Faith-based Fascism

If you assume that the goal of the new "Religious Liberty Task Force" recently announced by Attorney General Jeff Sessions will be to find new and better ways to discriminate against the LGBT community, you probably are underestimating the Attorney General and the administration he serves.  Rest assured that the Task Force also will investigate new ways to justify restricting women's reproductive rights, expand federal funding for religious schools, and aggressively erode the separation of Church and State.

Political authoritarians and religious hierarchies enjoy a natural partnership.  Both are essentially conservative, demanding that followers  accept the immutable rules and mythologies they hand down.  Neither can tolerate opposition based on anything so heterodox as rational thought, and both perceive those from outside their networks of believers as threats to be resisted, repressed, and demonized.  Working together, they keep their followers unquestioning and compliant.

Such partnerships may be as old as human civilization, but there are plenty of contemporary examples.  Conservative Islam, either Sunni or Shi'a, dominates the autocracies of the Middle East.  The Orthodox parties in Israel recently cooperated with Netanyahu's Likud to enact legal changes that make Muslims and Druse second-class citizens.  In India, Modi's Hindu nationalists stay in power by persecuting Muslims, and the generals of Myanmar have solidified Buddhist support by doing the same.

Of course, the relationship that most resembles Tr*mp's alliance of interests with Evangelicals is Putin's alliance of interests with the Russian Orthodox Church; and in Russia, too, the effort to strengthen church-state solidarity began by attacking homosexuals.  Perhaps "moral" considerations motivate religious conservatives to endorse and facilitate authoritarian political leadership, but the process is inevitably corrupt.

Bargaining Chips

Most Americans are horrified by the policy of separating immigrant children from their parents at our southern border, and plenty of politicians, whatever their real feelings, have concluded it is in their best interest to say they are as well.  Even our Psychopath-in-Chief has mouthed concern, while blaming Democrats for the damage he has done.

The "deterrent effect" claimed by Jeff Sessions is a ruse: desperate families are unlikely to believe that emigration to the US presents a greater threat than the gang violence and poverty that drives them from their homes.  Immigrant children are just the latest bargaining chips in the Republican effort to remake American immigration policy: holding DACA recipients hostage was not enough to sway Democratic votes in Congress, so Republicans have upped the ante.  "If we kidnap the babies," one imagines Stephen Miller whispering in Tr*mp's ear, "you'll get your Wall."

 One only can hope this latest "negotiating tactic" is ineffective: that Democrats will hang tough, and that enough Republicans will find (or feign) the decency required to reject the radical and racist Ryan "compromise" bill, forcing a humane, immediate resolution of the current showdown.  Too much damage already has been done.

Extra brief briefs

• The bizarre stream of consciousness Our President delivered to the Boy Scouts this week makes the 25th Amendment seem more and more applicable.

• Tweeting the purge of transgender personnel from the military was both bizarre and absolutely vile — but maybe it's supposed to make up for the impending martyrdom of Jeff Sessions.

• Tr*mp will never find an AG the equal of Jeff Sessions, given that Adolf Eichmann was executed in 1962.

• If the Democrats' "Better Deal" had included single-payer heath care, somebody might have paid attention.

• Popular protest in Poland prompted a veto of "judiciary reform" by Andrzej Duda, demonstrating that marches still can accomplish something, somewhere.

• Sadly, it seems that "somewhere" does not include Turkey.

• Anthony Scaramucci,  Wow.  Anthony Scaramucci.

• We knew that playing football caused brain damage — now we need data on watching football.

Regarding Jeff Sessions

We heard the question, we heard the answer, and no matter how hard Sean Spicer and Michael Mukasey and Paul Ryan try to spin it, it's clear that Sessions lied.  Does it really matter?

They couldn't get Al Capone for bootlegging, much less murder, but they got him for tax evasion — and that was good enough.  Jeff Sessions can get away with being a fascist; but if we can dump him for being a liar, that's good enough too.

Just before "the Russian connection" hit the news, Sessions was making something less of a stir for deciding the Justice Department no longer had to investigate racist police departments, nor enforce agreements already secured by Loretta Lynch to alleviate abusive practices by police in Baltimore and Chicago.  For Sessions (and for Tr*mp as well), the problem is that police haven't been aggressive enough.  Sessions also has shown no interest in protecting anybody's civil rights, unless you count the "religious rights" of Bible bigots to discriminate against the LGBT.  He will not prosecute infringements of voting rights, and backs the same old "states' rights" arguments that justified Jim Crow.

