Even Fox News is sobering up to the potential effects of a Trump presidency. While Trump's economic policy would benefit the nation's wealthiest, Trump's foreign policy may put a damper on their party—particularly the president-elect's cluelessness about nuclear war. 

“The United States must greatly strengthen and expand its nuclear capability until such time that the world comes to its senses regarding nukes," Trump tweeted Thursday.

The United States must greatly strengthen and expand its nuclear capability until such time as the world comes to its senses regarding nukes

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 22, 2016

Surprisingly, the tweet immediately sparked controversy with none other than the economist and Fox Business host Stuart Varney, who called it a "big deal."

“I’m thinking this out,” Neil Cavuto told Stuart Varney. “Let’s say we get to Dow 20,000, so we’re all richer for it. But Donald Trump also promises more nukes, so we’re all blown up just as we’re counting our money.” 

Varney was stunned.

“What? Have you become some kind of leftist all of a sudden?” Varney joked.

“No, I’m just worried,” Cavuto explained. "You don't seem to be..."

“Get out of here,” Varney scoffed.

“I am thinking about that,” Cavuto told him. “That would be something. We hit Dow 20,000… ka-boom.” 

Cavuto quickly turned to discuss Amazon's incredible holiday delivery speeds, but maybe should have ended the segment right there. 

Watch: 

h/t: RawStory

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The organizers behind Millennials for Bernie are raising money to create an anti-Trump movement headquarters in Washington DC that will be a base for sustained resistance against the next president and his administration.

“This house is supposed to be a place for everybody, regardless of what happened in the general election, to come together and fight,” said Moumita Ahmed, whose organizing helped millennials become involved in Sanders’ campaign and is setting up the house. “We are going to be there to hold him accountable and delegitimize literally everything that he is doing and not let him succeed.”

“Some of the things that are going to happen in this house are workshops, people coming in and talking about big organizing,” she continued. “We’re going to have parties. We’re going to have rallies that are going to be organized there. These are just basic ideas, but we know that once this house is available that people will come in and want to do more creative forms of resistance.”

Like Sanders’ campaign, the project is seeking $27 donations and is about halfway to its initial $30,000 goal, to set up the house before Trump's January 20 inauguration. They are calling it the District 13 House, named after the rebellious province in The Hunger Games, the dystopian book and movie series featuring a world run by oligarchs. 

“We’re going to be there to sustain resistance against this administration,” Ahmed said. “We feel that the Trump administration is totally illegitimate, because of the way that he ran his campaign, and how he won, and even though mainstream media will say things like, ‘Oh, he just said those things, but obviously now that he is in office we think that some of the things he said aren’t going to fly.’ While that might be true or might not be true, we don’t know yet—that does not matter. You do not run that kind of campaign, especially for some of us, who were on a campaign where Bernie specifically said, ‘Do not attack the other person.’ [Trump's] entire campaign wasn’t just attacking Hillary, but literally every single ethnic group out there.”

“We have a long tradition of people involved in resistance movements, and setting up intentional spaces to work out of. It’s incredibly helpful and supportive on a number of levels,” said Nadine Bloch, a longtime Washington-based activist and training director for BeautifulTrouble.org. “I see my role as supporting the folks who will live there and will take on the daily actioneering, if you will. I am really excited to be in that role and be with the young folks who will be living in the house.”

New Challenges, New Progressive Movement

Organizers like Ahmed—talented young women of color—were among the unsung grassroots heroes of the Sanders campaign, say Becky Bond and Zack Exley, who headed the campaign’s digital outreach efforts and have detailed the experience in a new book, Rules for Revolutionaries. Months before Sanders launched his campaign, Ahmed quit her day job to help establish a technology-driven team that eventually empowered volunteers to build and manage an infrastructure that made 75 million phone calls, sent 8 million text messages and held more than 100,000 public meetings, all described in the book.

"Moumita and other volunteers are demonstrating the power of big organizing," Bond said. "When the Bernie campaign shut down, that didn't mean their organizing would be shut down, too. These volunteers were connected to each other via Facebook, Twitter, and other platforms that allowed them not just to communicate but organize and raise money both in social media but also in person in real life—and soon in an actual row house on Capitol Hill."

Ahmed, 26, grew up in New York and said she’s always been politically attuned. She first got involved in campaigns when Barack Obama ran for president in 2008, but learned how to be an organizer with Zephyr Teachout’s 2014 campaign for governor in New York state, where she was deputy field director.

“When you’re an activist, you understand what’s happening. You have a lot to say about it. You’ll go to events and you’ll advocate for change,” Ahmed said. “But organizers are people who have this larger goal, even sometimes a smaller goal. They are the ones that are most of the times behind the scenes, and most of the time organizing protests or a campaign, building networks, and just holding the space or activists together. Organizers are like chess players.”

Months before Sanders formally announced his bid for president, Ahmed started organizing social media presence and meet-ups for Sanders around the country. When the campaign launched, those volunteers and organizers became its state-by-state staff. Perhaps her biggest contribution, however, was creating Millennials for Bernie, because she said no other candidate was speaking in a way that reached people age 30.

“He understood that we were living in times like the ‘60s when people were rising up and talking about racial justice issues, and taking to the streets, and going on Twitter and getting their vote heard collectively. And you had two candidates, multiple candidates totally ignoring that reality, versus Bernie who understood,” Ahmed said. “I felt that if I were to start a millennial contingent that it would work. A lot of people would be on board. And it was true. Most of Bernie’s staffers were millennials. Most of his grassroots were led by millennials. I just wanted to create something so that people know millennials are active, that we’re pursuing stuff.”  

Ahmed spent a year organizing for the campaign, which culminated in being a delegate at the Democratic National Convention. After Clinton emerged with the nomination, the group Ahmed created decided not to endorse anyone, but just work in individual ways for the rest of the campaign. She said millennials are "very pragmatic” and have “very progressive values,” and the protest house she is creating in Washington will be a reflection of that ethic as it pushes back against Trump's agenda and policies. “We are going to be like the people’s White House," she said. "And we are going to be right there in front of him so we stick out like a sore thumb.”  

The group doesn't yet have a Capitol Hill residence, but they are fundraising and looking at several locations. Meanwhile, older progressive organizers in Washington are hoping that people around the U.S. will support the District 13 House, and more importantly, see that white middle-class America now finds itself in the same vulnerable boat communities of color have been in for years.  

“I actually see something interesting because I have been involved for a long time,” Nadine Bloch said. “When people might say to us, particularly let’s say white middle-class folks, might say, Oh my god, this is the worst thing ever. You or I have to respond, Well, if you’re a black person, if you’re a trans person, if you’re a black and trans person, you have been been living with the worst thing forever. It has been this bad and it will continue to be this bad unless the people who are now awake, mostly middle-class white folks who have now awakened to how bad it is or might become, actively join the struggle to overcome these problems and to change it.”

“Projects like this, where you have dedicated activists 24-7, providing leadership in what can actually make a difference in stopping the aggressive degrading of the rights and the privileges and the health and the safety that we hold dear…that is hopeful,” Bloch said. “We have to be willing to do the work and dig in.”

Senator Al Franken, who formerly made his living in comedy, recently made a weirdly unsettling observation about Donald Trump. He never seems to laugh. And it’s true. The New York Times reporter to whom Franken made the comment did some research, observing Trump at events where normal people tend to crack up, like the Al Smith Dinner. Though Trump smiles, he never laughs outright.

“I don't know what it is,” Franken says.

We don’t either, but it’s creepy.

An abundance of pieces have been written about Donald Trump’s malignantly narcissistic personality, his lack of impulse control, his gnat-like attention span on any topic but his own fabulousness, his complete disregard for the truth, and the fact that he's a racist, sexist bully who may also be fairly unintelligent.

All true.

But he also has some weird and disturbing personality tics that are less frequently mentioned, but which nonetheless give us the heebie jeebies.

Here are seven of Donald Trump's worrisome quirks.

1. He has never done drugs.

Trump has never smoked a cigarette or had an alcoholic drink. All respect for those who have had an addiction problem, or decided to abstain after some time as a drinker, or who simply don't like alcohol—but never to have tried a mind-altering substance of any kind is just not normal. It also shows a lack of curiosity and a fear of losing control.

Trump has said the alcoholism and early death of his older brother turned him into a life-long teetotaler, and maybe that is true. He won’t even have a cup of coffee, though. Seriously, who does that? That’s not normal.

He has also said in many interviews that his biggest piece of advice for his kids when they were growing up was not to do drugs. Really, that’s it, dad? That’s all you’ve got? 

Of course, Trump has tried to cash in on other people’s drinking habits with Trump vodka, which failed.

2. He’s a germophobe in the extreme.

Trump has called the practice of shaking hands “barbaric." He won’t shake hands with his children’s teachers because teachers are in touch with too many germy kids. Then again, it’s hard to imagine he has attended too many parent-teacher conferences. Teaching children, after all, is germy women’s work.

His germophobia is such that he is unwilling to push ground-floor elevator buttons because they have been touched by too many people (the masses). 

Perhaps on the belief that it distances him from germs, he drinks with a straw and eats pizza with a fork, which is fine if you’re from Chicago, but definitely not New York. He even explains his penchant for fast food in terms of what he imagines to be its cleanliness. “I’m a very clean person,” he told Anderson Cooper on the campaign trail. “I like cleanliness, and I think you’re better off going there than maybe someplace that you have no idea where the food’s coming from. It’s a certain standard.”

He has spoken about how he loves to wash his hands, and does it as much as possible. (Here’s a theory: maybe his hands got so tiny from all the washing. He wore them away.)

He has openly boasted about never changing a diaper on any of his five kids, probably as a result of his germophobia, plus sexism and wealth.

Some have speculated that Trump’s germophobia and anti-immigration stances are related, since he sees immigrants as potential carriers of disease. But really, all the unwashed masses are carriers of disease for Trump, so he must stay in his high tower.

3. When he does shake hands, he does it in a very weird way.

Whenever possible, Trump avoids shaking hands. When he absolutely has to shake someone's hand, he has a weird habit of aggressively pulling the person in close to him, so that the person practically has to hug him. When the fellow (it is usually a fellow) offers any resistance, the whole dance can become a fairly awkward arm-wrestling match.

No word on whether Trump pops a Tic-Tac before pulling the person in closer than they would really like to be.

4. He has a 10-year-old’s mentality about bodily functions.

Especially the notion that women have bodily functions. He has made weird comments in interviews about being blissfully unaware of whether his wife Melania has ever used the toilet. And when Hillary Clinton had to use the ladies room (at least, we think that’s where she went) before a debate, he called it “disgusting.” He used the same word about a female lawyer who needed to excuse herself to pump breast milk to feed her infant. That is not what Trump seems to think breasts are for and he finds it repellent.

Ten is the age Melania Trump suggested Trump acts sometimes, and that was part of her explanation to Anderson Cooper about why Trump bragged to Billy Bush that women just let him “grab them by the pussy.” Melania knows what 10-year-olds are like, since her son Barron is also 10.

5. He doesn’t have any pets.

Trump will be the first president in 150 years not to have a pet, if you count James Polk’s horses. It does not even appear that Trump likes animals much, if his family's enthusiasm for trophy hunting is any indication.

He has been publicly criticized by the Humane Society of the United States for having cozy relationships with anti-animal welfare zealots who rake in profits from puppy mills, agribusiness, trophy hunting, factory farming, and horse slaughterhouses.

Being a self-confessed clean-hands freak may be part of the reason Trump dislikes animals, and certainly his run-in with a bald eagle did not help warm him up to animals. Recent science has shown that caring for animals is a big part of what teaches us empathy, since domesticated animals are completely dependent on human beings.

6. He has bizarre ideas about exercise and sleep. 

We already know that Trump does not have much regard for science as he gears up to gut climate change mitigation and voices the view that vaccines might cause autism. But he also does not hold much stock in basic common sense or the recommendation of health professionals.

The fast-food-loving germophobe-in-chief also has some notion that exercise is bad for you. This may be based on his theory that the human body is like a battery, and if you use up the energy it’s all gone, or because he has had friends who have needed knee surgery because of working out. Trump also tends to latch onto one example and overgeneralize: if there is a cold day he thinks climate change is a hoax, and if someone he knows had a cute baby after considering an abortion, it means all women should be punished for having abortions.

Trump also seems to think that needing sleep shows weakness, and claims only to sleep three or four hours a night, which leaves him plenty of time to tweet at people who have affronted him.

“I’m a guy who lies awake and thinks and plots,” he told New York magazine in 1992, somewhat terrifyingly. Among the things he likes to plot, he said, are revenge strategies. Adequate sleep is tied to mental health, and what Trump expressed smacks more than a little of paranoid tendencies, but don’t take it from us. Three professors of psychiatry are also concerned about Trump’s mental fitness to be president.

7. The suit thing.

Trump is never seen in anything but a suit, and since he doesn’t sleep much, he probably doesn’t even don silk pajamas at night, a la Hugh Hefner.

A suit is fitting attire for a businessman, but he reportedly also violently demanded that his college-age son wear a suit to a baseball game by one account. Donald Jr.’s college dorm mate recounted the story on Facebook during the campaign. "Don Jr. opened the door, wearing a Yankee jersey,” Scott Melker, now a Florida Realtor, wrote. “Without saying a word, his father slapped him across the face, knocking him to the floor in front of all of his classmates. He simply said 'put on a suit and meet me outside,' and closed the door."

Don Jr. was a freshman at the time, and yes, they were going to a Yankees game.

None of the Trump sons have been seen in anything but suits ever since, except when big-game hunting in Africa. Ten-year-old Baron is sometimes seen in a polo shirt, though even he is often seen in a suit, which is weird.

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Fox News host Bill O’Reilly dedicated his Tuesday night "Talking Points Memo" to a rant on the Electoral College and Democrats' aims to abolish it. “'Talking Points' believes this is all about race," he concluded, saying the Democratic Party and what he calls the left, “want power taken away from the white establishment" and "a profound change in the way America is run."  

O'Reilly's comments were met with a great deal of controversy, as discussed on a CNN panel moderated by Don Lemon the following night. 

"If you close your eyes, you believe you're listening to a clip from 1968 or apartheid South Africa," said Bakari Sellers, vice chairman of the South Carolina Democratic Party and an attorney with the Strom Law Firm, L.L.C. in Columbia, South Carolina. 

