for a charity opening a nursery school for children with AIDS. Trump, who had never donated to the charity, stole a seat onstage that had been saved for a big contributor.

He sat there through the whole ceremony, singing along with the choir of children as cameras snapped, and then left without giving a dime…

A few days [after the election], I was interviewed by another German reporter. He asked if these past nine months, the greatest ad­ven­ture in my life as a journalist, had been for naught.

“Do you feel like your work perhaps did not matter at all?” he said.

I didn’t feel like that.

It did matter. But, in an election as long and wild as this, a lot of other stories and other people mattered, too. I did my job. The voters did theirs. Now my job goes on. I’ll seek to cover Trump the president with the same vigor as I scrutinized Trump the candidate.

And now I know how to do it.

Reader Interactions

155Comments

  1. 1.

    Kryptik

    I respect that he takes pride in his work and for good reason. He and Eichenwald were the two goddamn shining diamonds of election coverage thie last year.

    That said…I end up having to disagree with him at the end. Good as his word was, perhaps it didn’t matter, because almost all of it went down the memory hole anyway by people who either just didn’t see it, or those who willfully disbelieved it because it didn’t fit their worldview, therefore it and every other similar story like it was “fake” and lies from the pits of hell itself.

    And that mindset WON by leaps and bounds this election.

    So…it didn’t matter. And that’s fucking tragic.

  2. 2.

    Corner Stone

    I enjoyed all of DF’s work this year. But I mean, really. As much as it revealed what a complete scumbag the true Donald was, it was all about charitable giving (or not). Who was ever going to care about that? That he claimed credit for things that most people shrugged off as TV Personality PR stunts.
    If Marty Baron had such a great suggestion then why didn’t he assign multiple journalists to pull on multiple threads of Trump’s life and lies. Certainly they knew he was a liar and a scoundrel. They all fucking knew it!
    Why did we get a year of a man and a researcher studying microfiche for interviews and soundbytes about charitable fucking giving? How about something that connected to actual everyday people?

  3. 3.

    Yarrow

    I’ll seek to cover Trump the president with the same vigor as I scrutinized Trump the candidate.

    And now I know how to do it.

    Is this last sentence supposed to be encouraging? Did Fahrenthold not know how to do his job before this year? What do they teach journalists these days? How to be toadies and give good tweet and get booked on cable shows? Didn’t he already know how to do this? WTF?

  6. 6.

    Mike in NC

    For every working journalist in this country we have a hundred stenographers like Chuck Todd and Mark Halperin.

  7. 7.

    germy

    @Mike in NC:

    For every working journalist in this country we have a hundred stenographers like Chuck Todd and Mark Halperin.

    “I think we have to leave it there because of time.”

  8. 8.

    Ohio Mom

    I grew up in NYC and Trump was sorta like background noise: I knew who he was, you couldn’t help but hear something about his escapades whether you wanted to or not (similar to the way the Bruce/Kaitlyn Jenner has been forced into my consciousness).

    Anyway, back when his hotel in Atlantic City went bust, I guess that was sometime around the very early 90’s? my uncle, who had a small neon/electric sign business in Brooklyn, brought Trump up in conversation.

    His point was that all the little guys, the contractors, were going to get really screwed — of course as a fellow little guy, he completely empathized. If he had gotten the contract for the signage, it would have been a score (as it was, he didn’t do business so far afield from Brooklyn so this was a rhetorical point).

    But Trump, he sighed, was going to walk away without any damage, probably better than ever.

    I’ve been thinking about this conversation a lot lately. My uncle taught me many different things on many different topics. Sixteen years after his death, I am still learning from him.

    There isn’t really much to add to his Trump observation. Yeah, you can add details and newer stories but the basic moral remains, we little guys get hurt and Trump skates away. It is just now occurring on a scale my uncle probably couldn’t have imagined.

  9. 9.

    p.a.

    One must have faith that the ‘Emperor has no clothes’ will come. Unfortunately that moment probably depends on our supine national media, but assuming 1) tRump and his cohort are so arrogant they’ll attack the MSM instead of (further) co-opting it, 2) about the only thing that will make the MSM stand up on its hind legs is a direct threat, and 3) the fact that A LARGE PLURALITY OF VOTERS VOTED AGAINST HIM so there is a ready-made ‘market’, the Naked Emperor meme may take hold.

    Nothing wrong with delegitimizing an illegitimate.

  10. 10.

    Jerzy Russian

    @Yarrow: I read that as more “I have a list of people willing to talk” than as “who knew there were records of these things written down?”

  11. 11.

    germy

    When I got up this morning, I turned on the TV to the CBS morning show (“Your worrrlllld in 90 seconds!”) and they showed a clip of John Bolton calling Putin a sweetheart. I turned off the TV and went to make some coffee.

    The TV is now for old movies and nature documentaries.

  12. 12.

    trollhattan

    @Yarrow:
    Pro tip: J school does not specifically teach how to penetrate a half-century bullshit fortress like Trump’s any more than West Point taught Middle East urban warfare pre-Fallujah. That has to be learned one fortress at a time.

    If we’d paid better attention to New York journalists we’d have laughed Trump off the stage. Oopsie.

  13. 13.

    Suzanne

    @Corner Stone:

    How about something that connected to actual everyday people?

    There is nothing that could be uncovered about Trump that would be disqualifying to his tribe. They LOVE that he is a white trash stupid racist rapist.

    The core of the problem is that a sizable portion of the electorate is horrible. Bad morals, stupid people with no education, bad work ethic, bad taste. And they vote, because they realized how much the rest of us hate them.

  16. 16.

    Yarrow

    @Jerzy Russian: I hope you’re right.