Speaking of fascism, Tr*mp's "VOICE" program, which will publicize crimes committed specifically by immigrants, is chillingly reminiscent of Hitler's program to publicize crimes committed specifically by Jews. Fascists always need an "enemy within" to justify authoritarian overreach; and as Dietrich Bonhoeffer would observe if he were here today, after they come for the immigrants, they'll be coming for you.

Briefly

Health Care
Tr*mp says, "I have to tell you, it's an unbelievably complex subject.  Nobody knew that health care could be so complicated."  Nobody?  Well, duh!

Voter Suppression
Our President had to stock his Cabinet with plutocrats, presumably because he just couldn't find enough wingnut ideologues — but he does have unreconstructed Confederate warrior Jeff Sessions, who has dropped the government's argument that the Texas voter ID law was designed to suppress minority voting.  Can the other plaintiffs win without the backing of the Justice Department?  We'll see.

Federal Budget
Congress never pays much attention to presidential budget proposals, so we can ignore Tr*mp's speech and just wait for Paul Ryan.  We are most likely to see yet another attempt at implementing supply-side economics, and need only look to Kansas to see how well that works.

Military Spending
It is obvious to the simple-minded that more military spending will "make America stronger" — except that it won't.  Fortunately, this particularly dumb idea would have to be funded with cuts to enough programs popular in the various states to ensure it won't happen.

Antisemitism
The cemetery vandalism will turn out to be the work of drunken young men, possibly wearing red caps; and the bomb threats not part of any organized plot, but individual acts inspired on 4chan or by the Daily Stormer.  This doesn't make the problem any less serious: antisemitism is an inevitable accompaniment to any kind of xenophobia, and enough empty threats might inspire some demented individual to attempt a real bombing.

* * *

Update (11PM): Well, he gave the campaign speech again.

Distractor-in-Chief

Pay no attention to the man in front of the curtain!

Our President, like much of his "base," is profoundly ignorant.  Completely out of his depth, he will do what he must to maintain his pose as "the most powerful man in the world" — and any effort by progressives to remove him from office is the equivalent of trying to fire the Aflac Duck.

Behind the curtain are most of the usual suspects, jostling a bit, but largely willing to accommodate each other.  Congress is finding new ways to further enrich the plutocrats with tax cuts and banking deregulation, the religious right has put dibs on the courts, fossil fuel has Scott Pruitt, the white supremacists have Jeff Sessions, and the more generalized forces of darkness have Steve Bannon serving as Tr*mp's brain.

Yes, importers and exporters will come into conflict over trade policy, big agriculture will fight threats to its pool of slave labor, and foreign policy may devolve even further into chaos, but the "stakeholders" in the Tr*mp presidency largely will be gratified.  The only obstruction they might face is Tr*mp, whose need for approval and approbation just might gum up the political machine.

If anybody manages to force Tr*mp out of power, it won't be the left.  It is abundantly clear that most Republicans would be overjoyed if an opportunity arose to have Mike Pence in the Oval Office instead of their temperamental figurehead, but they don't have a way to accomplish that.  Trump is their most effective pitchman since Reagan — but unlike Reagan, he can't stick to the script.

Outlook outlook

This post was supposed to be the foreign policy outlook, but who the hell knows?  First, I figure, our esteemed leader-to-be has to figure out who is a safe bet to do it for him.

In the meanwhile, it's nice to see backtracking on a bunch of campaign promises.  Somebody probably mentioned that a special prosecutor for Hillary, or  an investigation of the Clinton Foundation might look bad when nobody can find any malfeasance, and it turns out they actually can't "lock her up."  Better to express "pity for the vanquished."  Is it conceivable that the USofA might adhere to the Paris agreement on climate change, or are we just being teased?

This is not to say that plenty of damage won't be done in the name of "law and order" -- Jeff Sessions has the potential to make the concept of civil liberties seem quaint.  Add to that a resurgence of mandatory minimum sentences and a new surge of voter suppression, and the triumph of vindictive moralism will be nearly complete.

Are there two Republican Senators with enough conscience to hold back the worst of the worst?  Maybe.  Probably not.