Sellers also assessed that O'Reilly's comment about race and white male oppression was "one of the few quotes [that] when you actually listen to it in context, it is actually worse." 

Despite O'Reilly having made similar remarks for the past decade, Sellers was "astounded" to hear white supremacy advocated by the Fox News host, whose late-night show, he pointed out, is "very highly rated."

"The reason that I had a problem with Bill O'Reilly couching this conversation of white supremacy and somehow African Americans and Latinos and people of color and gay Americans and everyone who was a minority in this country attempting to take some power away from the [straight, cis] white man in the battle over the Electoral College. It shouldn't be couched as something this small," he explained.

"This is a larger conversation that we have to have," Sellers continued. "The Electoral College was based on our founders' racist ideology at the time that bred this. We're here now and we do need to talk about how we're going to disband some of these remnants of white supremacy that still exist." 

When conservative commentator and Trump supporter Kayleigh McEnany pretended to agree with Sellers in her rebuttal, Sellers swiftly shut her down. 

"That's my entire point, Kayleigh," he said. "We have to talk about the simple fact that we, African Americans, we don't want anything from white people. It's not as if we want to take something from white nationalists or white supremacists ... the 'white working class'... or white anybody."

Watch:

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In Moscow, a day after the assassination of the Russian Ambassador to Turkey, the foreign and defense ministers of Iran, Russia and Turkey met for a serious conversation. On the agenda was Syria and the destructive war there which has cost the lives of at least half a million people and displaced half the country’s population. What began six years ago in Tunisia as a civic uprising and earned the name ‘Arab Spring’ is now ghoulish—a brutal war prosecuted by Saudi Arabia and armed by the West against Yemen, the horrifying carnage in Syria, and the suffocation of hopes in Egypt. A pall of gloom hangs over West Asia and North Africa—a glance backward at the pile of corpses and a glance forward at that pile mirrored to infinity. Expectation that a meeting in Moscow can sort the tragedies out is low. It is enough to hope for a ceasefire.

Out of the ‘Moscow Declaration’ comes one essential truth: the West is no longer at the table. A senior Turkish bureaucrat told me that Turkey’s about-face here is quite significant. ‘Imagine’, said the bureaucrat, ‘if Pakistan at the height of the proxy war in Afghanistan decided to cut its ties with the United States and the Saudis and traveled to Moscow to meet with the Soviet leadership. That is what Turkey has done’. This might be an exaggeration. Turkey has not cut its ties to NATO, nor has it made any explicit statement about its relationship to the United States. But nonetheless, Turkey has entered into open discussions with Iran and Russia without the US being in the room. This by itself is a sufficient shock. ‘All previous attempts by the United States and its partners to agree on coordinated actions were doomed to failure,’ said the Russian defense chief Sergey Shoigu. ‘None of them wielded real influence over the situation on the ground.’

But there is more to digest. The Russian entry into Syria in 2015 ended any real expectation for regime change in Damascus. Turkey’s own internal challenges—driven largely by the government itself and exacerbated by its aggressive posture against the Assad government—pushed the Turkish government to a reassessment of its policy. The move to overthrow Assad had inadvertently strengthened the hands of the Syrian Kurds, which raises once more for Turkey the specter of a Kurdish homeland on its borders (there is already the autonomous Iraqi Kurdish region). Anatolian business interests that were squeezed by Turkey’s war and by the retreat of Russian business links put pressure on the Turkish government to do a deal with Russia. Neither the shooting down of a Russian fighter jet by the Turkish armed forces nor the assassination of the Russian ambassador in Ankara could alter Turkey’s pivot to Russia. Turkey’s foreign minister - Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu - said that the street where the ambassador was killed would be named for him. Russian investigators have arrived in Ankara to work with Turkish investigators. These are signs that the two states do not want tensions to come between them.

What these new relations with Russia meant was that Turkey cut its ties to its own proxies in Syria, and refused to allow free passage to Gulf Arab proxies that had used the Turkish border to resupply their units in northern Syria. It was this maneuver that enabled the Syrian army to recapture eastern Aleppo, which had been held—in the main—by proxy armies of the Gulf Arabs and the Turks (as well as small—militarily insignificant—Syrians who had not yoked themselves to regional powers).

The ‘Moscow Declaration’—signed by the three countries—says that ‘Iran, Russia and Turkey are ready to facilitate the drafting of an agreement, which is already being negotiated, between the Syrian government and the opposition, and to become its guarantors.’ It asks other powers to help cement the deal. This includes not only the Gulf Arabs, who would be essential to any final deal, but also the West. It is a telling sign that the next phase of the negotiations will not be held in Geneva (Switzerland), but will be in Astana (Kazakhstan). The shadow of the West will not be on the agreement. Turkey certainly does not represent the opposition at the table. Neither the Istanbul-based Syrian Muslim Brotherhood nor any other group has the power to influence the deliberations. That the Syrian army continues to pummel opposition areas near Damascus and that it has already announced that it will move into Idlib suggests that there is no check on the ambitions of the government in Damascus. It wants to prosecute a total victory. Even Turkey seems unwilling to challenge the Assad government’s agenda.

As the Syrian army takes more territory inside Syria, the various extremist groups will surely lash out in the region and inside Syria itself. A bomb blast in Istanbul killed 44 people exactly a week before a police officer shot the Russian Ambassador. In Jordan, militants created mayhem in the town of Karak, ceasing the old Crusader castle for a few hours. If there had not been a gas cylinder explosion in the Qatraneh apartment of the extremists, they would have perhaps been able to perpetuate something more macabre than their hasty dash to Karak castle. In Damascus, a seven-year old girl was used as the vehicle for a suicide bomb—a morbid symptom of moral degeneration. These are events linked by the frustrations of the extremists who are either taking revenge on their enemies or on their former allies. More such violence is certain.

No Syrian was at the table in Moscow. Syrians have not been at many of these discussions about the fate of Syria. Their various proxies have spoken for them. Fractured by disagreements by the regional powers, the various Syrian political opposition fronts are in disarray. The most important front—the High Negotiations Committee—has floundered to react to these changes. Bassma Kodmani told the Associated Press that she was in favor of the Moscow meeting. Kodmani, who publically criticized the militarization of the conflict in October 2011, has long favored some kind of negotiated settlement. But she does not speak for many in the political opposition, who are unyielding on their demand for Assad to go. Even Riyad Hijab, Assad’s former Prime Minister who defected to the rebels in August 2012, said he would accept Moscow’s leadership on the negotiations. But Hijab holds out for the removal of Assad, a view not shared with the Russians or with Turkey. It is also a view no longer shared with many members of the Arab League, including Egypt and Algeria.

Within Syria, the agony of its people continues unabated. A new report from the Syrian Centre for Policy Research, based between Beirut and Damascus, suggests that the situation is intolerable. The report—entitled ‘Forced Dispersion: A Demographic Report on Human Status in Syria’ (December 2016)—shows that the humanity of Syrian children has been squandered, Syria’s social structure has been deeply damaged and violence has come to be the language most frequently spoken in the country. ‘The children’s chances of attending schools are limited,’ they point out, ‘as many of them are forced to work in inhumane conditions to provide for their families.’ Birth rates have declined, death rates have risen and ‘families and communities have been exposed to deep shock.’ Murder, torture, rape, kidnapping, theft and other such violence ‘destroys the culture and values’ of Syrian society. These have become endemic. Internally displaced Syrians long to return to their homes, where they hope to rebuild some measure of stability. The data suggests that people simply want the guns to stop firing and their lives to be determined by ordinary rhythms and not those of war.

If the Astana negotiations were able to expand the zones of ceasefires, then that would be beneficial. There was a time when the Assad government was deeply weakened and willing for political reconciliation with its adversaries. That weakness is no longer in sight. But the arrogance of victory might be an error. Beneath the new swagger, there is a broken country. The government will have to deal with the proliferation of arms and militias, the use of checkpoints for the collection of bribes and the breakdown of basic social norms. It will have to deal with rapacious real estate dealers and reconstruction hucksters who will drive up to rebuild Syria for a massive profit. Wars can be fought in the name of humanitarianism. So can profits be amassed. A ceasefire will be an important start for Syria. More will be needed to bring it out of its agony.

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After deliberating all morning and into the afternoon in a closed caucus session, Republican lawmakers finally emerged with a bill to repeal HB2, which has become nationally infamous as a symbol of regressive anti-LGBT legislation. But Republicans hold supermajorities in both chambers of the North Carolina legislature, so perhaps it’s not surprising that their repeal bill came with a catch: Local municipalities are barred from passing any laws related to employment or public accommodations for six months. Even that semblance of a deal is already falling apart, as hardline Republicans who supported the original version of HB2 still refuse to support even a partial repeal.

The GOP’s insistence that it impose restrictions on local governments angered many Democrats in the state legislature, who had hoped a good faith effort earlier this week by the Charlotte City Council would secure a full repeal of HB2. The council voted unanimously Monday to repeal Charlotte’s citywide nondiscrimination ordinance enabling transgender people to use the bathroom that corresponds to their gender identity.

It was Charlotte’s nondiscrimination efforts that caused outgoing Republican governor Pat McCrory, a former Charlotte mayor, to champion HB2. The controversial law was passed in a special session called after McCrory criticized Charlotte’s antidiscrimination ordinance as “government overreach.” McCrory made HB2 — which also prohibits cities in North Carolina from raising the minimum wage — a central focus of his failed re-election campaign.

On Monday, North Carolina Attorney General Roy Cooper — also the governor-elect who ousted McCrory in the November election — brokered an agreement by which both the city of Charlotte and the state of North Carolina were rescind their respective legislation. Charlotte rescinded its ordinance in full, not contingent upon HB2’s repeal, early Wednesday.  The “six-month cooling-off period” in a bill introduced by Republican Sen. Phil Berger late Wednesday afternoon, however, was not part of the deal. The proposed bill reads in part:

Six Month Cooling-Off Period. — No local government in this State may enact or amend an ordinance regulating employment practices or regulating public accommodations or access to restrooms, showers, or changing facilities.

“We don’t know what the consequences of this moratorium will be,” Democratic Sen. Jane Smith said on the floor during debate Wednesday. Berger argued that a continued ban on local municipalities passing certain measures is needed because Democrats and LGBT rights activists “have been saying as soon as HB2 is repealed they will work with other local governments [to pass new ordinances].”

Sen. Jeff Jackson says "Charlotte acted in good faith" - and GOP senators erupt in laughter

— Steve Harrison (@Sharrison_Obs) December 21, 2016

“Charlotte acted in good faith that we would keep our part of the bargain,” Sen. Jeff Jackson of Charlotte, said on the Senate floor. Republicans later returned with an amendment to their bill banning municipalities from passing non-discrimination policies to the end of the 2017 legislative session plus 30 days.

Meanwhile, the North Carolina House passed a special joint resolution calling for the special session to be adjourned without a repeal of HB2. House Rules Chairman David Lewis told the Charlotte Observer that there weren’t enough members of the GOP caucus who supported a repeal of HB2. Republicans in Raleigh have been holding meetings on HB2 for two days now.

For their part, Democrats and LGBT activists are enraged that Republicans have reneged on their promise to repeal the discriminatory bill in full:

The GOP has broken its promise. Their bill includes a 6-month ban on new ordinances. That wasn't the deal. #ncpol #ncga pic.twitter.com/12GlnpgbRi

— Sen. Jeff Jackson (@JeffJacksonNC) December 21, 2016

Don't be fooled: this is not full repeal of #HB2, doubles-down on discrimination, and makes clear that NC is still closed for business. https://t.co/mNBKSL7Y9a

— Chad Griffin (@ChadHGriffin) December 21, 2016

The disaster & shame caused by #HB2 was created by #NCGA for no reason other than hate & fear mongering. Accept nothing but full repeal.

— ACLU-North Carolina (@ACLU_NC) December 21, 2016

Democrats, who are chumps, raised $ for NC Republicans after that fire - who then have stripped incoming D gov of powers & reneged on HB2

— Steven Thrasher (@thrasherxy) December 21, 2016

NCAA statement on today's HB2 developments. pic.twitter.com/Q2QAm1EPO7

— Luke DeCock (@LukeDeCock) December 22, 2016

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Kellyanne Conway has not only drunk the Trump Kool-Aid, it's running in her veins. Which is why she was just promoted to the highest position any woman holds in the Trump administration, counselor to the president. What this likely means is that she will keep up her whispering to Trump (about what he should say in order to hide his racist, misogynist buffoonery) and that she will continue to appear on TV shows and spin utter nonsense as ever more damning revelations about the deeply corrupt Trump administration come out.

Chris Cuomo grilled Conway Wednesday about the almost laughably blatant way the Trump sons are selling access to their dad. The hefty $1 million pricetag on a sitdown with the Trumpster was supposedly all for a well-meaning charity. Hmmm, Cuomo wondered, isn't that sort of like what the Trump campaign was hammering Clinton about? Paying for access to power to benefit a charity that does good work?

“I think we should go back and look at what Don Jr. and Eric have done and wanted to continue to do, which is raise money for charities,” Conway said. “The Eric Trump Foundation is ten years old. It has done enormously great work.”

“It’s the same thing the Clinton people said when they were defending their allegations of pay-for-play,” Cuomo noted, and then turned back to the Trumps, who were, “selling off a million-dollar trip to hunt with the boys and hang out with the president. That sounds like paying for access.”

Conway tried to pivot back to the Clintons, spewing allegations that were often repeated during the campaign and proven untrue.

“So paying a million dollars to hang out with the president is okay?” Cuomo pressed.

“I didn’t say that,” Conway said after a moment of silence.

“I know, you’re not answering,” Cuomo observed. “You’re going after the Clintons. I’m saying, what’s your answer? You mentioned the Clinton Foundation, you said it’s the same,” Conway shot back. “I’m saying it’s absolutely not the same.”

Cuomo wondered, if what the Trump sons were doing was so noble and charitable, why have they since rescinded the offer?

Because the media is soo unfair, was basically Conway's response.

First, Conway engages in some of her trademark Islam- and refugee-bashing. Then to the corruption doublespeak.

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MSNBC host Rachel Maddow joined "Late Night With Seth Meyers" on December 21 to discuss the very real problem of Donald Trump's unprecedented conflicts of interest. 

