General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsDonald Trump has an unusual kind of power: He reveals weakness.
This quality he extends to all things people, traditions, movements and while you know all this by now, the way he traffics in lingering doubts (e.g., Lyin Ted) and the malleable dignity of those around him, in all the small compromises people make with themselves toward an end, what all these individual shortfalls do in the aggregate is to expose the fragility of our modern national institutions.
What exactly, for instance, is supposed to happen if the president wonders why we accept immigrants from shithole countries? Or says a group of white supremacists included very fine people? Backhandedly calls the North Korean dictator short and fat?
Nothing, of course. Theres no institution to guard against any of that. And since theres no way to quantify the harm in any of it, either (no laws broken, no physical destruction), all these things that President Trump says just land in a weird rhetorical DMZ, where there is no recourse. That unease defined the last year. And its this kind of phantom feeling that something shouldve happened, but didnt or wont, that flows through each of the central stories of the moment: Trumps presidency, the nightmare revelations of sexual abuse, and the accumulating problems of Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube. What brings all these things together is the assault, from the White House and from journalists, for worse and for better, on core institutions.
With Trump, its like constantly watching a fly ball fall between a shortstop and a left fielder that kind of suspended anxiety free fall, where nobody really knows what to do, because theres nothing to do. Morning in America is disorientingly open with possibility, because who knows where Trump will take things next?
Its oddly riveting, George Saunders wrote during the campaign, nearly two years ago, watching someone take such pleasure in going so much farther out on thin ice than anyone else as famous would dare to go. Nobody ever decided whether that dynamic drove or hindered Trumps success, but what it definitely did was expose the extent to which the American political system was relying on shame to keep it in check.
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the rest:
https://www.buzzfeed.com/katherinemiller/the-past-year-and-the-breakdown-of-institutional-power?utm_term=.ltmLJ603A#.qvWNXdve8
C_U_L8R
(45,018 posts)That's not a 'power', it's a sign of a total fuckup.
unblock
(52,293 posts)there sure as sh*t is an institution to guard against *democrats* who are even an iota less than perfect!
look silly in a helmet, sigh into a microphone, scream to rally your volunteers, wear pantsuits, wear a tan suit, etc.
the list is ridiculously long and it would be ridiculous even if it were short.
the media routinely inflicts great damage or outright kills democratic careers for mild gaffes.
that institution and institutional punishment sure exists when a democrat is involved.
republicans get a pass on everything. gianforte has a violent conviction on his record for attacking a reporter right before the election. how the hell is his career not over? the media shrugs and say he won the election so who cares if he violently attacks people????
if a democrat said a teeny, tiny fraction of a percent of what donnie says, their career would be over in a flash.
it's not the no institution exists to punish him -- it's that the media refuses to do so.
ProfessorPlum
(11,271 posts)jesus fucking christ. No institution.
the media is just full on in the tank for one party. they are ready to go full fascist. And for this orange fool.
It has all been so obvious for so long, yet few acknowledge it. Democrats must be perfect at all times and will even be criticized for that, as "holier than thou". Republicans? Well, we all make mistakes now and then.