    @Ohio Mom: The basic moral does remain. But Trump has attained a level he probably never imagined. His flaws will be in full view. It’s going to be terrible for so many of us. But his flaws may be his undoing. We’ll see. I’m sometimes more confident of this and other times despairing. I just don’t know.

  17. 17.

    sloan

    So the next American President was praising Vladimir Putin yesterday and this morning he has declared the majority of Americans who didn’t vote for him to be his enemies:

    “Happy New Year to all, including to my many enemies and those who have fought me and lost so badly they just don’t know what to do. Love!”

    I wrongly believed Republicans wouldn’t vote for him because he would destroy their party, redefining what it stands for if he ever became President. It will be bizarre watching the post-Trump GOP trying to pretend he never happened.

    Or perhaps they are so cowardly and submissive they will abandon what’s left of their principles and we won’t have a party that even pretends to be conservative?

  18. 18.

    Emma

    You know, I think we have to stop with the defeatism. Yes, a sizable minority of our population are either morons, ignoramuses, or downright evil. Guess what? The population of every country probably skews that way. Doesn’t mean we stop trying. And we don’t put down our allies. Farenthold and those few others fighting the good fight have to be supported and encouraged, not dismissed as not good enough.

  20. 20.

    ? Martin

    Taking comfort seeing that some people on this planet have escaped 2016. 15 more hours here in the Rebel-held Territory of California.

  21. 21.

    trollhattan

    BTW, the Kiwis already rang in 2017 so as far as I’m concerned 2016 is ovah. Yep, still have a pulse.

  23. 23.

    Yarrow

    @sloan: Well, they pretty much pretend W never existed. They have practice.

    Check the previous thread for the CNN spin on Trump’s tweet. Apparently it’s an “olive branch” to people who didn’t vote for him. Seriously.

  25. 25.

    Mark B

    The emotional age of the electorate in middle America is about 13. Trump is the first candidate who exploited that unabashedly. Either we’re going to go the direction of election campaigns that are nothing but an extended Internet trolling session as Trump did or there will be a bounce back of actual American values and we won’t elect an idiot in 2020 like we did it 2016. I don’t have a whole lot of faith in the future right now, even though Trump oly got in by exploiting voter suppression and Russian propaganda to the maximum extent possible. Enough Americans bought his bullshit to make me start to lose my faith in democracy. What little I had to begin with, anyway.

  26. 26.

    Elizabelle

    @Emma: Moar of this, please.

    Also: Trump lost the popular vote by almost 3 million. It’s why his tiny fingers felt compelled to type:

    including to my many enemies and those who have fought me and lost so badly they just don’t know what to do. Love

    That’s insane. It’s mean. It’s cruel. It is graceless. It is the man himself, personified.

    May be that Trump will take Trump down.

    In the meantime, good luck to those journalists digging for information. Bear in mind, some of the problem will be careerist editors who don’t want too much digging to upset subscribers/viewers.

  28. 28.

    Spinoza Is My Co-Pilot

    @germy: Dead on, absolutely

    This is how most media that most people get most of their info from in this country operates, which makes the project of saving the world from the ravages of American-style fascism nearly impossible.

    We now have to count on “heightening the contradictions” actually working to save us from the slow-moving (so far, anyway) apocalypse. Nothing else is even remotely sufficient for the task, and in our quite obviously “post-fact” contemporary world I’m not at all sanguine it will be.

  29. 29.

    Suzanne

    @Yarrow: It is much better today! My husband changed the bandage yesterday and I almost freaked out because it looks like I came closer to severing it than I am okay with, and it was all swollen and bruised and really, really gross. So we enjoyed some herbal refreshment and my anxiety and pain went away and I got to sleep and the pain is still minimal this morning. Woot.

  31. 31.

    Another Scott

    @p.a.: We’ve got a few things going for us. He’s terribly unpopular. He has nominated a bunch of people who know nothing about the Federal Government and how it works. The DC Circuit court is 7:4 Democratic. Many in the House and Senate hate Trump and will not roll over for him. The House controls the budget so Trump won’t be able to do what he wants with the Treasury by fiat, and as dysfunctional as the House is even getting a budget through will be extremely difficult. Trump is dogged by lawsuits and it’s hard to believe that he won’t be sued by the ACLU, EFF, NAACP, and lots and lots of other organizations, in addition to perpetual gadflies like Judicial Watch. In addition to his personal civil suits.

    Plus, he made lots and lots of promises (and continues to do so) that he cannot keep. He’s not going to build a wall. He’s not going to deport 3M people. He’s not going to stop immigrants from working at his vineyard or in his hotels. And many people who voted for him aren’t going to forget what he promised.

    Finally, let’s remember W’s first few months. He was very small in the office and didn’t rally people into some unstoppable juggernaut. He was able to sell people on the huge tax cuts because Clinton left him with a large and growing surplus. Donnie doesn’t have that. W’s big domestic program was NCLB which depended on Ted Kennedy’s help. Donnie won’t have that (Schumer isn’t going to roll over for him – he just isn’t). In 2000, AOL was king of the hill. Google was 2 years old. Information was much more limited and easier to shape and control. Donnie won’t be able to spin things as easily as W did (and he wasn’t all that successful). Etc.

    Donnie will be king of the hill on January 20, but it’s easy to see it being downhill for him from then on.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  32. 32.

    gene108

    @p.a.:

    and 3) the fact that A LARGE PLURALITY OF VOTERS VOTED AGAINST HIM so there is a ready-made ‘market’, the Naked Emperor meme may take hold.

    54% of people voted against him. A larger plurality of voters voted for Hillary than him.

    @Ohio Mom:

    There are THOUSANDS of lawsuits against Trump for non-payment of services rendered. There thousands more, who did not bother to sue, but were still shafted by Trump.