"You've been talking about the kind of businessman he is and how it may not necessarily elevate our country," Meyers said, "But it may work against our country because he is known throughout his career to enrich himself." 

The two discussed Trump's golf course in Scotland. The president elect has some major issues surrounding the property, particularly windmills. Trump tweeted over 100 times about his hatred of windmills before September 2016, and less than two weeks before the election went on a rant about those in Palm Springs, Florida.

Trump called the windmills"the worst thing you've ever seen." 

"They're his bogeyman," Maddow told Meyers. 

"Wind is his kryptonite," the host snarked.

"When he wakes up sweating in the night, he's like, is it spinning? Is it white? Is it on a hill?" Maddow added. 

"No, Donald, it's the air conditioner," Meyers said, imitating Melania Trump. 

Maddow cracked up. Then she got serious. 

"There are windmills that are near, or were going to be near, his golf course in Scotland," she explained. "So, he doesn't like the windmills, he can't stop talking about the windmills, he's fixated on them. While talking to British politicians after he won the presidency he brought up the windmills to them."

According to The New York Times, Trump did not say specifically that he hated them; just their obstruction of his views. 

"It was like, 'Thank you for the congratulations, you know, we really shouldn't have those windmills by my golf course,'" Maddow mused, before explaining how even windmills could be used as leverage against Trump and the country.

"That's hilarious if you think of it as just his phobia, but now that he's going to be president, this seems weird, but Scotland could come to him, the UK could come to him and be like 'Listen, Donald, we know you really care about the windmills, and you think that's a very important thing for your business, we'll get rid of the windmills if you do this thing for our country, which the United States doesn't want to do, it's not good for the country, but we want that from you as president, and we'll give you this private benefit instead,'" she explained. 

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In July, after watching the Democratic National Convention, Scott Adams — the creator of “Dilbert” who has spent the internet age revealing himself to be a shockingly whiny misogynist and pseudo-coy Donald Trump supporter — took to his blog to argue that Hillary Clinton was going to lose the election because the Alicia Keys scares men.

I watched singer Alicia Keys perform her song Superwoman at the convention and experienced a sinking feeling. I’m fairly certain my testosterone levels dropped as I watched, and that’s not even a little bit of an exaggeration. Science says men’s testosterone levels rise when they experience victory, and drop when they experience the opposite. I watched Keys tell the world that women are the answer to our problems. True or not, men were probably not feeling successful and victorious during her act.

It’s easy to laugh at Adams, who is a pompous ass straight out of a Vladimir Nabokov novel. The blog post was little more than sexist hysteria poorly disguised by pseudo-scientific babbling, but underneath it all, Adams did sadly key into one important observation about his fellow white male Americans: They are so easily threatened by images of women having power that they were ready to vote for Mr. Grab Them By The Pussy rather than see someone in high heels sitting in the Oval Office.

Okay, #NotAllWhiteMen. Just 62 percent of them.

What is interesting about Adams’s piece is that the woman he singled out was not Elizabeth Warren or Michelle Obama or Hillary Clinton — political figures making appeals based on real world policy matters — but an R&B musician singing a song. It took a lady making art to crack his fragile ego.

Women in entertainment have historically struggled to get into creator roles. On screen, women are often relegated to the background, there to look pretty but not given speaking roles, much less top billing. Behind the scenes, things are even worse,  with the vast majority of directing chairs and writing rooms being filled by men. In music, women get to be singers — there to look good and sound good performing other people’s work — but they aren’t as well-represented as musicians, writers, or producers, i.e. the people perceived as creators.

But, in recent years, there’s been a perceptible move in pop culture towards elevating more women into these creator roles. Keys is an excellent example of that, for pop music. She’s not Katy Perry, standing there looking pretty while channeling someone else’s music. Keys is a songwriter and piano player, occupying creative space that used to be more predominantly male. And that reads as threatening.

For those who prefer women in movies to keep their mouths shut and their tits out, 2016 was a rough year. Things kicked off at the tail end of 2015, when the new Star Wars movie, “The Force Awakens,” was released, and it was revealed that the star of the rebooted franchise would not be a man, as it always had been before, but a woman: Rey, played by Daisy Ridley.

The revelation caused a major stir, as some fans filled message boards with accusations that Rey is a “Mary Sue,” a derogatory term for a character that is more about wish fulfillment rather than well-rounded characterization. The problem is that Luke Skywalker, from the original series, is nearly the exact same character, but somehow it’s less objectionable when the cipher for audience fantasies is male.

A year later, another Star Wars movie with a female lead is out, and men of the internet are melting down again.

What Rogue One would be called if it was left up to the people currently having a meltdown in the Daily Mail comments section pic.twitter.com/tAQHxkPMbd

— TechnicallyRon (@TechnicallyRon) December 14, 2016

In July, there was another series reboot with women at the center: The comedy sci-fi movie “Ghostbusters,” with Kristen Wiig and Melissa McCarthy playing updated versions Bill Murray and Dan Ackroyd’s characters from the 1984 movie. Again, male fans raged incessantly, insisting that the casting was a sop to political correctness and denying that director Paul Feig might actually think McCarthy and Wiig are as talented as their male counterparts.

The whining might lead one think that women now completely dominate movies and TV shows, but a study of the top 100 grossing films in 2015 showed that only 31 percent of named characters were female. Even in “The Force Awakens,” 78 percent of the lines are spoken by men. There’s no reason to think this problem has gotten significantly better in 2016.

That said, while the female representation is nowhere close to equality, there can be no doubt that female artists are becoming more visible. Beyoncé, Taylor Swift, Lena Dunham, Shonda Rhimes, Ava DuVernay — to name a few — are women who have become famous not just by being pretty faces, but having strong creative visions they realize through their work.

Unfortunately, even these tiny gains are causing an enormous backlash. And that backlash is getting politicized in the worst possible way.

Sady Doyle, the author of “Trainwreck: The Women We Love to Hate, Mock, and Fear . . . and Why“, argued that this politicization process started in 2014, with a movement called Gamergate, an online effort to hound and harass women in the video game industry that were perceived as feminists or overly critical of sexist imagery in video games.

Gamergate “was easy to write off,” Doyle argued over email, because, “It was nerd stuff; it was a bunch of feminists complaining about their comment sections or their Twitter notifications, and there’s absolutely nothing people are more eager to write off than a woman’s story of being harassed.”

But while many liberals and mainstream media observers shrugged it off, conservatives like Breitbart editor Milo Yiannopoulos — whose old boss, Stephen Bannon, is now Trump’s chief strategist — and conspiracy theorist Mike Cernovich saw political potential in it. These men openly saw Gamergate as an opportunity to recruit young men to hard right politics.

Gamergaters, Reddit trolls, and other angry-young-nerd communities “formed a hideous Voltron with neo-Nazi and other factions,” Doyle explained. “Within two years of Gamergate, they were powerful enough to take the White House and usher in a new fascist era.”

David Futrelle of We Hunted The Mammoth, a blog devoted to tracking  (and mocking) online misogyny, agreed with Doyle’s assessment.

“First came the attacks on women in video games and the ludicrous phony boycotts of ‘Ghostbusters’ and ‘Mad Max: Fury Road‘ for the crime of having women as the main characters,”  he said over email. “Then came the Breitbart-ization of politics and the election of an authoritarian narcissistic manchild to president.”

There were many factors, of course, that went into the rise of Trump: Racism on the right, complacency on the left, voter suppression, a weak and overstuffed field of Republican candidates. But the rise of feminism in pop culture is causing an ugly backlash, and that also fed into the growth of Trumpism.

It’s not just feminists who are connecting Trumpism to anger over the perceived cultural shift towards greater diversity. Many conservative commentators and liberals who are skeptical of identity politics see it, too, even if they are more sympathetic to the male anger.

Ross Douthat of the New York Times complained of “the rapid colonization of new cultural territory by an ascendant social liberalism,” arguing that “the feeling of being suffocated by the left’s cultural dominance is turning voting Republican into an act of cultural rebellion.”

Translated from pseud0-intellectual conservative columnist speech to English: White men are going to keep voting Republican until you liberals get all those women and black people off their TV sets.

Douthat has the high-minded rhetoric, but there’s a gutter version of the same argument, from Andrew Anglin at the Trump-loving white supremacist site The Daily Stormer. Anglin is pushing for Trump to create right-wing death squads that target “degenerate artists and musicians who are degrading our society with corrosive filth.”

Even some liberals, of the whiter and more male sort, are getting in on the action. In a widely shared piece for the New York Times, Mark Lilla argues that the emphasis on diversity “has distorted liberalism’s message and prevented it from becoming a unifying force capable of governing” and causes white voters to turn “against the omnipresent rhetoric of identity, which is what they mean by ‘political correctness.'”

Lilla, Douthat and the white supremacists at the Daily Stormer grasp that we are in the midst of a cultural backlash, and that the Samantha Bees and Lady Gagas and lady Ghostbusters are sending a bunch of angry men into paroxysms of rage that led directly to a Trump vote. Where they err, whether in sorrow or glee, is assuming that the answer to the problem is giving the angry men what they want.

But giving into blackmail is not a good idea. For one thing, how would this program of ending the emphasis on diversity — or whatever other euphemism you want to use for elevating mediocre men over talented women — even work?

The election gave angry men an opportunity to force a deserving woman to step aside for a talentless man, but the casting decisions for Star Wars movies are not put up to a vote. Beyoncé is famous because she sells records, and woe be to the man who tries to convince the Beyhive to dial down their enthusiasm because it makes the white guys whiny.

More importantly, the only reason that this ugly backlash is happening is that men were already spoiled by a pop culture environment that elevated them at the expense of women. The only way to get men used to the idea of women as Jedi knights — or as president — is to put women in those roles.

Plus, as consumers of pop culture products, we should want more women as creators and innovators, because we benefit.

While 2016 was a sad and disturbing year, the few bright lights of it came to us largely because of women who, in the past, may have had their ambitions stifled. When I asked my Facebook peeps about some of their favorite woman-centric media of 2016, the list represented some of the best work of the year, male or female: “Broad City,” “Crazy Ex-Girlfriend,” Beyoncé’s visual album “Lemonade,” Kate McKinnon’s work on “Saturday Night Live,” “Jane the Virgin” and the return of “Gilmore Girls” to Netflix.

These cultural touchstones weren’t great because they were checking off boxes on an identity liberal’s wishlist. Some of them (ahem, “Gilmore Girls”) aren’t even particularly diverse, outside of having women at the center of them. No, these examples are great work, regardless of gender. We shouldn’t have to give up these women’s offerings in some ill-advised effort to placate those who want to make America “great” (read: sexist) again.

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Twice in less than two decades the majority vote in a presidential election was overruled by the math of the Electoral College. The Founding Fathers created the electoral college to make sure that voters in concentrated urban areas would not be able to neglect the concerns of the rural population. But many people believe that the concept of democracy is undermined when a President is put into office without gaining majority support from the voters.

A group called National Popular Vote has a proposed National Popular Vote bill that would guarantee the presidency to the candidate who receives the most popular votes in all 50 states and the District of Columbia. And it does not require a Constitutional Amendment. Steve Silberstein, a successful businessman, co-founder of the computer software company Innovative Interfaces Inc. (one of the world’s largest suppliers of computer systems to libraries), and Board member of National Popular Vote, answered my questions about their proposal.

What was the problem the electoral college was intended to fix?

The Founding Fathers did not want the Congress to choose the President (they did not want a Parliamentary system), so they asked the state legislatures to do so. The electoral college turns over the selection of the President to the individual state legislators, who appoint electors that they think represent the interests of their individual states.

Do any other countries have a similar system?

Not that I am aware of. And no state or City or County in this country has a similar system, i.e. where, for example, the winner of the vote in each individual county forces ALL the votes in that county to be counted for just one candidate.

Who are the electors? Are they legally or morally obligated to vote according to the results in their state?

Electors are appointed who the legislature thinks represent the interests of their state. I think the laws are different in each state as to how committed the electors are to do what they indicated they would do when they were selected for appointment.

What is your proposal and how much progress have you made?

The irony is that appointing electors who vote for the winner of that state’s popular vote for President is that the President does not pay any attention whatsoever to the interests of that state, except in the case of the few battleground states (chiefly Ohio and Florida). This is because for most states the outcome of the popular vote is well known even before the candidates start their campaign. The way to make the Presidential candidates pay attention to the state is to make them campaign for every vote in every state, not just the votes of the citizens of Ohio and Florida. The state can accomplish this goal by awarding its electoral votes to the candidate who gets the most votes in the country, not the person who gets the most votes in that state.

Eleven states, with a total of 165 Electoral College votes have realized this, and passed a law to give their votes to the national winner (as soon as a few more states do so, so that the total of 270 electoral college votes are committed to do so), and in this way they are forcing the candidates and the President to pay attention to the needs of, and campaign in, their state, instead of the candidates spending all their time and attention on the few battleground states, i.e. mostly Ohio and Florida.

Why should electors vote contrary to the voters they represent?

They should vote in the interests of the voters in their state, which as explained above, is done when they (ironically) vote for the national winner.

Should we amend the Constitution to eliminate the electoral college?

Absolutely not. The point of the electoral college is to have the states choose the President in the manner that they decide is in their best interests. The Electoral College allows them to do so, It does not require that the state vote for the person who got the most votes in the state if it is decided that there is a better way to get the President to pay attention to the interests of their state, which is what happens (ironically) when the state votes for the national winner. Voting for the national winner forces the candidates to campaign all over, just like

How is your proposal better than a Constitutional amendment?

It preserves state sovereignty, the intentions of the Founders, and if for some reason it turns out there needs to be an adjustment, a state can easily change its law. If it were done with a constitutional amendment it would be locked into stone.

If the President is selected by nationwide popular vote, won’t the rural states suffer the neglect that the non-battleground states face today?

Rural states are NOW neglected by the system. Candidates simply don’t go there or pay any attention to them.

Which states are likely to agree to your proposal before the next Presidential election

Any state among the 40 or 45 non-battleground states could easily agree to this before the next Presidential election.

Is this a partisan issue?

