American Democracy Is in Crisis

September 18, 2018

by Hillary Rodham Clinton

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2018/09/american-democracy-is-in-crisis/570394/

 

 

Our democratic institutions and traditions are under siege. We need to do everything we can to fight back.

 

It’s been nearly two years since Donald Trump won enough Electoral College votes to become president of the United States. On the day after, in my concession speech, I said, “We owe him an open mind and the chance to lead.” I hoped that my fears for our future were overblown.

They were not.

In the roughly 21 months since he took the oath of office, Trump has sunk far below the already-low bar he set for himself in his ugly campaign. Exhibit A is the unspeakable cruelty that his administration has inflicted on undocumented families arriving at the border, including separating children, some as young as eight months, from their parents. According to The New York Times, the administration continues to detain 12,800 children right now, despite all the outcry and court orders. Then there’s the president’s monstrous neglect of Puerto Rico: After Hurricane Maria ravaged the island, his administration barely responded. Some 3,000 Americans died. Now Trump flatly denies those deaths were caused by the storm. And, of course, despite the recent indictments of several Russian military intelligence officers for hacking the Democratic National Committee in 2016, he continues to dismiss a serious attack on our country by a foreign power as a “hoax.”

Trump and his cronies do so many despicable things that it can be hard to keep track. I think that may be the point—to confound us, so it’s harder to keep our eye on the ball. The ball, of course, is protecting American democracy. As citizens, that’s our most important charge. And right now, our democracy is in crisis.

I don’t use the word crisis lightly. There are no tanks in the streets. The administration’s malevolence may be constrained on some fronts—for now—by its incompetence. But our democratic institutions and traditions are under siege. We need to do everything we can to fight back. There’s not a moment to lose.

As I see it, there are five main fronts of this assault on our democracy.

First, there is Donald Trump’s assault on the rule of law.

John Adams wrote that the definition of a republic is “a government of laws, and not of men.” That ideal is enshrined in two powerful principles: No one, not even the most powerful leader, is above the law, and all citizens are due equal protection under the law. Those are big ideas, radical when America was formed and still vital today. The Founders knew that a leader who refuses to be subject to the law or who politicizes or obstructs its enforcement is a tyrant, plain and simple.

That sounds a lot like Donald Trump. He told The New York Times, “I have an absolute right to do what I want to with the Justice Department.” Back in January, according to that paper, Trump’s lawyers sent Special Counsel Robert Mueller a letter making that same argument: If Trump interferes with an investigation, it’s not obstruction of justice, because he’s the president.

The Times also reported that Trump told White House aides that he had expected Attorney General Jeff Sessions to protect him, regardless of the law. According to Jim Comey, the president demanded that the FBI director pledge his loyalty not to the Constitution but to Trump himself. And he has urged the Justice Department to go after his political opponents, violating an American tradition reaching back to Thomas Jefferson. After the bitterly contentious election of 1800, Jefferson could have railed against “Crooked John Adams” and tried to jail his supporters. Instead, Jefferson used his inaugural address to declare: “We are all republicans, we are all federalists.”

Second, the legitimacy of our elections is in doubt.

There’s Russia’s ongoing interference and Trump’s complete unwillingness to stop it or protect us. There’s voter suppression, as Republicans put onerous—and I believe illegal—requirements in place to stop people from voting. There’s gerrymandering, with partisans—these days, principally Republicans—drawing the lines for voting districts to ensure that their party nearly always wins. All of this carries us further away from the sacred principle of “one person, one vote.”

Third, the president is waging war on truth and reason.

Earlier this month, Trump made 125 false or misleading statements in 120 minutes, according to The Washington Post—a personal record for him (at least since becoming president). To date, according to the paper’s fact-checkers, Trump has made 5,000 false or misleading claims while in office and recently has averaged 32 a day.