    But the media completely ignored these stories. The court cases are public record. They would not to have do much research to find out how small contractors got screwed.

    This is a recurring way Trump does business.

    And if the media is so lazy to not go after such low hanging fruit, I doubt they will bother themselves to go after anything he does as President.

  34. 34.

    germy

    90% of what Obama’s White House did for citizens… 99% of them are unaware of it.

    In The Competition Initiative and Hidden Fees, the White House’s National Economic Council documents the widespread use of deceptive “service charges” that businesses levy, allowing them to advertise prices that are wildly divergent from what you’ll actually pay — think of the $30, unavoidable “resort fees” added to a hotel bill; the $25 “processing fees” added to concert tickets, the random fees added to telecom bills, etc, all adding up to billions transferred away from American shoppers to big business.

    When consumers are induced into paying more than they would otherwise by add-on fees, several consequences follow. First, there is a systematic transfer of wealth away from consumers to the firms that rely on the fees. Second, the economy itself, to the degree it relies on accurate prices to direct resources to their highest uses, becomes less efficient. And finally, the competitive process itself is dulled, as the true price-cutters have trouble beating out rivals when everyone is hiding their real prices.

    With its brief on these hidden fees, the National Economic Council is also releasing a summary of the Administration’s Competitive Initiative. In April 2016, President Obama issued an Executive Order (“Steps to Increase Competition and Better Inform Consumers and Workers to Support Continued Growth of the American Economy”) that directed Federal departments and agencies to use the tools available to promote a fair, efficient, and competitive marketplace for American workers, businesses, entrepreneurs, and consumers. Since that time, among other actions we detail in the report, the Department of Transportation (DOT) took steps to promote fair and transparent competition in the airline industry; the Department of Justice (DOJ) and Federal Trade Commission (FTC) took action to combat wage collusion; the Administration called on policymakers to take action to address the overuse of non-compete agreements; the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) released new rules to protect farmers from unfair treatment; the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) took action to facilitate access to affordable hearing aids; and the FTC proposed new rules to promote competition in contact lenses.

  36. 36.

    Corner Stone

    @Suzanne:

    There is nothing that could be uncovered about Trump that would be disqualifying to his tribe. They LOVE that he is a white trash stupid racist rapist.

    While I agree that most of the people who voted for him did so with ill intent, IMO a part of the voters never bothered to look past the “Terrific Businessman” facade. There were a number of angles that could have been amplified off his bankruptcies and stiffing tradesmen. We here saw most of the insight into those problems because we bothered to watch HRC ads that highlighted the issues.
    ISTM, and I am willing to be corrected, that no journalist beyond Kurt Eichenwald filed any headline grabbing pieces about any of the pocketbook damage Trump had caused for working people.

  40. 40.

    gene108

    @Another Scott:

    Donnie won’t be able to spin things as easily as W did

    Trump does not need to spin anything. Between Moldovian fake news sites, and domestic right-wingers willing to say anything to defend Republicans- and Trump is now officially a Republican – the spin is being taken care of.

    What made Bush, Jr. unique is the merger of White House talking points, with right-wing media. Jon Stewart, at his best, pointed out repeatedly how Fox News and Bush & Co officials all had the exact same talking points, which drove the MSM narrative.

    I expect more of this, along with the crazy stuff from fake news sites and the push by white supremacists, to create a state where facts will not penetrate.

    Hell, this bit from some CBS affiliate “debunks” Russian interference. When you have this sort of shit at local affiliate levels, it is going to be hard to get past the noise.

    https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=CNIrPLHVfdI

  42. 42.

    Baud

    @Suzanne:

    And they vote, because they realized how much the rest of us hate them.

    They vote because they hate us. We didn’t really hate them back until now.

  43. 43.

    kindness

    Americans now believe what they want to believe. They can surround themselves with the like minded and only see others when they watch Fox. Funny how that seems to work for so many. I mean, I wasn’t that much different from them but on the other side. I couldn’t believe so many would vote against their own self interests against Hillary and instead vote for spite & Boaty McBoatface. Boy was I wrong.

  44. 44.

    Adam L Silverman

    @gene108: No, 54% of people eligible to vote and who voted voted against him. That’s about 29% or so of Americans who are eligible to vote. The majority of Americans eligible to vote didn’t care enough one way or another, to vote. Or were unable to navigate roadblocks added to the voting system. Or have so much stuff they have to deal with daily that they couldn’t refocus enough to vote one way or the other. It is very, very important that the actual reality of the percentage of Americans eligible to vote and who voted for Secretary Clinton or who voted for the President-elect be described accurately. Its not 54% of all American citizens, just 54% of those American citizens that actually voted. They’re not the same thing. And while its an important distinction in terms of popular vote share, it doesn’t translate into a majority of Americans voted for Secretary Clinton.

  45. 45.

    Mark B

    @sloan: As much as I disliked W and thought he was a terrible president, I always felt that he was trying to do the best he could for his country according to his abilities and personal philosophy. In a lazy, incompetent manner, of course. I don’t feel the same way about Trump. It’s pretty clear he only ran for office as a stunt to enrich himself. Now that he’s in office, he will be selling off the assets of the Federal government as fast as he can to enrich himself and his family. His goal is to suck as much wealth out of his position as possible before he has to leave office, and the welfare of anyone else be damned. And nearly half of American voters thought that was a good idea.

  46. 46.

    gene108

    @zhena gogolia:

    Lots of people hate him. Lots and lots. That was not true of Dubya when he began his term.

    Back in 2000, it was believed Democrats and Republicans had converged on a basic agreement about the role of government.