No. It is bipartisan with significant Republican support. National Popular Vote’s Advisory Board includes former Senators Jake Garn (R-UT), Birch Bayh (D-IN), and David Durenberger (R-MN); former Congressmen John Anderson (R-IL, I), John Buchanan (R-AL), Tom Campbell (R-CA), and Tom Downey (D-NY). Other supporters include former Cong. Tom Tancredo (R-CO), Governor Howard Dean (D-VT), Governor Jim Edgar (R-IL), and House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-GA). Hundreds of Republican state legislators have voted for it. The reason is that they are tired of their state being ignored by the President, just as many Dems like me are.

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We know what pregnancy will do to the body, but what effect does it have on the brain? A pretty significant one, it seems. A new study finds pregnancy triggers fundamental changes in the mother's brain, specifically in the areas involved in empathy and attachment, suggesting if you weren’t already born with the maternal instinct, getting pregnant will help put you on that path.

Researchers from the Netherlands and Spain relied on magnetic resonance imaging to compare the brain structures of 25 first-time mothers before and shortly after pregnancy. The scans revealed that women who had given birth experienced a loss of gray matter in brain areas involved in social cognition. The majority of changes remained up to two years after giving birth, when the children would be entering into toddlerhood.

The drop in gray matter volume overlapped with areas associated with what’s known as the “theory of mind" network" or regions of the brain linked to the ability to understand the feelings and perspectives of others. The researchers noted that the same regions light up in new moms when looking at photos of their own children, compared to other babies.

“These findings provide some [of] the first evidence that these [brain changes] may in some way help a mother to care for her infant,” said Elseline Hoekzema, co-author of the research from Leiden University.

“[It] is not that mothers are losing brain cells, losing gray matter in these regions, it is that they have actually have other cells come in to help reorganize and change up some of those connections to strengthen them, or at least make them more efficient,” she added.

 The scans were compared to those of 20 women who had never given birth, 19 first-time fathers and 17 men without children. Only the women who had given birth experienced a drop in gray matter volume.  

“It does make sense that a first-time mother is going to have to work really hard to understand their baby’s needs,” Kirstie Whitaker, an expert in neuroimaging from Cambridge University, told the Guardian. “They have theory of mind anyway, they are adult women who are capable of empathizing with others, but this is a new stage, this is like another step up in terms of understanding how another being is seeing the world,” explained Whitaker, who was not involved in the research.

“Brain changes may sound somewhat intimidating, but our findings suggest that there may be an evolutionary purpose to these changes that may serve you in some way when you become a mother,” said Hoekzema.

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No one said Trump would win the Republican nomination. He did.

No one said he’d win the Presidency. He has.

Many commentators have fears that Trump will become a tyrant. Will he?

And how will we tell, as events look set to unfold after his inauguration next January?

Many of the culture warriors whose attacks on “liberalism” have paved the way for Trump’s 2017 ascendancy tell us that we need to preserve the Western heritage.

Very well. Since the first appearance of tyrants in the 7th century BCE in the Greek world, this heritage has given us many accounts of tyranny: from Herodotus and Thucydides to figures like Franz Neumann and Leo Strauss in the 20th century.

None of them has been openly laudatory, even Machiavelli’s.

According to Aristotle, tyranny inherits the worst features of other types of government: from oligarchy the love of money; from democracy the hostility to the established governing classes; and from monarchy, the contempt of the people.

“Tyranny,” like its 20th century legatee “totalitarianism,” does double duty as both a description and a pejorative–or triple duty, as a caution or a warning.

Here then are four or five features the tradition of political philosophy suggests that we might bring to our assessments of the incipient administration, and the fears of its critics.

1. Government by One Man, in His Own (or His Family and Friends’) Interests

“Nor again did the tyrants of the Hellenic cities extend their thoughts beyond their own interest, that is, the security of their persons, and the aggrandisement of themselves and their families,” says Thucydides, speaking of the generations of tyrants that arose in Greece and its Italian tributaries in the 7th and 6th centuries BCE.

The historian here points up the defining feature of tyranny that would soon be echoed by Plato, Aristotle, and the Roman philosophers and historians.

These classical texts tend to suppose that there are six types of regimes, three good, three bad. What differentiates them is the goal for which they govern.

A government by an elite, if in the general interest, is an aristocracy. If in the interest of the few, it is an oligarchy or plutocracy, rule by money.

Similarly, rule by one man, if in the interest of all the people, is a monarchy. A tyranny is government by one man, in the interest of himself, his family, or his friends.

Another way this idea is sometimes expressed is by saying that the tyrant treats an entire country like his own household. The weight of this idea falls when we remember that the classical Greek male kept slaves and his women in what we would consider virtual confinement. The Roman father had the power of life and death over his sons, and to marry his daughters to whomever he wished.

To see whether Trump has tyrannical credentials in this light, it is important to observe who his appointees are, and to see what their aims are. The thing will to assess if they come more or less exclusively from his family, friends, or else people with similar private economic interests.

Then it will be important to consider whether the policies they make, on general issues like economic well-being and the environment, serve the common American or wider good, or their own economic interests.

2. Cutting Down the Best Wheat (or Draining the Swamp)

“When the savages of Louisiana want fruit, they cut down the tree and gather the fruit. There you have despotic government.” These two sentences form the whole of chapter XIII of Montesquieu’s classic text, The Spirit of the Laws.

They look back to a Greek anecdote about the tyrant Thrasybulus of Miletus, reported by the historian Herodotus. A messenger from the Corinthian tyrant came to ask advice on how to run his affairs. Thrasybulus responded by taking the messenger for a walk in a field. Then he cut down all of the best and tallest ears of wheat.

What is the meaning of this oracle?

Born in a broadly democratic age, we can assume that tyrannical or despotic government is simply anti-democratic. In fact, when the first tyrants emerged, they were at the heads of popular parties, although some legitimate monarchs (think Henry VIII) have transitioned from monarchy to despotism.

In order to depose the existing monarchs, supported by traditional elites, the Greek tyrants needed to ally themselves with the many to win power. They presented themselves as champions of the popular interest.

Julius Caesar was one of the populares, and after overthrowing the Republic by force, stacked his Senate with members from outside the traditional governing optimates.

Other despots more openly slaughtered members of their cities’ leading families, and exiled, killed or imprisoned the power-brokers of the former regime.

The classical term for such pseudo-popular leaders was “demagogues,” and they usually ended by turning against their popular bases.

The model of tyranny then is not a pyramid, leader on top, then graded classes of citizens with different levels of executive, judicial or legislative authority, reaching down to the wide base of the average citizen.

Tyranny is like a pyramid that retains only its base and the capstone: the despot. A single column connects the two: the one-way, top-down conduit of the despot’s executive will.

Aristotle thus says that tyranny is lawless rule by one man who claims to be a “law unto himself.”

Plato’s Republic goes so far as to suggest that tyranny is the necessary effect of the license allowed by democratic, and what we might call liberal, pluralist regimes. As history, this is indefensible in the Greek context.

Yet it describes one possible sequence that has later historical exemplars, most notoriously Germany’s transition from the brilliant ebulience of Weimar culture to the rule of the NSDAP under Adolf Hitler.

Some commentators have turned to Plato already as a kind of uncanny prophecy of the rise of Trump, the champion of Archie Bunker and the American rust-belt against crusted-in Washington beltway elites.

Trump’s promise to drain the swamp, notable for its violent, dehumanising language, looks something like a modern version of Thrasybulus’ cutting down of the best wheat.

3. Wartime Leader, a State of Fear

“The first thing he’ll do is stir up a war so he can present himself as the defender of the people. This will also enforce his tyranny, because in war, things need to be done quickly and decisively. And things can only be done quickly and decisively if one or a very few lead from the top down,” so says Socrates to his group of young friends in the Republic.

It is not easy to justify removing the existing elites, especially if this involves the use of violence like that so spectacularly deployed by Hitler and his cronies against the Leaders of the SA in 1934’s “Night of Long Knives.”

One hopes that Trump’s promise to imprison crooked Hilary remains one of the promises he made on the way up, not one that he will bring down extra-judicially.

The strongest form of justification for such exceptional measures is an appeal to a state of emergency. Tough times call for tough measures. The tyrannical regime is one of for-us-and-against-us, simplified political logic and language:

Words had to change their ordinary meaning and to take that which was now given them. Reckless audacity came to be considered the courage of a loyal ally; prudent hesitation, specious cowardice; moderation was held to be a cloak for unmanliness; ability to see all sides of a question, inaptness to act on any. Frantic violence became the attribute of manliness; cautious plotting, a justifiable means of self-defence. The advocate of extreme measures was always trustworthy; his opponent a man to be suspected.

The tyrant in effect lays siege to his own people. Communication, if possible, will be monitored—this is today a much more real prospect than in Thrasybulus’ day.

In less technological times, laws were passed preventing public assemblies of more than a few people without licenses. Tyrants deploy secret police to spy on their subjects.

The spirit of the regime of tyranny is fear, says Montesquieu (versus virtue in a republic or honor in a monarchy).

It was Aristotle, not Machiavelli, in his section on tyranny in the Politics, that already made this archly-Machiavellian prescription for tyrants:

… regimes are preserved not only by their remoteness from a source of peril, but also on occasion, by their very proximity thereto; for the dread of present danger drives a polis to keep a firmer hold on its constitution. Those, therefore, who are interested in its stability should invent causes for alarm, so as to keep the citizens perpetually alert and on their guard, like sentinels on night duty. In other words, they must bring distant peril near.

On the docks in Nuremberg, Goering would echo “the philosopher” to describe the Nazis’ overthrow of the Weimar Republic, in the wake of the Reichstag fires.

An unending state of war and imminent peril, real or imagined, is inconsistent with a free society. We must first save our skins, or secure our borders. A society in a permanent state of war may not always be tyrannical, but it will never remain democratic or liberal.

4. Keep a Bodyguard

One of the features of a tyrant in the ancient world was his need to keep a personal bodyguard. The state of fear he visits upon his citizens is mirrored back to its progenitor, in reality or in his imagination.

Tyrants will hence tend to keep a paramilitary guard, loyal only to him, like the SA before 1934, and the SS thereafter in Hitler’s Germany.

The key register of many of the classical texts on tyranny is indeed a kind of ethical and psychological criticism of this possible career-choice—a reflection of their intended readership, amongst the elite young men of the Greek poleis.

For the popular view which sees in power and pleasure the highest goals of life, the achievement of one-person, lawless rule looks like the best thing possible. The tyrants were the rock stars of the ancient world, allowed to experiment with their every passion.

Nevertheless, so the Republic tells us, the tyrant’s life is exactly seven hundred and twenty nine times more unhappy than that of a truly wise person. Not more, not less.

Xenophon’s dialogue Hiero pictures the titular tyrant of Syracuse talking to the poet Simonides, widely accounted a wise man in the ancient world. Hiero’s message is not what we might expect.

He has no true friends, since he always suspects that people are only flattering him because he has absolute power to do with them what he will.

Each of his many lovers he likewise suspects of only acting out of fear.

He fears the noble or honorable, since they might league against him to cast out his unjust government. He fears the wise, since they will see through his injustices or perhaps try to supplant him in the place of absolute rule.

All may not then be as gilded as the trappings at Trump tower would suggest- supposing he does change the longstanding custom of living as President in the White House, a striking statement.

The tyrant always needs his paramilitary bodyguard, so little can he rely on his own people. Many tyrants had foreigners to serve in this role, since after a period of ruling, they could no longer coax any of their own people into the job.

This is small comfort for the people they enslave, exile or execute, and their families. But there is a self-destructive dynamic to tyrannical government. This often escalates in its violence, like Henry the eighth’s accelerating paranoia and procession of beheaded wives.

The advent of a tyranny, by provoking opposition, can sometimes even recall to a regime its forgotten founding values and principles.

A Closing Historical Exhortative

Of course, none of this is prediction, although some of it is fear. These few pointers might provide standards to judge things, in case some commentators fall into line with the new regime, and we all lose sight of the bigger picture in the flurry of events that look set to unfold come January 2017-and because it is truly so difficult to imagine the home of the free as an unfree society.

The culture warriors are right that relativism is to be opposed, especially when it amounts to a falling in with whatever is sanctioned by present dictate.

We can close, in case the worst becomes the new best, with an exhortation from the French philosopher Diderot, looking admiringly across at America in 1778 in a book on the Stoic philosopher, Seneca, executed by the tyrant Nero:

After centuries of general oppression, can the revolution that has just taken place beyond the sea, offering all the inhabitants of Europe an asylum against fanaticism and tyranny, educate those who govern men on the legitimate use of their authority! May these brave Americans, who have preferred to see their wives outraged, murdered children, their homes destroyed, their fields ravaged, their cities burned, shed their blood and died rather than lose the smallest portion of their liberty, prevent the enormous increase and uneven distribution of wealth, luxury, softness, moral corruption, and provide for the maintenance of their freedom and their term of government!

May they draw back, at least for a few centuries, the decree pronounced against all things of this world; the decree which sentenced them to have their birth, time of vigor, their decay and their end! May the earth swallow their provinces rather than that one become powerful and foolish enough to seek ways to subjugate the others! May no very powerful citizen, the true enemy of his own happiness, form the project of becoming their absolute master, or may he die on the spot under the sword of the executioner or the dagger of Brutus!

We must excuse the passion of Diderot’s language, for they were different times.

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

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Newt Gingrich openly bragged recently at the Heritage Foundation that the Trump administration and Republicans in Congress were going to “break out of the Franklin Delano Roosevelt model.”  That “model,” of course, created what we today refer to as “the middle class.”

Ever since the election of Ronald Reagan, Republicans have been working overtime to kneecap institutions that support the American middle class. And, as any working-class family can tell you, the GOP has had some substantial successes, particularly in shifting both income and political power away from voters and towards billionaires and transnational corporations.  

In July of last year, discussing SCOTUS’s 5/4 conservative vote on Citizens United, President Jimmy Carter told me: “It violates the essence of what made America a great country in its political system.  Now it’s just an oligarchy with unlimited political bribery…”  He added: “[W]e’ve just seen a complete subversion of our political system as a payoff to major contributors…”

As Princeton researchers Gilens and Page demonstrated in an exhaustive analysis of the difference between what most Americans want their politicians to do legislatively, versus what American politicians actually do, it’s pretty clear that President Carter was right.