Trump is also going after journalists with even greater fervor and intent than before. No one likes to be torn apart in the press—I certainly don’t—but when you’re a public official, it comes with the job. You get criticized a lot. You learn to take it. You push back and make your case, but you don’t fight back by abusing your power or denigrating the entire enterprise of a free press. Trump doesn’t hide his intent one bit. Lesley Stahl, the 60 Minutes reporter, asked Trump during his campaign why he’s always attacking the press. He said, “I do it to discredit you all and demean you all, so when you write negative stories about me, no one will believe you.”

When we can’t trust what we hear from our leaders, experts, and news sources, we lose our ability to hold people to account, solve problems, comprehend threats, judge progress, and communicate effectively with one another—all of which are crucial to a functioning democracy.

Fourth, there’s Trump’s breathtaking corruption.

Considering that this administration promised to “drain the swamp,” it’s amazing how blithely the president and his Cabinet have piled up conflicts of interest, abuses of power, and blatant violations of ethics rules. Trump is the first president in 40 years to refuse to release his tax returns. He has refused to put his assets in a blind trust or divest himself of his properties and businesses, as previous presidents did. This has created unprecedented conflicts of interest, as industry lobbyists, foreign governments, and Republican organizations do business with Trump’s companies or hold lucrative events at his hotels, golf courses, and other properties. They are putting money directly into his pocket. He’s profiting off the business of the presidency.

Trump makes no pretense of prioritizing the public good above his own personal or political interests. He doesn’t seem to understand that public servants are supposed to serve the public, not the other way around. The Founders believed that for a republic to succeed, wise laws, robust institutions, and a brilliant Constitution would not be enough. Civic, republican virtue was the secret sauce that would make the whole system work. Donald Trump may well be the least lowercase-R republican president we’ve ever had.

Fifth, Trump undermines the national unity that makes democracy possible.

Democracies are rowdy by nature. We debate freely and disagree forcefully. It’s part of what distinguishes us from authoritarian societies, where dissent is forbidden. But we’re held together by deep “bonds of affection,” as Abraham Lincoln said, and by the shared belief that out of our fractious melting pot comes a unified whole that’s stronger than the sum of our parts.

At least, that’s how it’s supposed to work. Trump doesn’t even try to pretend he’s a president for all Americans. It’s hard to ignore the racial subtext of virtually everything Trump says. Often, it’s not even subtext. When he says that Haitian and African immigrants are from “shithole countries,” that’s impossible to misunderstand. Same when he says that an American judge can’t be trusted because of his Mexican heritage. None of this is a mark of authenticity or a refreshing break from political correctness. Hate speech isn’t “telling it like it is.” It’s just hate.

I don’t know whether Trump ignores the suffering of Puerto Ricans because he doesn’t know that they’re American citizens, because he assumes people with brown skin and Latino last names probably aren’t Trump fans, or because he just doesn’t have the capacity for empathy. And I don’t know whether he makes a similar judgment when he lashes out at NFL players protesting against systemic racism or when he fails to condemn hate crimes against Muslims. I do know he’s quick to defend or praise those whom he thinks are his people—like how he bent over backwards to defend the “very fine people” among the white nationalists in Charlottesville, Virginia. The message he sends by his lack of concern and respect for some Americans is unmistakable. He is saying that some of us don’t belong, that all people are not created equal, and that some are not endowed by their Creator with the same inalienable rights as others.

And it’s not just what he says. From day one, his administration has undermined civil rights that previous generations fought to secure and defend. There have been high-profile edicts like the Muslim travel ban and the barring of transgender Americans from serving in the military. Other actions have been quieter but just as insidious. The Department of Justice has largely abandoned oversight of police departments that have a history of civil-rights abuses and has switched sides in voting-rights cases. Nearly every federal agency has scaled back enforcement of civil-rights protections. All the while, Immigration and Customs Enforcement is running wild across the country. Federal agents are confronting citizens just for speaking Spanish, dragging parents away from children.

How did we get here?