    There would not be a radical upheaval caused by a Bush, Jr Administration.

    We all know that is not the case here.

    There is no benefit of the doubt given that Trump, Ryan and McConnell will act in good faith.

  47. 47.

    sloan

    @Another Scott:

    He has nominated a bunch of people who know nothing about the Federal Government and how it works.

    This may be our saving grace. On one hand, they’ll do a terrible job of keeping the government running properly. On the other hand, they may be too incompetent to implement their terrible ideas. That’s about the best spin I can put on it!

  48. 48.

    Suzanne

    @Corner Stone: Maybe. I am just skeptical that people didn’t know about his crappy business dealings, or that they would have cared had they knew more. The people that bought into his cult of personality did so despite heaps and heaps of evidence that he sucks and that nothing he can or will do will make their lives better anyway. They love him because they enjoy the semiotics of having white trash in the White House.

    On a related note, I had been avoiding using the term “white trash” to describe a specific subculture, but the term of art that we were supposed to use—”white working class”—is imprecise and too broad. In the spirit of giving them what they ask for, which is the rollback of political correctness, I am no longer being nice about it.

  49. 49.

    Baud

    @kindness:

    I couldn’t believe so many would vote against their own self interests

    They didn’t. They just define their interests differently than you think they should.

  50. 50.

    Suzanne

    @Baud: Yes, you are right. I should be more precise—we held them in low-level disdain. Not enough to hate, but enough that they felt it and hated us.

    I read a piece, can’t remember where, in which the writer posited that white liberals were more shocked by the outcome of this election than black or Latinx liberals because some white liberals have gotten to the point where they don’t define their subculture with racial signifiers (note that this is not the same as not being racist). Personal style, education, urbanity, media consumed, etc are the markers of membership instead. I think that is a very solid point. The parts of the country that are rural and white feel completely alien to me.

  51. 51.

    debbie

    @Baud:

    They vote because they hate us.

    Sort of. Trump’s voters believed, correctly or not, that they had been hated and denigrated for many years. Trump was their first opportunity to push back. There will be buyer’s remorse soon enough. No job, no healthcare will soon outweigh the gotcha moment they had after the election.

    When that moment arrives, I hope liberals/left/Progressives/whoever has the sene to skip the “I told you so”s and instead remind them of the positives of the Democrats. I’m not very confident of this, though.

  55. 55.

    Trentrunner

    Another excellent read. An excerpt:

    Trump voters sneer at the rest of America and label all of us “coastal elites,” (including the working class people who live in America’s large cities (many in the South and MidWest) and sell the groceries, process the data, build the buildings, rake the leaves, clean the offices, serve the breakfast sandwiches, and fill the potholes). Trump voters presume that they get to decide who is and who isn’t a “real American,” and they are certain that they are and we aren’t. Most of all, Trump voters are angry because they perceive that we think they’re “stupid.”

    Well, you know what?

    We do. We do think you’re stupid. Really, really stupid.

    We have for a long, long time and, now, thanks to you, we no longer have to be politically correct and pretend that you’re merely “economically insecure”or that Democrats just haven’t found the appropriate (politically correct) way to “reach out” to you and convince you to stop shooting (often literally) your own damn selves in your own damn diabetically-nerve-damaged feet. We no longer have to tell ourselves that we need to respect your “cultural” attraction to the flag of defeated traitors; we can just flat out admit that you’re racist tools of people who use your racism to manipulate you. We are finally free of the need to pretend that your fetish for guns is based upon ancestor rituals involving hunting deer or geese; we can just do the un-PC thing and say that you have tiny penises (not that there’s anything wrong with that) and love shooting African American men and getting away with it. We will never again have to try and imagine that you really do love America; you’ve shown us how quickly you’ll declare allegiance to (even!) Vladimir Putin as long as he validates your tribal need to “other,” well, anyone else. We’ve been relieved of the burden of pretending that your up-is-down-black-is-white version of “Christianity,” is anything more than a way for slick operators to separate you rubes from your money and sell your vote to their corporate overlords who then screw you over economically. While you, stupid as you are, lap it up.

    No, thanks to you, we can finally say what we’ve always known, whispered to each other, and believed but been too PC to say: you’re just incredibly stupid.

    Whew! It’s such a relief! Ya’ll were right! Political correctness WAS what was wrong with America.

  56. 56.

    Baud

    @Suzanne: Makes sense.

    @debbie:

    Trump was their first opportunity to push back.

    After Nixon, Reagan, Bush I and Bush II.

    @debbie:

    No job, no healthcare will soon outweigh the gotcha moment they had after the election. When that moment arrives, I hope liberals/left/Progressives/whoever has the sene to skip the “I told you so”s and instead remind them of the positives of the Democrats.

    I won’t say it to those who are remorseful and want to make amends by electing Democrats. To the obstinate, however…

  58. 58.

    Suzanne

    @debbie:I’m not going be nice about it. As far as I’m concerned, voting for Trump was an act of personal and direct cruelty against me and my loved ones. I will no longer offer them any kindness other than basic transactional courtesy. I’m revoking my organ donor status because I don’t want my organs going to any Trump supporters.

  59. 59.

    Elizabelle

    @sloan: Somebody made the point here that longtime government bureaucrats may save us. They will slow-walk anything awful Trump tries to do.

    So far Trump has blown past all manner of gatekeepers and institutions meant to protect us. He is defying norms in every fashion.

    But government bureaucracy, when it has it in for you? Maybe Trump has met his match there. One can hope.

  60. 60.

    trollhattan

    @gene108:
    W had that veneer of “compassionate conservative” and the “I’m a uniter, not a divider” slogan to hypnotize the unsuspecting for the first years, while his neocon minions did their best to wreck the budget and kneecap the government. I truly felt folks were figuring out his schtick and was calling him one-term George until some point in September 2001.