They found that while the legislative priorities of the top 10% of Americans are consistently made into law, things the bottom 90% want are ignored.  In other words, today in America, democracy only “works” for the top 10% of Americans.

For thousands of years, economists and economic observers from Aristotle to Adam Smith to Thomas Picketty have told us that a “middle class” is not a normal by-product of raw, unregulated capitalism – what right-wing ideologues call “the free market.”  

Instead, unregulated markets – particularly markets not regulated by significant taxation on predatory incomes – invariably lead to the opposite of a healthy middle class: they produce extremes of inequality, which are as dangerous to democracy as cancer is to a living being.  

With so-called “unregulated free markets,” the rich become super-rich, while grinding poverty spreads among working people like a heroin epidemic.  This further polarizes the nation, both economically and politically, which, perversely, further cements the power of the oligarchs.

While there’s a clear moral dimension to this – pointed out by Adam Smith in his classic Theory of Moral Sentiments – there’s also a vital political dimension.  

Smith noted, in 1759, that, “All constitutions of government are valued only in proportion as they tend to promote the happiness of those who live under them. This is their sole use and end.”

Jefferson was acutely aware of this: the Declaration of Independence was the first founding document of any nation in the history of the world that explicitly declared “happiness” as a “right” that should be protected and promoted by government.

That was not at all, however, a consideration for the architects of supply-side Reaganomics, although they appropriated JFK’s “rising tide lifts all boats” metaphor to sell their hustle to (boatless) working people.

Far more troubling (and well-known to both Smith and virtually all of our nation’s Founders), however, was Aristotle’s observation that when a nation pursues economic/political activities that destroy its middle class, it will inevitably devolve either into mob rule or oligarchy.  As he noted in The Politics:

“Now in all states there are three elements: one class is very rich, another very poor, and a third in a mean. … But a [government] ought to be composed, as far as possible, of equals and similars; and these are generally the middle classes. …

“Thus it is manifest that the best political community is formed by citizens of the middle class, and that those states are likely to be well-administered in which the middle class is large, and stronger if possible than both the other classes, or at any rate than either singly; for the addition of the middle class turns the scale, and prevents either of the extremes from being dominant.”

This is how America was for the Boomer generation: a 30 year old in the 1970s had a 90% chance of having or attaining a higher standard of living than his or her parents.  But, since the 1980s introduction of Reaganomics, there’s been more than a 70% drop in “social mobility” – the ability to move from one economic station of life into a better one.

So, if our democratic republic is to return to democracy and what’s left of our middle class is to survive (or even grow), how do we do that?  

History shows that the two primary regulators within a capitalist system that provide for the emergence of a middle class are progressive taxation and a healthy social safety net.  

As Jefferson noted in a 1785 letter to Madison, “Another means of silently lessening the inequality of property is to exempt all from taxation below a certain point, and to tax the higher portions of property in geometrical progression as they rise.”

Similarly, Thomas Paine, proposing in Agrarian Justice (1797) what we today call Social Security, said that a democracy can only survive when its people “[S]ee before them the certainty of escaping the miseries that under other governments accompany old age…” Such a strong social safety net, Paine argued, “will have an advocate and an ally in the heart of all nations.”

Tragically, Republicans are today planning to destroy both our nation’s progressive taxation system and our social safety net, in obsequious service to their billionaire paymasters.

Flipping Jefferson and FDR on their heads, Republicans are proposing multi-million-dollar tax breaks for the rich, with a few-hundred-dollars bone tossed in for working people.  

Meanwhile, Republicans are already hard at work.  

As Ian Milheiser notes, “Republicans in the House hope to cut Social Security benefits by 20–50 percent. Speaker Paul Ryan’s plan to voucherize Medicare would drive up out-of-pocket costs for seniors by about 40 percent. Then he’d cut Medicaid by between a third and a half.”  

If Newt, Ryan, et al succeed in destroying FDR’s legacy programs, not only will the bottom 90% of Americans suffer, but what little democracy we have left in this republic will evaporate, and history suggests it will probably be replaced by a violent, kleptocratic oligarchy.  

Hang on tight; the ride could get rough…

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Since his tiny hands first signed up for the site, President-elect Donald Trump’s Twitter account has been spewing misleading, flat-out inaccurate rants with no end in sight. Before the election, he was slinging racist and plain false statistics about African-American crime rates and his imaginary opposition to the Iraq War; after the election, his so-called “landslide” electoral victory. The bottomline, in case you’re brand-fucking-new to the internet: Trump tells a lot of lies on Twitter. Seeing through the lies is pretty easy, but with dishonest tweet after dishonest tweet, the laborious task of fact-checking the madman sure adds up, so treat yourself to this delightful new Chrome extension that fact-checks Trump’s tweets for you.

The extension was created by The Washington Post and cites the Post’s articles while fact-checking. It assumes a high task, that’s for sure. Much is rightfully made of the great horror that is robots and the automation coming for retail, fast food, and driving jobs, but it’s safe to say that fact-checking a chronic, impulsive liar — saving you a few tiresome Google searches (“Did Trump really oppose the Iraq War?,” “Was Alicia Machado really in a sex tape?,” “Did millions really vote illegally in 2016 election?,” etc.) — is one job we’re more than happy to hand over to them.

Here’s a glimpse of what Trump’s tweets will look like on Chrome with the life-saving extension installed:

The Washington Post has created a Google Chrome extension that fact-checks @realDonaldTrump tweets https://t.co/bZ5qZCplvU pic.twitter.com/cA6OYM5bEu

— Wired UK (@WiredUK) December 19, 2016

Unfortunately, the extension is still a bit of a work in progress, according to The Post. Fact-checking isn’t instantaneous and could take a little patience on users’ ends. “It’s still in the early stages, but our goal is to provide additional context where needed for Trump’s tweets moving forward (and a few golden oldies),” the paper wrote in its introduction of the extension.

Sometimes, in the rare instances when Trump isn’t spewing blatant lies, The Post notes that the extension will add important “context.” For example, it could add the relevant, unsettling details about Rex Tillerson’s ties to Russia to Trump’s tweet announcing Tillerson as his pick for secretary of state. What a delight it will be to pour through all those tweets about how great he will be for women with the added context of his self-admitted tendency to grope them and all the sexual assault allegations against him.

Trump is notorious for many things: bigotry, xenophobia, misogyny, and ultimately, his apparent absolute inability to tell the truth. It’s unlikely that those who support him will actually install or utilize the extension, preferring to live in his world of delusions, but for everyone else who’s wary of his lies but too burnt out to fact-check themselves, install the app here and indulge in an early Christmas gift for yourself.

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 It may seem like a frivolous lawsuit, but Chicago resident James W. Gertie thinks simple arithmetic proves his point.

The Chicago Daily Herald is reporting that Gertie, a bus driver from the Chicago suburb of Des Plaines, has filed a class-action lawsuit against McDonald’s operator Karis Management Co. Inc. for allegedly using deceptive marketing to sell its “Extra Value Meals” to consumers.

At issue is the fact that Karis McDonald’s franchises in Cook and Lake counties sell a two-cheeseburger “Extra Value Meal” that actually costs $0.41 more than what you’d have to pay if you bought all the items in the meal separately.

“The reason that I am doing this is not about the 41 cents,” Gertie told the Daily Herald. “It’s because of the principle. A value meal is supposed to be a cheaper price. That’s the whole point of a ‘value’ meal. I believe in the principle of true advertising.”

The Daily Herald also notes that “if a judge grants class-action status to the lawsuit, damages would be sought on behalf of customers who purchased the two cheeseburger Extra Value Meal during an unspecified time period at Karis’ McDonald’s restaurants,” so it’s entirely possible that lots of fast-food fans could be getting refunds in the future after being over-charged for meals.

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Need a job? Have a certain look? Then have your agent contact team Trump and you too could land a job in the White House! 

Donald Trump believes that those who aspire to the most visible spots in his administration should not just be able to do the job, but also look the part.

Given Trump’s own background as a master brander and showman who ran beauty pageants as a sideline, it was probably inevitable that he would be looking beyond their résumés for a certain aesthetic in his supporting players.

Yep. Unpresidented-elect Trump is picking people based on their looks. Meaning we will soon have a “rugged” general running the Pentagon, a “poised and elegant” ambassador to the United Nations, a secretary of state with “silvery hair and boardroom bearing” … because Trump is “a showbiz guy” who is more interested in the “demeanor and the swagger.” Trump is also—according to a source granted anonymity to reveal this breaking news—“very aesthetic.” 

We also learn that there is good news for ladies:

People close to Trump said he has been eager to appoint a telegenic woman as press secretary or in some other public-facing role in his White House — both because he thinks it would attract viewers and would help inoculate him from the charges of sexism that trailed his presidential campaign.

Attract viewers? Oy vey.

The only good news out of this mind-boggling mess? Madman John Bolton apparently missed his (second) chance to help destroy the world because of his “brush-like mustache.”

“Donald was not going to like that mustache,” said one associate, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to speak frankly. 

So you can take comfort in that. (Or drive an ice pick into your ear as you contemplate the next four years of “showbiz.”)

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As the reality of a Donald Trump presidency sets in, unions and workers centers are gearing up for a massive fight to defend immigrant members, building on lessons from the past decade.

Undocumented workers are at risk both from the government and from their employers. Sometimes employers are under government pressure themselves. Other times they’re using the threat of immigration enforcement to discourage organizing or keep workplace standards low.

Besides workplace or home raids, over the past decade workers have faced:

• I-9 audits, where Immigration and Customs Enforcement investigates employers to ensure workers have the right documentation to work legally
• No-match letters, where the Social Security Administration notifies employers that the name or social security number on a worker’s W-2 form doesn’t match its records
• E-Verify, an online system that checks workers’ eligibility to work, mandatory in some states and voluntary in others

The president-elect campaigned on promises to deport millions of undocumented workers and to target immigrants from Muslim countries. While we don’t yet know Trump’s game plan for attacking immigrant workers, here’s a checklist of five questions to ask as your union or worker center prepares to defend members:

1. What resources can you share with members?

Although laws may change, one concrete step you can take right now is to organize “Know Your Rights” trainings and share resources.

For instance, everyone has the right to remain silent if they encounter immigration officials.

“Many workers here are very worried about what’s going to happen to them under the Trump administration,” says Rigoberto Valdez, director of organizing at UFCW Local 770 in Los Angeles.

Local 770 is working with L.A. immigrant advocacy groups to develop new materials to help inform members of their legal rights. (Click here for a list of existing resources, including a bilingual video in English and Spanish.)

It’s important for members to know that they should never share information about their immigration status with their employer or law enforcement, and that they should always carry with them the phone numbers of their union and local legal services.

Groups should make clear that if workers are seeking a union and have already filed with the National Labor Relations Board—either over unfair labor practices or for a certification election—the Department of Homeland Security has agreed to not engage in workplace enforcement.

The same applies to workers enforcing their rights under the Occupational Safety and Health Administration for health and safety issues at work, or under the Department of Labor for wage and hour protections.

2. How’s your contract language?

Does your union have contract negotiations coming up? Start talking about how you can use bargaining to strengthen workplace protection for immigrant members.

UNITE HERE Local 2850 in the Bay Area has won language that allows workers to take leaves of absence—and protects their seniority—if they need time to complete immigration paperwork. It bars employers from penalizing workers who change their names or social security numbers.

The contracts also limit how employers cooperate with Immigration and Customs Enforcement, “so they don’t go over and above what is required [by law],” says President Wei-Ling Huber. And the local has negotiated a legal fund that employers pay into, which members can draw on for immigration-related cases.

Look at model contract language on work authorization and reverification, Social Security no-match letters, changes in social security numbers, participation in E-Verify programs, and notification of ICE raids and detentions. Download the Service Employees (SEIU) version at labornotes.org/immigration.

3. If your members don’t have union contracts, what other tactics can you use to push employers?

There are better and worse ways for employers to respond to audits and raids. You don’t need a contract to negotiate with employers over this—and the first step is knowing what their obligations and choices are.

The Restaurant Opportunities Center-United and the National Employment Law Project are preparing fact sheets on what employers should and shouldn’t do.

For example, “if an employer gets notice of an E-Verify check or an ICE notice—they need to share that info with workers in a responsible way,” says Teófilo Reyes, national research director at ROC-United. “It can’t be a tool to get people to quit and leave.”

“You have to be able to give the employer some legal cover, so they are able to do the minimum required under law,” says Mark Meinster of Warehouse Workers for Justice.

His group worked with other Chicago-area unions and worker centers to form the Dignity Project in 2007. The coalition responded to a slew of no-match letters sent by the Social Security Administration, mainly in non-union workplaces.

The coalition set up a hotline that workers could call, trained worker advocates and unions on how to deal with employer threats, and supported organizing in workplaces where mass firings were looming because of the letters. It saved about 500 jobs.

One lesson, Meinster said, was that on-the-job action was key. In one example, the boss at a soap factory received multiple no-match letters, putting workers’ jobs at risk. “A whole bunch of people walked out and were able to win that strike and force the company to rehire everybody,” Meinster said.

“The group has to take action together,” he says, “and that means doing a lot of work on the front end to unite people who might not be immigrants or undocumented. It’s best if you can take the position that either all of us work, or none of us work.”

4. Can you join a rapid-response network or a community coalition?

For unions that don’t have many immigrant members, joining an existing network is a concrete way to support immigrant workers in your community. Do you know what groups are organizing around immigration in your community? Can you build relationships and support their work?

For those that do, when leaders are detained or facing deportation, unions and worker centers may have to respond quickly. What alliances could your union start building now, so that you are ready if you need to defend targeted members?

A citywide rapid-response network supported the workplace actions in Chicago by turning out supporters for pickets and direct actions. In other communities, such networks can provide expert support in case of workplace or community raids. The National Immigration Law Center has tips on how to develop a rapid-response team by recruiting community leaders and immigration attorneys in advance of potential raids.

The worker center Desis Rising Up and Moving launched a local Hate Free Zone. A thousand people marched through the streets of Jackson Heights, Queens, December 2, to show their support.

“The message was ‘we want to make sure our community is safe, and people know it’s safe and are actively going to be protecting each other,” says Basma Eid, an organizer with the national worker center alliance Enlace.