Trump may be uniquely hostile to the rule of law, ethics in public service, and a free press. But the assault on our democracy didn’t start with his election. He is as much a symptom as a cause of what ails us. Think of our body politic like a human body, with our constitutional checks and balances, democratic norms and institutions, and well-informed citizenry all acting as an immune system protecting us from the disease of authoritarianism. Over many years, our defenses were worn down by a small group of right-wing billionaires—people like the Mercer family and Charles and David Koch—who spent a lot of time and money building an alternative reality where science is denied, lies masquerade as truth, and paranoia flourishes. By undermining the common factual framework that allows a free people to deliberate together and make the important decisions of self-governance, they opened the way for the infection of Russian propaganda and Trumpian lies to take hold. They’ve used their money and influence to capture our political system, impose a right-wing agenda, and disenfranchise millions of Americans.

I don’t agree with critics who say that capitalism is fundamentally incompatible with democracy—but unregulated, predatory capitalism certainly is. Massive economic inequality and corporate monopoly power are antidemocratic and corrode the American way of life.

Meanwhile, hyperpolarization now extends beyond politics into nearly every part of our culture. One recent study found that in 1960, just 5 percent of Republicans and 4 percent of Democrats said they’d be displeased if their son or daughter married a member of the other political party. In 2010, 49 percent of Republicans and 33 percent of Democrats said they’d be upset by that. The strength of partisan identity—and animosity—helps explain why so many Republicans continue to back a president so manifestly unfit for office and antithetical to many of the values and policies they once held dear. When you start seeing politics as a zero-sum game and view members of the other party as traitors, criminals, or otherwise illegitimate, then the normal give-and-take of politics turns into a blood sport.

There is a tendency, when talking about these things, to wring our hands about “both sides.” But the truth is that this is not a symmetrical problem. We should be clear about this: The increasing radicalism and irresponsibility of the Republican Party, including decades of demeaning government, demonizing Democrats, and debasing norms, is what gave us Donald Trump. Whether it was abusing the filibuster and stealing a Supreme Court seat, gerrymandering congressional districts to disenfranchise African Americans, or muzzling government climate scientists, Republicans were undermining American democracy long before Trump made it to the Oval Office.

Now we must do all we can to save our democracy and heal our body politic.

First, we’ve got to mobilize massive turnout in the 2018 midterms. There are fantastic candidates running all over the country, making their compelling cases every day about how they’ll raise wages, bring down health-care costs, and fight for justice. If they win, they’ll do great things for America. And we could finally see some congressional oversight of the White House.

When the dust settles, we have to do some serious housecleaning. After Watergate, Congress passed a whole slew of reforms in response to Richard Nixon’s abuses of power. After Trump, we’re going to need a similar process. For example, Trump’s corruption should teach us that all future candidates for president and presidents themselves should be required by law to release their tax returns. They also should not be exempt from ethics requirements and conflict-of-interest rules.

 

A main area of reform should be improving and protecting our elections. The Senate Intelligence Committee has made a series of bipartisan recommendations for how to better secure America’s voting systems, including paper ballot backups, vote audits, and better coordination among federal, state, and local authorities on cybersecurity. That’s a good start. Congress should also repair the damage the Supreme Court did to the Voting Rights Act by restoring the full protections that voters need and deserve, as well as the voting rights of Americans who have served time in prison and paid their debt to society. We need early voting and voting by mail in every state in America, and automatic, universal voter registration so every citizen who is eligible to vote is able to vote. We need to overturn Citizens United and get secret money out of our politics. And you won’t be surprised to hear that I passionately believe it’s time to abolish the Electoral College.

But even the best rules and regulations won’t protect us if we don’t find a way to restitch our fraying social fabric and rekindle our civic spirit. There are concrete steps that would help, like greatly expanding national-service programs and bringing back civics education in our schools. We also need systemic economic reforms that reduce inequality and the unchecked power of corporations and give a strong voice to working families. And ultimately, healing our country will come down to each of us, as citizens and individuals, doing the work—trying to reach across divides of race, class, and politics and see through the eyes of people very different from ourselves. When we think about politics and judge our leaders, we can’t just ask, “Am I better off than I was four years ago?” We have to ask, “Are we better off? Are we as a country better, stronger, and fairer?” Democracy works only when we accept that we’re all in this together.