    Trump can’t bother to pretend to care about the “other side.”

  61. 61.

    Spinoza Is My Co-Pilot

    @Elizabelle: See, here’s the thing: that Trump tweet is insane, mean, cruel, graceless, all that (as you say). But, as Yarrow reported just a minute before you at 23, it is already being normalized by the media instead as an “olive branch”.

    Very fucking Orwellian, of course, and that’s just the goddamn world we’re now living in whether or not it’s considered “defeatist” (which is “wrongthink” to some for our side, so it seems) to point out the bleeding obviousness of it. The media did, does now, and will continue to do far more normalizing of Trump than otherwise.

    The media is the single greatest impediment to our fighting the good fight, in large part because most white people want to be told comforting lies that let them off the hook for modern civilization’s problems. I have no idea how we get past that, how we force the unequivocal facing of the truth before it’s far too late. Defeatist-ly, I don’t think we will, since I believe the 2016 campaign coverage wasn’t some anomaly but instead the standard going forward. Hope I’m proved very wrong about that.

  63. 63.

    germy

    @gene108:

    Hell, this bit from some CBS affiliate “debunks” …

    I’ll wager it’s a sinclair station.

    My local CBS news affiliate did an admiring profile of the Maine governor, calling him “outspoken”, but getting a lot done to “turn around one of the biggest welfare states in the country.”

  64. 64.

    BBA

    @Elizabelle: The Republicans hold all the cards. You really think Ryan and McConnell wouldn’t abolish the civil service and bring back the spoils system? Everyone knows that career civil servants are lazy moochers and besides they all vote Democratic.

    James Garfield died in vain.

  65. 65.

    Mnemosyne

    @Adam L Silverman:

    Although I understand where you’re coming from, my main problem with this (and with everyone insisting on precise accuracy of language at all times) is that the propagandists will use that against us to “prove” that a majority of the American people really are for Trump, they were just too darn busy to vote for him.

    Being nitpicky is not the best way to fight propaganda.

  66. 66.

    germy

    @Suzanne:

    I’m revoking my organ donor status because I don’t want my organs going to any Trump supporters.

    They won’t need your heart.

  68. 68.

    Mnemosyne

    @Suzanne:

    If I lived in a red state, I would probably consider doing the same. Luckily, assuming I die here in Los Angeles County, it’s far more likely than not that my organs will go to a sensible Hillary voter since LAC went Hillary by, like, 70 percent to 30 percent (with some wiggle room for 3rd party morons).

  69. 69.

    Suzanne

    @germy: Nope, no, they won’t.

    Trump supporters want to take away my children’s rights and their dignity and their freedom. They voted for a VP who would electrocute my daughter to turn her straight. Fuck them forever.

  71. 71.

    germy

    @BBA: from wikipedia:

    In a 1987 case, Meredith Corp. v. FCC, two other judges on the same court declared that Congress did not mandate the [fairness] doctrine and the FCC did not have to continue to enforce it.

  72. 72.

    SgrAstar

    @Elizabelle:

    I am going to “like” cartoonist Bagley on Facebook. Moar of this. Liked the cartoons I sampled.

    Bagley is terrific! He was shortlisted for a Pulitzer a couple of years ago, and is an incredibly valuable counterweight to the reflexive Mormon conservatism which afflicts Utah at every level.

  73. 73.

    Aunt Kathy

    @Suzanne: But, girl, they fly those organs all over the country now. What if I need your heart? I don’t want one from a Trumpie! ;-)

  75. 75.

    Major Major Major Major

    Off-topic: Slate has been doing pretty well lately publishing straight news and opinion, but the other day they were back to form with the slate pitchiest slate pitch: how self-driving cars will be terrible for our already-strained organ donation system.

  77. 77.

    Mnemosyne

    @amk:

    It wasn’t just apathy. Google for the Brennan Center and read some of their reports about racially-targeted voter suppression this year. Wisconsin has one of the worst laws, and yet a federal court let them move forward on enforcing it this year.

  79. 79.

    Aunt Kathy

    A serious question, though, RE Farenthold and investigative stuff. If we can’t get McTweeter’s financial info thru’ our US systems, would it be possible to work from the other side? How are the filing requirements of banks in other countries different? More transparent, or less? Maybe he should get out his note pad and start calling again, country by country, bank by bank, and work in reverse?

  80. 80.

    Elizabelle

    @amk: I think, though, all the fake news — purveyed by Limbaugh and Fox News — helped build the voter apathy. If you can’t get people to support your candidate/POV, throw as much mud as you can at the opposing side.

    Some low info voters probably just say “a pox on both their houses”. Which means the fake news won.

  81. 81.

    Suzanne

    @Aunt Kathy: If my family gets to pick who gets them, then I will totally donate. I think organ donation is awesome. I just will no longer help those who hurt me.

    @Major Major Major Major: I thought that was actually a good piece. It is true that we don’t do a good job of anticipating downstream results and adjusting accordingly.

  84. 84.

    Aunt Kathy

    @Mnemosyne: This is one thing that has been driving me crazy, the restrictive voting laws. When it comes to Voter ID, we need a guy with deep pockets to set up a fund, and then we need to go door to door, just like canvassing for votes. “Hi, these are the requirements for voting now. Do you have what you need? Does your name & address match EXACTLY to the voter rolls? What do we need to update? We can help. Need a ride to the DMV? Need a ride to the ciurthouse to request birth cert? Need the fees for the certificate copy? WE HAVE YOU COVERED!”
    If this has been happening, I haven’t heard of it.

  87. 87.