Pittsburgh’s chapter of the Labor Coalition for Latin American Advancement has been leading a fight to free a local labor leader, Martin Esquivel-Hernandez, detained in a for-profit prison on immigration charges. A hundred community allies marched on November 15 to demand his release. Migrant Justice in Vermont has also mobilized community support to free several farmworker leaders who were held in detention.

5. Can you make your city or workplace a sanctuary?

Hundreds of counties and dozens of cities across the U.S. have passed policies limiting cooperation with federal immigration enforcement. Most include “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policies where cities commit not to ask residents about their immigration status, and not to share that information with ICE.

“We know that a sanctuary city policy is not going to [completely] resolve the problem,” says Rosanna Aran of the Laundry Workers Center, one of the groups working to get such ordinances passed in Orange and East Orange, New Jersey. “But we are trying to create a safe space for the community, a zone free of intimidation and retaliation.”

Passing such policies and defending them—Trump has threatened to cut off federal funds to sanctuary cities—are fights that unions can take on, says Andrea Mercado, campaign director of the National Domestic Workers Alliance.

“Labor unions often have a lot of political leverage with political leaders that a lot of times immigrant organizations don’t have,” she says. “Institutions that have those kinds of relationships and access can push elected leaders to step up.”

At school boards, teachers have used their leverage to get sanctuary policies passed, declaring schools to be safe zones.

United Teachers Los Angeles is part of a coalition pushing to strengthen Los Angeles’s role as a sanctuary city. UTLA has already worked with the school district to ensure that teachers and other school district staff do not track students’ immigration status, and that ICE officers cannot enter schools without permission from the superintendent.

UTLA held a “Know Your Rights as Educators” forum in December, where teachers got information on Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, Obama’s initiative for undocumented residents who came to the United States as children. Union leaders facilitated discussions of what concerns teachers were hearing from students and how the union could help build community networks to defend immigrant families.

An emerging sanctuary campus movement is calling on colleges and universities to declare their campuses as safe places for all students and campus workers, regardless of immigration status. In December, Northeastern University students and workers organized a delegation asking the university to declare the college a sanctuary and sign onto a set of principles written by dining hall workers.

THE FIGHT AHEAD

We’re living in daunting times, but all of us can start somewhere. The Laundry Workers Center is starting, Aran says, by reaching out to workers with a message of courage. “We are explaining that they are not alone and we’re going to fight together and united.”

“There are going to be polices that make us feel that everyone has to retreat to their own community and defend that,” says Valdez. “Solidarity amongst communities is what’s going to be key to defeat the Trump administration and not let ourselves be divided.”

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Donald Trump clearly doesn’t care whether he’s seen as “presidential.” Almost the only time he’s ever mentioned the word was when he repeatedly accused Hillary Clinton of lacking “the presidential look.”

Based on Trump’s remarks about Clinton, including the time he blurted it during the third debate, it’s difficult to know whether he understands what being presidential means, as if it were exclusively about how someone looks rather than behaves. (It’s a lot of both.) But this much was obvious: Trump, ever the misogynist, didn’t think a 69-year-old woman looked presidential. The tragic irony is that Trump is absolutely the least presidential president-elect among all 44 men who have ascended to this post, whether in terms of appearance, temperament and presentational style.

Since the advent of the republic, political scientists and junkies alike have discussed what being “presidential” means in the context of the American system, and it’s certainly evolved over the years. As with so many other aspects of our constitutional democracy, presidential-ness has been handed down as one of the traditions that binds our entire system together. Throughout our history and especially in modern times, it projects a sense of stability in the White House — a sense of unwavering decency and decorum from a nation with the capacity to destroy civilization a thousand times over. There’s a dignified, statesmanlike quality that’s required of the presidency, a humble and benevolent posture that’s ideally commensurate with great power, offering both foreign allies and American voters alike a palpable sense of confident stability. Trump somehow managed to evade all of the above and, with the help of Vladimir Putin and millions of gullible voters, won anyway.

Presidential historian Douglas Brinkley described being presidential this way:

I think the most important aspect of being presidential is to not scare the world or the American people that you’re going to do something irrational — going into war in a willy-nilly fashion, using sloppy language that disturbs allies, being too jingoistic in presentation to the point that the rest of the world’s economic markets start wondering what’s going on in the United States. So it’s really about gravitas, of showing that you’re ready for the big game and that you understand that you have to act in a professional and in a sane manner.

What we’ve seen from Donald Trump so far, be it during his campaign or during the current transition, is a man who absolutely fails to live up to the basic standards of being presidential and indeed appears to be the exact opposite of presidential. Yet his people love him for it.

The entire standard has been rendered irrelevant. Dead. Sixty-two million voters decided that being presidential doesn’t matter anymore and, tragically, every last Trump voter is about to discover why rejecting the presidential qualification was a blunder of historic proportions. The repercussions of this will be far-reaching and in so many ways irreparable. Due to a general lack of education combined with the distracting misinformation of social media, few voters understand that being a superpower involves a set of written and unwritten rules, meant to prevent the chief executive from drifting into “autocratic despot” territory and thus sparking sheer panic abroad among nations that rely on our support and reliability. Trump doesn’t care about these rules, and the destabilization that is likely to result will be horrendous.

Based on Brinkley’s standards, Trump doesn’t care about scaring the world with his cartoonish irrationality. If he did, he’d delete his Twitter account and stop doing victory rallies. Whether he’s attacking Vanity Fair for giving the Trump Grill a bad review; whether he’s toying with Taiwan and China in under 140 characters; whether he’s stirring up his throng of disciples by screeching both vague and overt threats against his enemies; or whether he’s awake at the crack of dawn attacking Alec Baldwin, Trump’s public behavior seems more like a morning zoo shock-jock than a leader who’s about to take control of the world’s largest stockpile of nuclear weapons.

Amazingly, Trump’s rallies are actually less presidential than his tweets, if that’s even possible. Never in the history of the modern presidency has a president-elect gone around to friendly crowds and recounted the election-night television coverage, while hamfistedly mocking various news anchors. Never in the history of the modern presidency has a president-elect ranted incoherently about he won “in a landslide” even though he lost the popular vote by a wide margin and got fewer electoral votes than roughly 46 out of 58 previous winners. All the constant “I’m so great, look at my landslide!” rants would be deeply un-presidential, even if Trump had actually won in a real landslide, which he didn’t. Do we need to even mention Trump’s infamous mockery of reporter Serge Kovaleski? The death of being presidential allowed him to get away with all of it.

Back to Brinkley’s definition: Trump is definitely scaring the world with his irrational behavior. Someone with exactly zero foreign policy experience decided that as his first international act it would be an excellent idea to completely stymie our delicate and complicated relationship with China. Similarly, the other day he used sloppy language to hector China over an American drone that was seized in the South China Sea — tweeting that the move was “unpresidented” [sic]. He later inexplicably told China to keep the U.S. drone, despite its proprietary technology and national security implications. Prior to that, he threatened to go to war “willy-nilly” against nations like Iran over obscene finger gestures. He’s also dealing in partisan conspiracy theories about Russia’s obvious hijacking of the election, suggesting it’s the Democrats, not the intelligence community, that are leaking details about Putin’s espionage. Trump also claims to be so smart he doesn’t need to receive intelligence briefings.

Trump exhibits the same level of gravitas as, say, a spoiled child wearing a cardboard crown from Burger King. His tacky, garish displays of wealth, his clownish stab at a normal head of hair, and his ridiculously ill-fitting suits utterly fail to convey a basic sense of taste, much less gravitas. The other day, for example, Trump referred to third-party candidate Evan McMullin as “Evan McMuffin.” Petty insults like this one (along with “Crooked Hillary,” “Crazy Bernie,” “Lyin’ Ted,” etc.) convey a level of gravitas equal to purple-nurples during recess. And while Trump insists that he’ll be a very, very terrific president and, literally, the greatest jobs president God ever created, no one with a sense of history who believes he’s going to be any of those things.

While there’s considerable debate about how the Trump-era Republicans will legislate, the real concern among both liberals and conservatives alike orbits around Trump’s erratic non-presidential actions. Throughout the past year or so, I’ve warned about the millions of unpredictable things Trump is capable of. We simply don’t know how he’s going to behave from minute to minute because he’s detached himself from the standards by which we evaluate all other presidents. Therefore nothing is off the table, and he’s capable of anything. The old rules don’t matter, and it’s impossible to fully highlight how bad it’s going to be.

More than ever, it’s possible to draw direct linkage between our current president-elect and the fictitious President Camacho from Mike Judge’s movie “Idiocracy.” The institutional disintegration that leads to “Idiocracy” begins with rejecting the mandatory quality of being presidential and replacing it with the screeching trollishness of Trump as he abuses and exploits his nefariously attained executive power. Every time Trump speaks at a rally or tweets another poorly-spelled conspiracy theory, Americans from red and blue states alike should be mortified. But they’re not, or at least not enough. Not anymore. The president is meant to speak for us, but we should never settle for a president who speaks like us. We should demand better. We should demand that the leader of the free world act like he’s the leader of the free world, and not like your semi-coherent racist uncle after too many beers.

America has successfully killed “being presidential,” and we should be ready for the painful consequences. Foreign leaders will only tolerate Trump’s instability and unpredictable monkey-with-a-machine-gun behavior for so long before the global balance of power begins to crumble. Trumpers might think this is a positive course of events. They will soon learn why being presidential is compulsory rather than dispensable.

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The development of the internet has completely transformed the way we do business; and the “oldest profession” is no exception. In a world of online chatrooms, webcam performers can market anything from conversation to explicit sex acts. And unlike pornography or prostitution, there are virtually no laws regulating this form of sex work.

Webcamming is an easy market to enter. All it takes is a computer, a decent webcam, access to a high speed internet connection and a webcam hosting site. The hours are flexible, the working environment is safe and the salary can be very rewarding. The majority of performers are women, but there are also male and transgender performers.

On sites such as Chaturbate and MyFreeCams, a tipping system operates in public chatrooms. Here, payment is voluntary, and performers are tipped for performing sexual and non-sexual acts. This makes a show profitable for the performer, at a relatively low cost to the viewer.

In private chatrooms, performers are paid by the minute for a private show. Here, the customer can make requests for specific sexual acts to be performed. Unlike the public chatrooms, these performances tend to be highly pornographic.

In both public and private shows, performances can be highly interactive. Performers and customers are able to communicate with each other using keyboard, speech and two-way cameras.

Silence of the cams

But while consumers and producers are busy experimenting with these new capabilities, both governments and campaigners remain eerily silent. This is odd, given that the British government has increasingly taken a heavy-handed approach to regulating sexual commerce.

For example, in 2014 a new law banned certain acts from being depicted and uploaded by British pornography producers. And the Digital Economy Bill, which is currently on its way through parliament, seeks to restrict minors’ access to pornographic material online.

Yet both laws focus on recordings, rather than live streaming; in effect, they turn a blind eye to webcamming. This creates something of a paradox: performing an explicitly pornographic act via a webcam carries no repercussions, but if the same show is recorded and uploaded, the performer can be liable to a fine of up to £10,000 (US$12,500).

Another typically vocal group which has remained strangely quiet on this topic is radical feminists. Since the birth of the feminist movement in the 19th century, women involved in sex work have been portrayed as victims in need of rescue. Today, webcam performers are challenging this contrived image.

A new woman

Webcam performers are often highly entrepreneurial, and they harness mainstream social networking sites such as Twitter, Facebook and Tumblr to build and maintain relationships with customers. It’s difficult for radical feminists to claim that a shrewd businesswoman – who may have thousands of fans, thanks to her clever use of social media – has been victimised by her involvement in this form of pornography.

Webcamming gives women the opportunity to reclaim profits from the traditionally male-dominated pornography industry. What’s more, they can maintain control of their image and dictate the terms and conditions on which they are viewed – all from the relative safety of their own homes. Indeed, webcamming allows individuals access to global markets, which could give women in deprived areas a chance to raise themselves out of poverty.

But portraying the webcamming industry as a sort of online utopia for sex workers does not show the whole picture. There are dangers, too. The women I spoke to for my PhD research were worried about viewers filming and sharing their performances on porn sites, or acquiring personal information which could be used to stalk or blackmail them.

Even so, the dominant role of female amateurs in the webcam industry presents a challenge to radical feminists’ claims that the production of sexually explicit material degrades women, and that women who engage in such pursuits need to be rescued.

A tidy profit

While giving women a platform to conduct sex work, webcamming also generates sizeable corporate profits. Hosting sites retain between 40% and 65% of performers’ earnings, for providing chatroom and payment services and an existing customer base.

Laszlo Czero is the former CEO of jasmin.com and current consultant to streamate.com – two leading corporations in the field. He estimates that profits for webcam hosting sites will reach between US$2 and US$3 billion in 2016 alone. Cams.com executive Harry Varwijk estimates that profits yielded by webcam hosting will reach $10 billion by 2020. One of the most popular webcam sites – livejasmin.com – has 40m visitors a day, and has made its founder, Gyorgi Gattyan, Hungary’s richest man.

The owners of webcam hosting sites aren’t the only ones profiting, either. Every single webcam transaction passes through – and profits – the banking system. According to Varwijk, the banking system charges between 7% and 15% for providing payment facilities – much more than the 2% to 3% they usually charge.

This is supposed to be justified by the greater risk of fraud associated with the credit cards used to pay for webcam sessions. But Varwijk, who has run cams.com for 15 years, claims that only 0.03% of transactions result in chargebacks.

Instead of the sleazy pornographer or the shady trafficker, the webcamming industry is driven by a very different force: the mainstream corporation. With no easily identifiable victim, and an above-board financial operation, the world of webcamming has confounded law-makers and anti-sex work campaigners alike. For the moment, at least, entrepreneurial women are free to participate in a legal form of sex work, which they have the power to define.

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

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In an exclusive interview with the Daily Mirror of Sri Lanka, Prof. Noam Chomsky spoke on many issues that have pervaded the current political scenario. In the interview, he details the reasons behind the election victory of Donald Trump, his views on the rise of the right wing, and the causes that resulted in the people losing confidence in mainstream political establishments.

Q: It is both a pleasure and a privilege to have you speak for the first time to a Sri Lankan entity, the Daily Mirror. To start off with, during the recent election of Donald Trump, we saw a kind of rise of racism and xenophobia, a phenomenon of right-wing populism that we are seeing across the world, including in Sri Lanka. What are your views on this?