In 1787, after the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia, Benjamin Franklin was asked by a woman on the street outside Independence Hall, “Well, Doctor, what have we got, a republic or a monarchy?” Franklin answered, “A republic, if you can keep it.” That response has been on my mind a lot lately. The contingency of it. How fragile our experiment in self-government is. And, when viewed against the sweep of human history, how fleeting. Democracy may be our birthright as Americans, but it’s not something we can ever take for granted. Every generation has to fight for it, has to push us closer to that more perfect union. That time has come again.

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This essay was adapted from the afterword of the paperback edition of What Happened, which will be published on September 18.

Real Merdeka is when the Malay is freed from Mental Bondage

September 3, 2018

by  Mariam Mokhtar

http://www.malaysiakini.com

The Malay:In Timidity, he only survives, In Malay Leaders, he trusts  and In Poverty and Ignorance, he stays, and In Desperation, he runs amuck.

COMMENT | We may have achieved our second independence, at GE-14, but we can only claim to have attained true Merdeka when the Malay mind is liberated from its mental cage. The Malay sees, but fails to observe. He hears, but does not listen.

It was hard work trying to persuade the rakyat to kick UMNO-Baru from power, but we succeeded in removing the mental block that made many think change was impossible; but many of us have realised that it is even harder to convince some people to think and act as Malaysians.

After GE-14, I have had many conversations with Malays, from all walks of life; the conversations have been most revealing and confirmed many of my suspicions. Contrary to popular belief, it is not the uneducated, or the rural folk who pose the greatest danger to our community.

The well-heeled, widely-traveled urbanites, and the so-called enlightened middle-class Malays, who have easy access to the internet, do not seem to be willing to empower themselves, or to seek the truth and improve themselves. Why is this?

One young Malay law student in a local university said, “The Malay is comfortable, so why should he work hard, or change his behaviour? Remove his sources of comfort, and he might be forced to act. He will be reluctant at first, but in the end, he may realise what is good for him.”

A Malay mother said that it all boils down to choice. “The Malay has made a choice, even if you disagree with his decision. You may think that he has done nothing to improve his sorry plight, but that is still his choice. You may not think he has done enough, or done anything, but as far as he is concerned, he has already made his choice. You may think that he is in blissful ignorance, but again, that was his choice.”

A young single mother said that she was too busy trying to provide for her family to care. “In my case, I have no choice. The syariah court has chosen not to enforce the law, so I and my three young children are forced to suffer.

“My ex-husband does not pay maintenance for his children. He is comfortable, but we are not. He has enough money to take on a new bride, and when I complain to the syariah court, I am told that his choice to remarry is provided for in Islam.”

 

One former teacher, who is from Penang, described how some Malay parents in her circle did not value education and allowed their teenage children to stop schooling.

Follow his injunction and Malaysia will be destroyed, Mr. Prime Minister of Malaysia.

“It starts off with the child playing truant. After a certain number of days absence, the child’s teacher will visit the parents, and try to persuade them to send their child to school.

“In most cases, the parents will say that they uphold their child’s decision to leave school, because it is a waste of money and time. They may also claim there will always be a place in the warung (hawker stall), for the child to make drinks or take orders, and help in the family business.

“If we teach the parents the value of education, we see some positive results. More importantly, we will have helped the child to choose a better future,” the former teacher said.

Decades of brainwashing

Decades of brainwashing have created a powerless, and helpless, Malay. He is a victim of his circumstance. He finds it difficult to talk to other races. He finds it hard to forgive. He thinks it is impossible to love those who are not of his race, or religion or creed.

At times he cannot differentiate between right and wrong. He is afraid to offer an opinion. He does not think he should apologise. His culture tells him that he cannot question his elders, or others, and so he bottles things up, until he can no longer stand it – and he then runs amuck.

He spends his life keeping score, and covets the few privileges accorded to the non-Malays and then claims that these are not fair, because he has been deprived of his rights.