    Mnemosyne

    @Major Major Major Major:

    Given what we now know about Russian meddling via fake news sites, I don’t think there’s really a bright line that can be drawn anymore between propaganda and fake news. When Breitbart republishes a story about Hillary from a Russian fake news house, is that fake news or propaganda?

  88. 88.

    Couldn't Stand the Weather

    @BBA:

    The Republicans hold all the cards. You really think Ryan and McConnell wouldn’t abolish the civil service and bring back the spoils system? Everyone knows that career civil servants are lazy moochers and besides they all vote Democratic.

    James Garfield died in vain.

    If this is your mindset, why even bother to get out of bed? To even open your eyes in the morning? Jesus.

    This bankrupt (financially and otherwise) shitgibbon is not my president. If Farenthold, Rolling Stone, Amy Goodman, Khan and others are willing to try to bring his dealings to light, then that is something to build on. That’s more than I saw on November 9th.

  89. 89.

    trollhattan

    @Mnemosyne:
    BBC did a voter suppression story on Wisconsin last fall that practically had me drive off the road. They followed a guy into a DMV office where they lied to him about availability of an alternative I.D. the feds had demanded the state make available.

    Little did I realize at the time how critical this would become.

  90. 90.

    a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)

    @Suzanne:

    I’m revoking my organ donor status because I don’t want my organs going to any Trump supporters.

    Sadly, that sounds very much like something one of those supporters would do. Are you sure you want to eliminate the possibility the someone you “approve of” gets an organ when you die just to avoid the possibility that some awful person might? I understand – and share – your anger at all the hatred they have, and at the damage they want to do.

  92. 92.

    Ksmiami

    @Suzanne: yep. I basically will tell every trump voter that they’ve fucked up our future for spite. No sugarcoating they are mean, stupid bigots. Eff em all

  93. 93.

    Josie

    @Aunt Kathy: This is so important. We can go to court but, as happened in Texas, not everyone follows the court order. People were still asking for ID even after the court said they didn’t need it. Signs were still being posted at voting locations saying that ID’s were needed. Republicans just ignore the courts. As Kay has said, they don’t think the rules were made for them. So we need to help everyone obtain a valid ID before 2018.

  95. 95.

    Mnemosyne

    @Aunt Kathy:

    Vote Riders is doing some of this but, as trollhattan said above, Wisconsin was basically lying to people about being able to get a voter ID, and the federal court shrugged and let them keep doing it.

    I’m not saying it’s not critical, and I think some people here are putting together a project that would do exactly what you’re talking about. But we can’t have any illusions that there’s going to be no opposition or that the other side is going to make it easy for us.

  97. 97.

    Mnemosyne

    @Major Major Major Major:

    I’m trying to figure out what the distinction is that you’re drawing between propaganda and fake news. Is it like calling neo-Nazis the “alt-right,” or is there a larger distinction that you see?

    ETA: Basically, has the term “fake news” replaced the term “propaganda,” or is there some distinction between them that I’m not seeing. I think CNN’s actions are propaganda.

  98. 98.

    Lurking Canadian

    @Elizabelle: That fuckin guy. Is he twelve? Is everybody in Washington fucking twelve?

    I’m old enough to remember way back in 2009 when it was a partisan scandal that Obama wanted to tell kids to stay in school and do their homework. What the fuck is wrong with the media that they normalize this shit? Am I insane? Is everybody insane? Did I recently fall through a wormhole into Bizarroworld?

  100. 100.

    Major Major Major Major

    @Mnemosyne: there is (or was) a distinction, which was rapidly eroded by everybody using the term for everything. I’m working on a blog post about it. It’s astonishing how quickly it went from a term for a specific newish phenomenon to a useless phrase.

  102. 102.

    JMG

    No matter what happens, TV news, national and local, sends the message Homer Simpson said of USA Today, “they’re the only ones with the guts to tell it like it is, that everything is just fine.” Just as before the Iraq War when they assured us Bush was telling the truth about WMD. It would have been too disturbing to their audience to say the President was going to war on false pretenses, and worse, that he didn’t know were false.
    For them Trump HAS to be normal. If he’s not, then America is in serious trouble. If they tell people that, they might not buy cars, Viagra and fast food or ask their physicians about all those prescription drugs.
    Plus, the natural instinct of the inside Washington press corps (always some honorable exceptions, to be sure) is to kiss the ass of power.

  103. 103.

    Aunt Kathy

    @Mnemosyne: Yeah, I get that. I guess I’m envisioning the regular non-citizen folk who is refused an ID being able to call a number, have an attorney accompany them to the DMV/wherever, stand with them, look the nice guy/lady across the counter and explain the current law to them, and if they still refuse, start taking names and talking lawsuits. Articles in the paper the next day about nice Mr/Ms Smith at the DMV doesn’t seem to understand the current law, etc. Thats why I say we need the deep pockets, and a yuuuge volnteer base. The ACLU going the court route is one way. But having volunteers standing right there with the voter, with a copy of the law in hand, telling the nice clerk, “look hon, this is the law, this is what you are going to do…” Most especially if the voter is elderly.
    We need as many volunteers working on this in restrictive states as we needed in the actual election

  105. 105.

    tofubo

    @ChrisB:

    I no in the NYC to do so ( but will be visitin the WDC in the near future ) just say eat me you mother fucking racist imbecile.

    It’ll be cathartic.

  108. 108.

    Ruckus

    @Gindy51:

    The fucking idiots should have thought about that before they voted for it.

    I think I see your problem, you define them correctly and then asked them to do something they are not capable of.

  109. 109.