A: There are many factors, but there are some that are pretty common, certainly for the United States and Europe from which I have just returned, incidentally. One factor that is common and which is very significant is the neoiberal program that was instituted globally, roughly around 35 years ago, around 1980 or a little before and picking up afterward. These are programs that were designed in such a way that they marginalize and cast aside a considerable majority of the population.

So in the United States, if you take a look at say the Trump voters, they are not the poorest people. They have homes, they have jobs, and they have small businesses. They may not have the jobs they like, but they are not starving and are not living on $2 a day. These are people who have been stuck for 30 years. Their history and their own image of life and history and the country is, that they have worked hard all their lives, they have done all the right things. They have families, they go to church and they have done everything right just as their parents did. They’ve been moving forward, which they expected to continue: that their children would be better off than they are, but it hasn’t happened. It stopped. As if they are in a line, in which they were moving forward and it stopped.

Ahead of them in the line are people who have just shot up into the stratosphere: that is neoliberalism. It concentrates wealth in tiny sectors. They don’t mind that, because part of the American mythology is that you work hard and you get rewards. It is not what happens but that fits the picture, the mythology. The people behind them are the ones they resent. This is not untypical; scapegoating. Blame your problems on those who are even worse off than you. And their conception is that the federal government is their enemy, which works for the people behind them. That the federal government gives food stamps to people who don’t want to work, that it gives welfare payments to women who drive in rich cars to welfare offices.

(These are) images that Ronald Reagan concocted. Their thinking is that, the federal government is helping to put them in line ahead of me, but nobody is working for me. That picture is all over the West. A large part of it was behind the Brexit vote, in the United States they would blame Mexican immigrants, or Afro Americans, in the U.K. they would blame the Polish immigrants, in France the North Africans and in Austria the Syrian immigrants. The choice of target depends on the society, but the phenomenon is pretty similar. The general nature is pretty similar. There are streaks of racism, xenophobia, sexism, and opposition to gay rights and all sorts of things. And they coalesce when economic and social policies have been designed in such a way which essentially ignores these people and their concerns and doesn’t work for them — and seems to them to work against them.

Q: But don’t you think, Professor, the notion of an isolationist imperial power, a non-intervening imperial interest that Donald Trump has promised, is something positive for countries like Sri Lanka and the third world at large?

A: Isolationist is a very funny word. Take Donald Trump’s recent appointments — the important appointments. The most important appointment is his National Strategy Adviser who is Michael Flynn. He is a radical Islamophobe. He thinks we should go to war with the whole Islamic world. And his view of Islam is not that of a religion, but that it’s a political ideology like fascism, and it is at war with us and that we should destroy it.

Is that isolationism? Donald Trump’s position and that of Paul Ryan and other right-wingers is that we should sharply build up the Pentagon. They talk about our depleted military forces. I mean you don’t know whether to laugh or not. The U.S. spends almost as much on the military as the rest of the world combined. It is technologically far more advanced. No other country has hundreds of military bases all over the world, actually forces fighting all over the world. But ‘we are a depleted military force and everybody is about to attack us and we have to build the military more'—is that isolationist? We have to carry out economic war against other countries, is that isolationist? No, of course not.

This is vulgar imperialism masked by a fraudulent concern for the working people and the middle class. Is there any such concern apparent from his cabinet appointments? (They are) straight out of Wall Street and Goldman Sachs. Take a look at the stock market, that tells you how people with power are evaluating his presidency. (It) shot up as soon as he was elected. The financial institutions zoomed.

The world’s biggest coal company, Peabody, which was in bankruptcy had its stock go up by about 50% within days of his election. The military industry, energy industries, pharmaceuticals...they are all going to the sky. Is that an illusion? No, it’s not. That’s the policy, the appeal is not so much the poor, but working people who have suffered, not suffered in the sense of real deep poverty, but suffered in the sense of a loss of status, a loss of dignity, and a loss of hope for the future. In the United States this is combined with an objective fact. That this country is built on extremist white supremacy, comparative measures of white supremacy across the world has put the United States way in the lead, even ahead of white South Africa, and now the white population is becoming a minority.

Q: You bring in two interesting points; one on white supremacy and the other on Islam and Islamophobia. Firstly, this idea of supremacy, we have seen this even in parts of South Asia. If you see the rise of Narendra Modi, it was along the same populist lines and even in post-war Sri Lanka we are seeing these same attitudes swelling up. So it is not something confined to the U.S. What do you think the real reason is for this?

A: Different reasons for different places. In India it’s the rise of Hindu nationalism, which is extremely dangerous. It looks like there is an alliance building up with these xenophobic right-wing forces around the world. If you noticed, the reactions to Trumps election across the world, was great enthusiasm from the ultra-right all over. In fact, his first contact was with Nigel Farage, the leader of the UKIP in England and it went on like that. There are common features, but different factors in different countries. In India, it is the Muslims, in the United States it’s Muslims too. But there were also Mexicans and so on. But I think throughout the world you see a similar failure of mainstream establishment institutions to deal with the people’s real problems.

Q: Even in Sri Lanka, there is this fear about the Muslims, along the lines of the fear prevailing in the West. Aren’t these fears about the Muslims real?

A: They are not unreal. Hitler’s fears about the Jews under the Nazis were not totally unreal. There were rich Jewish bankers, there were Jewish Bolsheviks. Any propaganda system, no matter how vulgar or disgraceful, can only succeed if there are at least small elements of truth. They may be small. While you are in Boston if you listen to talk radio, the main radio, all very right wing, you will hear people speaking about Syrian refugees and how they are being treated like princes. That they have been given all kinds of money, that they have been given health services, and education—‘all kinds of things that we don’t have the Syrian refugees get.'

How many Syrian refugees are there? A couple of thousand! They probably do get health services, so it is not totally false. But the typical history of scapegoating is to pick vulnerable people and find something that is not totally false about them—because you have to have some element of truth—and then build it up into a colossus which is about to overcome you. I mean there are states in the United States in the Midwest, where the legislature has passed laws banning Shari’a. How likely is Shari’a going to be imposed in Oklahoma? I mean you know it is not zero. You can find a woman somewhere who is wearing a veil, so there is something. But that’s the way it works.

I think in Sri Lanka there is a pretty ugly history after all; I don’t have to recount it. You can find plenty of cases of massive atrocities and crimes and so on. A demagogic leader and the administration which is not working in the interest of the population but in the interest of wealth and power, almost reflexively is going to turn to attacks on the vulnerable with the support of the media and often the intellectual classes, and blow up small elements of truth into a massive attack. The United States is extremely interesting in this respect. It is the most safe and secure country in the world, but it is probably the most frightened country in the world. Do you know any other country where people feel that unless they take a gun to church or a restaurant they might be attacked? I mean, does it happen in Sri Lanka? No! Does it happen anywhere else? But it happens in the United States of America. All over the United States people feel terrified — ‘they are coming after us’, and that goes way back in American history, and it has roots. There are historical roots.

Q: Going by what you just said Professor, Edward Said, one of your contemporaries, pointed out in the '80s that Islam has been portrayed by the West as a monolithic entity. That the West ignored the different histories and different cultures and so on. Have the Muslims of today, 30 years on, bought into this propaganda and believe that they are in fact a monolithic entity?

A: Take the U.S. or the British policy toward Islam. It has been highly supportive of the most radical elements of Islam. That is true of the British and it’s true of the Americans after they took over from the British. So who is the leading U.S. ally in the Islamic world? Saudi Arabia, perhaps the most extreme, radical, fundamentalist State in the world. But certainly in the Islamic world. And a missionary state, which uses its huge resources to sponsor its Wahabist extremism through Madrasas and so on. It is the main source of Jihadism. The main ally is that — monolithic. I mean what state power does, and propaganda usually follows, is (to) find what will support a power interest.

In these cases imperial policy. If it happens to be radical Islam that’s fine. At the same time we might be fighting radical Islam somewhere else. The propaganda system would create images of Islamic terror seeking to destroy us when that turns out to be the plausible kind of scapegoating. So 9/11 happened and the Tamil Tigers atrocities happened. You can use those as ways of building up fear, anger, and anxiety to support the tendency to hide under the umbrella of power from these forces about to destroy us. Like Shari’a law in Oklahoma, got to protect ourselves!

Q: You spoke of a new shifting of the world order when you spoke of Nigel Farage and other right-wing elements shifting toward Donald Trump. Is there a shift in the international sphere, like we saw during the Cold War, where the world went into two different sides including the non-aligned? A kind of shift today that is happening, between the right-wing nativists on the one hand and the left-wing internationalist on the other?

A: First of all, I don’t really agree with the conventional version of the Cold War. You take a look at the events of the Cold War. Not what intellectuals talk about, not the ideology. Take a look at the events. The events of the Cold War consisted of violent attacks by the U.S. within its domains — which is most of the world. And Russian, violent attacks its much smaller domain, which was Eastern Europe. That was the Cold War. Each side used the alleged threat of the other as justification for its own internal repression. So the U.S. had to support a terrorist war against Nicaragua because of the Russians, who were not anywhere nearby. The Russians had to invade Hungary because of the Americans. That was the Cold War.

There was, in a way, you could describe it as a kind of tacit compact between the two imperial powers: The huge imperial power of the United States, the smaller imperial power of Russia. Kind of a tacit compact in which each side was authorized to carry out violence and repression in its own domains, for the U.S. this means most of the world, without an actual conflict. Now there was a danger, always, a serious danger that an actual conflict might blow up in which case we’re finished. As soon as there is a major nuclear war, humans are done with. So there was always a fear, if there is a confrontation; but if you look at the events of the Cold War you get a very different picture. And it’s the events that matter, not the words.

Q: But is there a realignment across the world, Professor, between this right-wing populist xenophobic elements and…

A: No, there is left liberal populism too, take the United States.

Q: You gave me a good precursor to the next question. Isn’t the left liberal dead? I know you’ve had your differences with Slavoj Zizek, but as he points out what Clinton personified and is a symbol of is that left liberal position—a coalition which had you and also Alan Dershowitz, which had Occupy Wall Street and Wall Street together. 

A: There is lack of comparison there. Alan Dershowitz speaks for the, it’s kind of a mixture, but the xenophobic extremist right—he is all over the place. The left liberal media, say NPR, he’s on it all the time; right-wing media he is on it all the time.

Then there’s me. Am I on (them)? In fact, when you leave, take a photograph of one of my favourite front pages of a journal. I liked it so much I framed it. It’s the main left liberal journal, American Prospect, and it has a picture of two evil creatures who are threatening American liberalism: one is Dick Cheney and the other is me. That’s the parallel. And it indicates what’s in the mind of American liberals: “We’re being attacked by these monsters on both sides”—one of them who sits in an office and has no access to anything, the other, the guy who controls the biggest military machine in the world and is invading Iraq, those are the two forces.

Same with the rest, Occupy vs. Wall Street, what’s the comparison? Actually, there is a comparison, but not what’s being described. Occupy is very small, it doesn’t begin to compare with Wall Street. But the population does. And a lot of the population supports them (Occupy). In fact, take the U.S. election, in terms of numbers, Clinton won pretty easily. But more interestingly, if you look at younger voters, first of all Clinton won overwhelmingly, but Sanders won even more overwhelmingly. Here is somebody who came out of nowhere, no economic support, no rich supporters, no corporate support, 100% media opposition, basically unknown, talking about socialism, which is a bad word, and overwhelmingly won the youth support. Well, the constituency that supported him does not have money, power, corporate backing, and so on. So they are not considered popular, they are just kind of off the spectrum of discussion, but they are there. And they can change policies.

Q: Professor, since you spoke of the youth, we have watched you speaking about how universities dumb down thinking or intellect. You are a person who, since your early teens, you have questioned the status quo. Do you see that among the youth today? Are the youth questioning the status quo as much as they should?

A: Well, why did an overwhelming majority of young people support Bernie Sanders? That is the answer to your question. Yes, of course they are challenging the status quo. They don’t have wealth, military power, corporate backing, media backing, nor support from intellectuals, but sure, they are challenging the status quo. All the time.

Q: But across the globe, aren’t you also seeing them move toward the nativist nation state concept?

A: You are seeing that, but you are also seeing something like the Sanders phenomenon, Soy Podemos in Spain. I just happened to be in Barcelona, Barcelona is a major city, and the mayor who was just elected is a left-wing activist. These things exist all over Europe. The Corbyn phenomenon in England, the Labour Party elite is bitterly opposed to it, of course the Tories kind of like it, because they want to see the Labour Party collapsing. But, it’s substantial. As soon as Corbyn opened a possibility for people, ordinary people, to participate, the Labour Party shot up. These are real opportunities. Take the Trump voters in the United States, many of them voted for Obama in 2008. Why? If you remember the campaign slogan, it was hope and change and they were voting for hope and change. They didn’t get any hope and they didn’t get any change, so they are disillusioned and now they are voting for someone else who is calling for hope and change.

Q: But don’t you see that happening even in South Asia? That it’s either Trump vs. Corbyn? That the liberal middle ground, for which I use Hillary Clinton as a symbol is losing ground. That you need to pick a side, instead of staying in the center?

A: Everywhere. Everywhere, the mainstream political organizations which are kind of centrist — center left or center right — are diminishing and collapsing. That is true of institutions too. There’s anger at institutions, contempt for them, hatred of them. Not just the political institutions, but the banks, the corporations, just about everything except the military. This, to go back to our original discussion, is a reflection, substantially, of the neoliberal policies of the past generation. It has harmed much of the population, offered nothing to them, given power and prestige to extreme wealth and professional elites who are protected. So, it leads to anger and resentment against the established institutions.

Q: Moving on, has the media changed landscape since you wrote ‘Manufacturing Consent’ in 1989? Is the media manufacturing consent now?

A: Well, we didn’t actually say that media is manufacturing consent; we said that that is what they are trying to do. We discussed the nature of the media. There’s a separate question; to what extent is it effective? And that’s an interesting question, but we didn’t discuss it. They’re still doing it in the same way. In fact, dramatically.