Our collective silence has created a nation in which the Malays and non-Malays have become strangers. Many Malays have been so molly-coddled that they have become de-sensitised to the needs of others. They are easily offended. Many non-Malays are fearful of being branded “interfering”, and keep quiet.

It is not all doom and gloom. There is hope. We need to show the enslaved Malay – not tell him, but show him with our deeds and actions, how he can be set free from his mental shackles.

One way is by talking to him. Next time, you attend a dialogue or forum, drag a Malay to the event. Engage him in conversation. Initiate simple discussions.

If you say you have no Malay friends, then find one. Anyone who claims he has no Malay friend is contributing to the problem.

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MARIAM MOKHTAR is a defender of the truth, the admiral-general of the Green Bean Army and president of the Perak Liberation Organisation (PLO). Blog, Twitter.

The views expressed here are those of the author/contributor and do not necessarily represent the views of Malaysiakini.

When we will ever learn to do things on our own,nothing is gained from giveaways

August 23, 2018

When we will ever learn to do things on our own, not depend on others for help. Face it, nothing is gained from giveaways

By T K Chua

http://www.freemalaysiatoday.com.my

“If the new government is to be any better than the old, we must find reasons and justifications before making decisions, not make decisions first and then find reasons and justifications to support them.”–T K Chua

As a nation, why do we always expect that others will help us?

We want others to give us technology without quid pro quo. We want others to give us favourable terms in trade and investment. We want others to concede and suffer with us because of our follies. We want others to teach us how to govern and manage our country.

This man is the very antithesis of the rugged individual. He ended up selling Malaysia on the cheap.

Unless we are a war-torn nation in utter poverty and destitution, I don’t think we’re going to get any meaningful help from others. Let’s ditch the idea that a foreign nation would help another be strong and competitive. To compete and prosper, each nation must do it on its own.

We can see the success and failures of many nations around us. We can’t complain that others are not teaching us. They can’t and won’t. We have to learn from them on our own.

Learning from other countries means doing what they do, not just talking. We can’t keep condemning the subsidy mentality and “free lunches” but keep doing the same as we have for the last half a century.

A Miracle is Discipline, Innovation, Entrepreneurship

We can’t keep saying meritocracy is good but keep doing the opposite.We can’t keep saying it’s good to be hardworking, conscientious and thrifty but reward incompetency and irresponsibility with easy money.

We can’t keep saying corruption and cronyism is bad if our fight against these comes only in dribs and drabs depending on the “convenience” of the day.

Malaysia has always had great ambitions – the “Malaysia Boleh” attitude, so to speak. We started Proton around the same time that Korea embarked on its auto industry. We started the multimedia super corridor much earlier than many others. We have InventQjaya, Biovalley and numerous other development corridors littering the whole country.

Proton Saga–Malaysia’s Success Story. And so another of the same in Pro-3

But what did we get in the end? Sadly, we are now talking about starting another national car project. We are talking about learning basic things like online marketing from Alibaba. We are talking about revolutionising agriculture when at one time we were the world champion in rubber and palm oil research.

We should not carry our “handicapped” mentality to the international level. When we trade, invest and conduct business dealings with others, we mustn’t expect favours or help from others. We should extract what we can from others and defend and protect our interests based on our faculties and abilities.

At the international level, no one is going to feel sorry for us and our follies. We must have people with faculties holding strategic and important positions in the country.

If the new government is to be any better than the old, we must find reasons and justifications before making decisions, not make decisions first and then find reasons and justifications to support them.

TK Chua is an FMT reader.

The views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of FMT.

 

Think Critically and Speak the Truth to Power with Integrity

June 23, 2018

by Mariam Mokhtar

http://www.malaysiakini.com

We need to iron out our differences, educate everyone and build our children’s future. We may not see the results of our work, but they will. That is why we need to continue to talk with one another, even on sensitive issues, and learn from each other’s stories.–Mariam Mohktar

COMMENT | In the past, we did not listen critically and analyse what our politicians were up to. We allowed things to slide and we complained only when things were almost at the point of no return.