    Suzanne

    @a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q): I struggle with that. I genuinely want to do good. But I also believe that there have to be consequences for people for what they’ve done, both to me and my loved ones, but also to the entire country. And the only consequences I can “inflict” are the loss of my business and my friendship, and my charity (time/money/organs).

    Maybe in time, I will feel less spiteful and more magnanimous. Right now? Bitter and retributive AF.

  110. 110.

    Ruckus

    @Major Major Major Major:
    Isn’t Fake News now used as propaganda? And propaganda now used as News?
    I mean you are correct, they are supposed to be/were two different things but as it now stands, in this country, at this time, they really are used interchangeably.

  112. 112.

    Major Major Major Major

    @Ruckus: yes to the latter, sort of to the former–most of the fake news operations (especially the lefty chakra mills that have been going for years) are just business operations like those kids in Macedonia, but they’ve been weaponized.

  113. 113.

    Mnemosyne

    @Major Major Major Major:
    @Ruckus:

    I think what’s tricky is that fake news is now being used for propaganda purposes, and sometimes is actually created as propaganda. Take that weird “DNC pedophiles at the pizza parlor!” story. It was created as fake news, but was deliberately targeted at Hillary and the DNC. So is that fake news, propaganda, or both?

  114. 114.

    Ruckus

    @Suzanne:

    Right now? Bitter and retributive AF.

    It’s nice to try to be the better person. One usually gets shafted for it, but it does feel good. But there are just some things that really can not be atoned for. One of them was having any part in electing drumpf. They deserve no reward for that. It’s like giving the guy who robbed a bank and shot 5 people on his way out the $50,000 reward leading to his capture by turning himself in.
    Bright side. At least now there will be no doubt about worst president status. And if I’m wrong, I’ll gladly eat the paper I just wrote that on.

  117. 117.

    Ruckus

    @Major Major Major Major:

    but they’ve been weaponized.

    But that’s what propaganda is, weaponized bullshit. And Fake News is the exactly the same. The only difference now is that they have been merged. If it didn’t have too many syllables, weaponized bullshit would be a better term.

  118. 118.

    jackmac

    @debbie: After putting up with a couple of decades of being called “libtard,” “Demo-RAT” and other other Rush and Fox News inspired derision, I’m going to remain at the “told you so f**ker” stage for quite some time when Trumpsters realize they’ve been had.

  119. 119.

    Lurking Canadian

    @Ruckus: If you need to tell a lie, it is better to tell a big one than a small one, because people are more likely to believe big lies than small lies.

    Some German guy discovered that, I think.

  120. 120.

    Mnemosyne

    @Major Major Major Major:

    I think I can see where you’re going, but “technique” is not quite the right word for propaganda. I think fake news is a tool that can be put to multiple uses, including (but not only) propaganda.

    But propaganda doesn’t have to be lies — if you look at a lot of the Allied propaganda in WWII, they didn’t lie about what the Nazis were saying or doing, they just put it into a single package so it was easier to interpret. So fake news can be a type or technique of propaganda, but it’s not the only type or technique. Does that make sense?

  122. 122.

    Major Major Major Major

    @Mnemosyne: propaganda doesn’t have to use fake news. It’s a way of using information of whatever kind. Correct. But fake news (pizzagate, jade helm, vaccines cause autism) is different. You can propagandize with fake news but fake news is not equivalent to propaganda.

  123. 123.

    Ruckus

    @efgoldman:
    No more bizarre than their pretense that W and Darth never happened.
    Most rethugs that I know say “Who?” if you mention their names. And never repeat them. History that they dislike has to be deleted and/or rewritten to be acceptable. One of the first rethugs that I unfreinded told me that GWB is a personal friend and a great human being. He told me this 3 yrs ago. There is no rational, logical thought in a mind like that.

  125. 125.

    Mnemosyne

    @Major Major Major Major:

    Right, but Pizzagate and Jade Helm were both fake news with a propaganda aim — they were specifically meant to discredit and demonize Democrats.

    That’s why it’s so hard to tease out a meaningful difference between the two right now.

  130. 130.

    Ruckus

    @Mnemosyne:
    @Major Major Major Major:
    You are both correct in the definition of the terms.
    But at this time, in this place, they are one and the same. That’s how they are both being used, Fake News is reported/repeated like propaganda and then used as propaganda to justify/reinforce the Fake News. It’s one big journalist circle jerk.
    Ask yourself, why do people believe the “news”? It is repeated in so many places, especially if it is not true but is partisan right wing bullshit. Fake News is run like a propaganda organization equal to any in history and yet it is not government run like all of the past ones I can think of.
    It doesn’t have to stay that way, and it may not in the future.

  132. 132.

    J R in WV

    @Major Major Major Major:

    “Fake News” is a term invented to replace the term “propaganda” which people understand to be false news intended to sway political events. Fake News sounds all newish and fun, and not nearly as serious and scary as propaganda. Otherwise the two terms are synonyms – their meaning is identical except for the implications and overtones, and the superior harmless feelings from Fake News is why it is popular with those publishing Fake News style propaganda.

    Suzanne, glad your hand is doing better, agree with you about organ donation. Fuck those people, they need to die quicker.

  133. 133.

    Major Major Major Major

    @J R in WV:

    “Fake News” is a term invented to replace the term “propaganda” which people understand to be false news intended to sway political events.

    This is simply not true. Well–it’s what the term means now, but it wasn’t for the first week it was around.

  134. 134.

    Mnemosyne

    @Major Major Major Major:

    Pizzagate was specifically alleging personal corruption and criminal behavior by Democratic politicians at the very highest levels of the government. Even if it wasn’t an election year, that still would have been propaganda against the Democratic Party using the technique of fake news.

    And while it sounded insane to us, there were plenty of people who believed it. It was showing up in my Facebook feed.

