Wow.
For years now, I’ve been a huge fan of the Westminster Town Hall Forum. I’ve covered many of its talks, which are almost always thrilling. On Tuesday, it hosted Jonathan Capehart, a Washington Post opinion writer. I meant to attend, but something got in the way. Instead, I took advantage of the Westminster website, where the talks remain available, and listened to Capehart.
Wow. He rocked the room and got a standing ovation. He deserved it. I transcribed his opening and will pass it along below. If you want to listen to it yourself, it’s here.
The local angle is that Capehart attended Minnesota’s own Carleton College, which he talked about during the Q and A. But if, like me, you often feel that the experience of the Trump presidency has already dragged on for about nine years too long (I know, I just said it feels like nine years), you will find that Capehart’s opening remarks seem to have been lifted from that primal scream trying to get out of your soul. The assigned topic was “A Bold Look at Today’s Headlines.”
Here goes, all said by Capehart:
I know I’m supposed to deliver a bold look at today’s headlines. Right? But let’s be honest. In Trump’s America, today’s headlines are exhausting.
Has he fired anyone by tweet, again? Has he attacked House Intelligence Chair Adam Schiff again? Or House Judiciary Chairman Jerry Nadler again? Or former FBI Director James Comey, again? Or Hillary Clinton, again? Or Democrats, again? Or immigrants, again? Or asylum seekers, again. Or the press, again.
Has he diminished our standing in the world, again? Has he attacked our allies, again? Has he attacked the small-d democratic institutions that have helped make this world relatively safer for almost seven decades, like NATO, again? Has he talked about the love letter from North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un, again? Has he taken Russian President Vladimir Putin’s word over that of U.S. intelligence leaders, again? Has he praised the strong-arm tactics of Duterte in the Philippines, again? Has he coddled white supremacists abroad and here at home, again? Has he made yet another bold declaration to close the U.S. border with Mexico, or to oppose background checks for gun purchasers, or to create a “bill of love” to protect Dreamers again?
Or has he reversed course, as if he never said what he said, again? Has he rendered meaningless the orthodoxy the Republican Party spent generations creating and preaching, again? Has he trampled the Constitution, again? And at an average of 22 falsehoods or misleading claims a day, according to the Washington Post Fact-Checker, has President Trump lied again?
Has he? No, seriously, someone check Twitter. Has he? That litany I just recited only underlines how absurd things are today. And it barely scratches the surface of all the deplorable things President Trump has done, is doing and will do while in office.
That was just Capehart’s opening. Listen to the rest here.
P.S. Minnpost is among the sponsors of the forum, but I swear that doesn’t influence me a bit. I’ve been loving the forum since before MinnPost existed.
Johnathan Capehart was another terrific speaker at Westminster. Its forum is an event not to be missed including the pre-speaker live music and the light lunch afterwards.
Surprising paucity of comments on Mr. Capeharts’ opening laundry list.
Interesting presentation by Mr. Capehart.
My recommendation is if you are not happy with what is going on in the US now get involved and participate in the process of democracy and then vote. If you are happy with the way things are now no further action required, you don’t even need to vote.
“But if, like me, you often feel that the experience of the Trump presidency has already dragged on for about nine years too long”
The reason it seems that long is that you attend these events or watch them online. Nothing new was said. Given the same assignment, most of us could have delivered the same message with the same measure of outrage.
It is all the same stuff that lead to his victory in the first. How many years will the next six feel like?
In deference to Mr. Black, I listened to Mr. Capehart’s remarks, and the Q&A after. Mr. Capehart was so very, very, very wrong. Wrong in the establishment-media way that is so destructive of his own desperately expressed hope to recover our path toward a decent society.
Of course his litany of Trump’s degradations of office was well-aimed. But the crux of his remarks was that if only we can rid ourselves of Trump, we can return to those days “before Trump took over the Republican party,” when it stood for sound and honorable principles and the two parties worked together for the good of the people. In his remarks he even wistfully recalled an interaction he had with George W. Bush to illustrate the pre-Trump Republican leadership that truly cared for the people.
Whether due to conditioned worldview or to professional imperative, the establishment media (and establishment Democrats) cannot pull themselves away from the fantastical framework of the two major parties negotiating and compromising around a “center” for incremental progress. Mr. Capehart thinks there is an honorable Republican party taken hostage by a single man, while at the same time citing polls that some 90% of Republicans support Trump (that’s some case of Stockholm syndrome) and overlooking the inaction of a Republican leadership that could have stopped, and could stop, Trump in his tracks at any time.
In the five decades of my cognizant life, the Republican party has not stood for honorable principles. It has stood for cultivating ignorance and manipulating fear to create a base distracted by hate for false enemies so that it will vote consistently for an authoritarianism that consolidates power in a few. Over these decades the party headed inexorably toward Trump, and when he is gone (if we remain), another authoritarian will follow, whether better-mannered or not. By focusing on Trump, the mere manifestation, we disable ourselves from addressing the disease, and therefore from any hope of a cure.
Authoritarians, yes. Now, where have I seen the groundwork laid for that type of leadership?
https://reason.com/2016/11/14/ive-got-a-pen-and-ive-got-a-phone-obamas
“‘I’ve Got a Pen and I’ve Got a Phone’: Obama’s Executive Overreach Becomes Trump’s Executive Overreach, The dangers of unchecked executive power.”
Salient excerpt:
“We’re not just going to be waiting for legislation,” Obama announced. “I’ve got a pen and I’ve got a phone…and I can use that pen to sign executive orders and take executive actions and administrative actions.”