Take November 8, two things of critical significance happened on November 8. One of them was massively reported, the other, which was much more important, received no report – that was the Marrakesh Conference of 200 countries that tried to implement the Paris programs to try to save the human species from destruction. That’s a lot more important than what happened in the U.S. election. And, in fact, it was undermined by the U.S. election. What happened in Morocco is astounding if you look at it; one country was leading the way to try to save civilization from self-destruction. One country was way behind, trying to lead the way toward self-destruction, the first was China, the second was the United States. That is a remarkable spectacle. Did you see a comment on it?

Q: Nothing.

A: That is manufacturing consent.

Q: Finally, you have come to the evening of your life after over half a century of being the epitome of pioneering thought and intellectual discourse. What are your views on religion? And what is your personal belief of life after death?

A: Personally, it means nothing to me, but if it means something to other people, that is fine. As long as they don’t bother others. I don’t ridicule it, I don’t have contempt for it, I have respect for their views, but they are not mine.

Q: And your views on religion, you were born into a Jewish family and raised…

A: Well, remember that Judaism is fundamentally a religion of practice, more than belief. So, say my grandfather, who was basically still living in the 17th century Eastern Europe was ultra religious. But if I had asked him, did you believe in God? He probably wouldn’t have known what I was talking about. Judaism means carrying out the practices. My father was basically secular, but deeply involved in Jewish life. If you go to a New England church on Sunday morning, you would find people who are deeply religious, but not believers. Religion to them means community, associations, helping each other, having some common values and so on. Religion could be all sorts of things. But to me, it doesn’t happen to be a value; if other people do, that is their business.

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Not long ago, Americans learned that the average life expectancy for white people in this country—those most likely to have voted for Donald Trump—actually declined for the first time in many years. The pathologies and frustrations believed to have driven that decline may have motivated the tiny handful of votes that gave Trump his Electoral College victory.

But not long after their euphoria over his inauguration fades, they are going to learn why his administration is so likely to drive those statistics in the wrong direction. Despite his promises to protect Social Security and Medicare—and his vow to replace the Affordable Care Act with "something much better"—Trump's cabinet appointees and his allies in Congress plan ruinous changes to those programs. And that will mean ruin, and in thousands of cases death, for the mostly white and working-class people who depend so heavily on them.

Unless the Republicans come up with a plausible bill to replace Obamacare—a challenge that has eluded them since 2009—millions of their constituents will lose the health insurance they have only recently gained, and yes, thousands of those people will die next year.

Back when President Obama's health reform plan first passed, Republicans and their media echoes warned loudly about mythical "death panels" embedded in his legislation. The voters who believed that nonsense are about to meet the real death panels, led by House Speaker Paul Ryan, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, and Rep. Tom Price, the Georgia Republican slated to head the Department of Health and Human Services.

This is not hyperbole: Before the advent of Obamacare, tens of thousands of uninsured Americans died every year because they didn't receive timely care. Ten years ago, one reputable study estimated that as many as 137,000 Americans had perished prematurely due to lack of health coverage between 2005 and 2010, or more than twice as many as died in the Vietnam War. The Institute of Medicine has estimated that uninsured adults are 25 percent more likely to die prematurely than those with coverage, with uninsured adults between 55 and 64 years old faring even worse. For them, being uninsured is the third most significant cause of death, behind only heart disease and cancer.

Those estimates don't include the victims of insurance company profiteering who will die if the repeal of Obamacare undoes its protection of patients suffering from "previously existing conditions." Exposed to the tender mercies of corporate actuaries, thousands of them will lose their coverage, watch their families driven to destitution, and many of them will die, too.

That isn't supposed to be what happens under President Trump, who declared in many interviews and debates his determination to provide better and cheaper health insurance "for everybody, let it be for everybody." But by appointing a far-right ideologue like Price to run health policy, Trump effectively violated that promise before even taking his oath of office. Working with Ryan and the Republican majority in both houses of Congress, Price means to destroy Obamacare, slash Medicare and decimate Medicaid.

The truth about the current incarnation of the Republican Party, which voters ought to have learned long ago, is that its attitudes toward working Americans of all descriptions range from careless to merciless. If not every Republican shares the "let 'em die" position on health care screamed by a GOP debate audience in 2012, all too many believe that government has no role in ensuring that every American is insured—even though that would save money as well as lives. However ridiculous Trump's promises may seem, his pledge to protect Americans who depend on Obamacare, Medicare and Medicaid is a matter of life or death. Unless he changes course now, we may see a lot of red caps at funerals for people who lost their insurance and died much too soon.

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"Late Night" host Seth Meyers anticipates Donald Trump's presidency will be the most tweet-filled presidency in history.

“Basically, Donald Trump’s Twitter feed will serve as his version of FDR’s fireside chats,” Meyers noted.

Meyers added that only Trump would say something like, “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself—and Mexicans.” 

Trump is even encouraged by the head of the GOP to bypass traditional media, leading him to “spread lies and conspiracy theories unfiltered through his Twitter account," Meyers explained, citing a statement from the GOP chair:

“The incoming Chief of Staff Reince Priebus recently suggests that Trump might completely scrap the traditional daily press briefings the White House does with reporters."

Priebus' hesitation? The press briefings might just be "boring episodes," an idea Meyers immediately shot down.

“Boring episodes?" he asked incredulously. "This country needs boring episodes right now. The last 18 months have been so insane; it’s like a season of ‘Game of Thrones’ where every episode is ‘The Battle of the Bastards.’ We all need a break from this action. I can’t believe I’m saying this, but America needs some Bran.”

Trump hasn't held a press conference in nearly 150 days, which is the main reason the press has become so reliant on Trump's Twitter account for information. 

“Like this weekend, when China seized a U.S. naval drone in international waters and Trump tweeted, quote, 'China steals United States Navy research drone in international waters—rips it out of water and takes it to China in unprecedented act,''” Meyers pointed out.

But that was actually the second tweet Trump sent about the incident. 

“Drawing as much attention as his ‘shoot from the hip’ foreign policy was his apparent inability to spell, because [in] the original tweet, Trump wrote that it was an ‘unpresidented’ act," Meyers explained.

"‘Unpresidented’ is not a word, of course, but it would be a great title for a movie about Hillary Clinton," he added. "She was inevitable until she became ‘unpresidented.'"

As Trump would say, "Sad!"

Watch:

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Soon to be the world’s most powerful baboon, Donald Trump may be inadvertently fulfilling his campaign promise to “drain the swamp,” as his election is causing D.C. dwellers “to rethink their lives and the reasons that brought them to Washington in the first place.”

According to The Washingtonian, some D.C.-area psychotherapists have seen an increase in patients suffering “lowercase trauma” at the thought of Trump’s impending administration.

Per The Washingtonian:

“This election is . . . causing people to question fundamental beliefs they had about the world. The administration was going to turn over in January regardless, but locals were ready for a Hillary Clinton presidency, and now, faced with Trump as their president-elect, DC’s government employees especially are questioning whether or not they want to remain in their careers, says Gregory Jones, a psychologist at Capital Center for Psychotherapy and Wellness.”

“I’m not interviewing everyone who comes into our practice, but from water cooler conversation, there’s an uptick in this area because there was a real shock — I’d call it a lowercase trauma — but absolutely there are people who are saying this is traumatic: I can’t work, I can’t function, I’m in a fog,” said Keith Miller, a psychotherapist based in the Maryland suburbs. “We were treating panic attacks — in all fairness, these are folks who have a history of it and were in remission, but the trigger is there now and it’s causing their reaction.”

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“We are desperate because this will be the second Christmas that our children have to spend here,” 17 mothers incarcerated at the Berks County Family Detention Center wrote in a recent joint letter to state authorities, publicized by the advocacy organization Grassroots Leadership. “This is in addition to all the other special dates—such as the birthdays of our children and our own, Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, etc.—that we have had to spend in this jail… We ask you, 17 desperate mothers, to give the biggest gift to our children of being able to spend Christmas among family.”

Nearly 500 mothers and children are locked up in Berks, one of three remaining “family detention centers” in the United States. In 2014, the Obama administration responded to the crisis of violent displacement from Central American countries by incarcerating mothers with their children in facilities that human rights observers say amount to prisons. Some have compared the institutions to another historical disgrace, Japanese-American internment camps, and the institutions have been roundly condemned by the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention. As the Detention Watch Network notes, family detention centers became the backbone of Obama’s immigration policy “despite the U.S. having a direct hand in creating the violent and unstable conditions prevailing in Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador that are causing many to flee.”

With Donald Trump slated to take the White House in a month, advocates say now is a vital time for the Obama administration to shut down the facilities and disavow their legacy. While it is difficult to predict what policies the incoming administration will unleash, the president-elect has threatened mass deportations targeting 11 million undocumented people in the United States, including up to three million forced evictions in the first 100 days. These threats have been accompanied by alarming calls by Trump and his appointees to create a religious registry targeting Muslims. In November, the prominent Trump supporter Carl Higbie, a spokesperson for the pro-Trump Great America PAC, told Fox News that the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II is a “precedent” for a potential Muslim registry.

“Instead of handing the keys to these prisons to Donald Trump, Obama can instead end this now," said Cristina Parker, immigration programs director at Grassroots Leadership. “Family detention is a national disgrace, and a blemish on Obama’s already-terrible record on deportations."

‘Deprived of a normal life’

In addition to the political climate, those locked up at Berks say that intolerable conditions bring an urgency of their own. As recently as August, 22 women detained at the facility launched a hunger strike “to protest our indefinite detention” and demand that the Obama administration “end this practice of detaining mothers and children and allow our immediate release.” Such forms of protest have become a fixture of immigrant prisons of all kinds, from Northwest Detention Center in Washington state to the Karnes Detention Center in Texas.

In an August 10 open letter to Jeh Johnson, Secretary for the Department of Homeland Security, the 22 women proclaimed: “Our children, who range in age from 2 to 16, have been deprived of a normal life. We are already traumatized from our countries of origin. We risked our own lives and those of our children so we could arrive on safe ground. While here our children have considered committing suicide, made desperate from confinement. The teenagers say that being here, life makes no sense. One of our children said he wanted to break the window to jump out and end this nightmare.”

The statement goes on to describe nightmarish conditions. “On many occasions, our children ask us if we have the courage to escape. They grab the cord that holds their ID cards and tighten it around their necks, saying they want to die if they don’t get out. And the smallest children, who are only two years old, cry during the night because they cannot express what they feel. For some time, our children have not eaten well, and they have lost weight.”

To highlight the abuses, protesters shut down traffic in the streets of Harrisburg on Monday to demand authorities shutter the facility. After chaining themselves together and wearing shirts reading “Shut Down Berks,” 13 campaigners, each representing a family locked up in the facility, were arrested.

Their demands were directed at the federal government as well as state officials, including Department of Human Services Secretary Ted Dallas and Governor Tom Wolf. 

"During a time where the national dialogue includes talk of reviving internment camps and religious registries, now is the time for Secretary Dallas and Governor Wolf to take action,” said Sundrop Carter, executive director of the Pennsylvania Immigration and Citizenship Coalition. “Every day Berks is allowed to operate is another day of legitimizing the growing movement of hate, racism and xenophobia plaguing our country.”

'All families deserve to be free'

The Obama administration has repeatedly fought in the courts for the authority to keep the institutions open, even after a California judge ordered the federal government to release detained families last year, noting that family detention centers are not licensed to provide childcare. In that decision, Judge Dolly M. Gee of Federal District Court for the Central District of California condemned the subjection of children to “widespread and deplorable conditions in the holding cells of the Border Patrol stations.”

Immigrants and refugees detained in family detention centers won a key victory on December 2, when a judge blocked the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services from granting childcare licenses to two notorious immigrant prisons: the South Texas Family Residential Center in Dilley and the Karnes County Residential Center in Karnes City. Following the ruling, hundreds of mothers and children were released from both institutions, in what human rights campaigners hope is a sign that the Obama administration is shifting away from reliance on family prisons.

The advocacy organization Refugee and Immigrant Center for Education and Legal Services reported that the majority of families freed from the Texas facilities “were released without travel plans, forcing RAICES staff and volunteers to work until 4am on Saturday night to communicate with families and arrange travel.”

Those developments followed a decision by the Pennsylvania Department of Human Services earlier this year to revoke Berks' childcare license. But the facility appealed and continues to detain people. Now, campaigners are amplifying the mothers’ demands for freedom before the holidays.

"The first weekend of December, RAICES served nearly 500 women and children released from detention who were grateful to be free but released in terrible medical and emotional condition after just days or weeks of detention,” said Amy Fischer, policy director for RAICES. “We can only image how much worse it is for the families at Berks who have been detained for months or well over a year. All families deserve to be free!"

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On December 21, Trump claimed he could have won the popular vote had he wanted to. “Campaigning to win the Electoral College is much more difficult & sophisticated than the popular vote. Hillary focused on the wrong states!” Trump tweeted.

Campaigning to win the Electoral College is much more difficult & sophisticated than the popular vote. Hillary focused on the wrong states!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 21, 2016

“I would have done even better in the election, if that is possible, if the winner was based on popular vote - but would campaign differently,” Trump wrote in the second tweet.

I would have done even better in the election, if that is possible, if the winner was based on popular vote - but would campaign differently

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 21, 2016

Baloney. Trump could never have won the popular vote. Hillary Clinton won it by nearly three million, a historic record for a candidate losing the Electoral College vote.

I find it astonishing that a president-elect of the United States is so insecure and thin-skinned about his victory that he has to keep justifying it, even by telling big lies. Weeks after Election Day, Trump tweeted that “In addition to winning the Electoral College in a landslide, I won the popular vote if you deduct the millions of people who voted illegally.”

In addition to winning the Electoral College in a landslide, I won the popular vote if you deduct the millions of people who voted illegally

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 27, 2016

Another totally baseless claim. There’s no evidence of illegal voting. And Trump had no landslide in the Electoral College. His percentage of the Electoral College was lower than that of 12 post-World War II winners.

Trump wants to convince Americans he has a strong mandate to govern. But half of Americans didn’t vote, and he got a minority of those who did. That means fewer than 1 out of 4 qualified voters cast a ballot for Trump. That’s no mandate.

In 30 days, the most unqualified, divisive, ignorant, and dangerous man ever to become president of the United States moves into the Oval Office.

This article first appeared as a post by Robert Reich's Facebook page. Read the full post here.