  135. 135.

    divF

    Re: hating the RWNJ WWC: before the election is was more like

    Ugarte: You despise me, don’t you?
    Rick: If I gave you any thought I probably would.

    But now we have to think about it, and do despise them.

  137. 137.

    LesGS

    “Propaganda” and “fake news” are not synonymous terms, but they are both “informational warfare.”

  138. 138.

    Mnemosyne

    @Major Major Major Major:

    I’m saying that it’s not a coincidence that a fake news story like Pizzagate just happened to be disseminated during an election year. It’s possible that it was originally created as a joke or test — let’s see if people are stupid enough to believe this! — but it was quickly co-opted and used for propaganda.

    Fake news used for political purposes is propaganda, by definition.

  139. 139.

    Another Scott

    @efgoldman: Wikipedia:

    Bush Administration[edit]

    In July 2003 Judicial Watch joined the environmental organization Sierra Club in suing the George W. Bush administration for access to minutes of Vice President Dick Cheney’s Energy Task Force.[7] Judicial Watch was involved in a similar legal dispute with Vice President Dick Cheney in 2002 when the group filed a shareholder lawsuit against Halliburton. The lawsuit, which accused Halliburton of accounting fraud, alleged that “when Mr. Cheney was chief executive of Halliburton, he and other directors inflated revenue reports, boosting Halliburton’s share price.” [8] As reported by the Wall Street Journal the court filing claims the oil-field-services concern overstated revenue by a total of $445 million from 1999 through the end of 2001.[9]

    In 2006, Judicial Watch sued the Secret Service to force the release of logs detailing convicted former lobbyist Jack Abramoff’s visits to the White House. This resulted in the release of a number of documents.[citation needed]

    There’s no doubt that the go after the Clintons much harder than the GOP, but they do go after the GOP at times as well.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  140. 140.

    Ruckus

    @efgoldman:
    You’ll like the back story even better.
    He’s a man with money. Not a huge amount (he doesn’t own his own plane) but he and his family will be very comfortable for the rest of their lives. But his son is in a wheel chair with a traumatic brain injury so he throws a party at his rather large custom home. So 200-300 show up and pay $100 each to see his toys and eat an OK buffet lunch and after the party is paid for, the balance went to a charity that helps the less fortunate victims of traumatic brain injury. Sound at all or even close to familiar?

  142. 142.

    Another Scott

    @Major Major Major Major: I’m too lazy to look for links at the moment, but I thought a lot of the “fake news” stuff was put out by kids in Macedonia or Elbonia or somewhere who were looking for clicks and income. Then crazy people in the US who look for anything to drive clicks and hatred of the Clintons and the Democrats repost it and then it gets on Twitter and goes nuts. So it’s “fake news” when the kids in Elbonia do it, but morphs into propaganda when InfoWars reposts it and then gets on Fox News, Breitbart, and Twitter.

    That’s my take, anyway.
    .
    .
    So, who’s going to Ber Wilmer’s Day of Finger-wagging Rage Action events on the 15th? Has anything actually been “organized” yet?

    :-/

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  143. 143.

    Suzanne

    @Pogonip: Just like with everything, I do my best to shop at stores and buy products that don’t piss me off. I buy a lot of food from Costco because I like that they pay their employees well. I don’t shop at Walmart. I don’t buy Tyson chicken. Etc etc etc. I am sure that I am still buying something from people that support Trump—in an economy as multi-layered as ours, it would be difficult not to do so. But if I find out about it, then I will switch to a different product. Boycotting is an imperfect strategy, but not a bad one.

    My mom is still boycotting Nestle for something they did back in the ’70s.

  144. 144.

    BillinGlendaleCA

    @Suzanne:

    My mom is still boycotting Nestle for something they did back in the ’70s.

    IIRC from my college daz, it had to do with baby formula in the 3rd world that they were selling.

  146. 146.

    a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)

    @Suzanne: Yay for your mom. I love commitment to a principle. I’m guessing it was formula marketing in developing countries. Which was done rather aggressively and of course benefits flowed only to the Nestle Corp, because kids in poor countries did fine with breast milk – or as fine as they would have with the added expense of formula, which lacked real health benefits.

  147. 147.

    a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)

    @efgoldman: You both beat me. But in my defense, I’ve been shopping online for a new pants suit. Do you know where I might find a 2017 security clearance on sale?

  151. 151.

    Mnemosyne

    @a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q):

    I remember reading a really sad article in the WSJ in the mid-90s that talked about how Nestle had really fucked things up long-term, because when the AIDS crisis hit, no one in Africa trusted baby formula anymore because of Nestle’s evil in the 1970s, so babies were getting breast-fed and infected by HIV-positive mothers when they might have been able to be saved with formula and prompt drug treatment.

  152. 152.

    john fremont

    @Ohio Mom: I have been working aviation for almost 30 years now. In that I’be seen wealthy private aircraft owners come in and want service and upgrades put on their planes. When the time comes to pay the bill they nickel and dime every item. Some of these guys want everything done in the cheap and then will start lecturing you on how to do your job. That’s how Trump struck me.

  154. 154.

    Ruckus

    @john fremont:
    And people think those guys earned their money. More like they chiseled everyone they met for a few pennies thousands and especially everyone they did business with. Drumpf is just a more well known, not nearly as rich asshole, and he’d like you to believe that he’s rich. The last year has been his greatest con and I’d bet all his cash money that he was sure it wouldn’t work.

  155. 155.

    J R in WV

    @Major Major Major Major:

    So, the first week it was invented, what did it mean? How is it different from propaganda?

    No offense, just asking for more details. I’m opposed to fake news, as well as to propaganda… I suppose most of us here are.

Comments are closed.