 

We have passed the 100 days of Pakatan Harapan rule. If we become complacent, the chances are that they will end up being UMNO Baru 2.0.

Here are ten reasons why you, as the most powerful person in Malaysia, are resistant to change. We need to get rid of these bad habits, to exercise our power and be instruments for change.

Gossip

Who doesn’t love a bit of gossip? Some of us thrive on it. We are aware that denigrating someone who is not present is a disgusting habit. We also know that the person with whom we are gossiping will within a few minutes gossip about us, and yet we persist.

Drama

TV3 has made use of our ability to be absorbed by mindless, mind-crippling drama. When we want to engage others in serious conversation about important issues, people look away and switch off.

We do nothing when things go wrong instead of speaking up and complaining to the relevant people about poor customer service, or something which is underperforming, because we have more important things to do, or cannot be bothered.How can anyone even begin to help a person who will not help himself?

Being judgemental

Imagine an injustice being perpetrated against a member of the LGBT community. We speak out, but some people criticise those who are trying to help. When will we start to listen without being judgemental?

 Negativity

The Crooked Defender of Islam–Where is this guy today? We punished him by removing from power in GE-14. We can do it again via People Power.

When there are problems in the community, like the rights of non-Muslims being trampled upon, we do nothing and instead of taking action, we say, “What can I do? The Syariah Court is all-powerful, and I do not have the remotest chance of winning.” People give up too easily because they think they cannot do anything; but have they tried?

Complaining/Bitching

Instead of complaining to the relevant people about incompetence, we do nothing and give up at the slightest hint of resistance.

Complaining followed by inaction seems to be a national pastime, but it will not resolve any issue. We complain about everything. The weather. The economy. The education. The roads.

Some people in UMNO Baru have made complaining an art form. The economy is bad. Blame it on DAP. The currency is falling. Blame it on the Chinese. Food prices have risen. It is the Singaporeans’ fault. The rain is non-stop. Blame it on the Christians who stopped Malaysia from adopting hudud laws.

Excuses

You have been treated badly but refuse to complain about this abuse of power, your excuse for doing nothing is that you know nobody and you will lose. So, you justify inaction with a multitude of reasons.

Exaggeration

UMNO Baru and PAS politicians say that only their party can defend the Malays and protect Islam. Do we confront the politicians and ask, “Defend the Malays from what? Protect Islam from whom?”

Many Malay Muslims in UMNO, PAS, and Perlis Chief Mufti, among others, agree with this bigot from India.

Malays enjoy positions of power in the civil service, armed forces, GLCs, and many other institutions. Islam is the official religion of Malaysia. The Malays comprise 60 percent of the population. Why should they exaggerate their fear of being threatened?

Dogmatism

This is like being bombarded with “facts” and someone else’s opinions, or fake news. Instead of checking to see if these stories are true, we share this information with others and claim that it is the gospel truth. It makes listening very difficult.

These ten deadly sins hamper our ability for progress, but the good news is that one way forward for Malaysians, is to ‘MATI.’

‘MATI’

‘M’ is for the Malaysian identity and Malaysian values. It could also stand for materialism.”As the nation grew and many became wealthier, we forgot our values, we became greedy, ignored the poor and the needy, and pursued material wealth.

At the same time, most of us identified ourselves or allowed others to portray us as Malay, Chinese, Indian, Orang Asli, Sarawakian or Sabahan. In ‘new Malaysia’, we need to forge a new Malaysian identity.

‘A’ is for alarm and accountability, or it could stand for apathy. For decades, we were consumed with apathy. When we saw that our leaders were not serving the rakyat but themselves, we finally saw the importance of leaders who were accountable for their actions.

‘A’ could also be for action. And in the 14th general election we voted for change. ‘T’ is for thought or thinking, and for tolerance, or rather the lack thereof.

In ‘new Malaysia’, we should start to think about our actions. When Najib said that only UMNO Baru can save Islam, we were too lazy to listen critically and tell him off for talking bullshit.

‘I’ is for integrity and intellect, or thinking things through. I is also for ‘I’.

What is personal and professional integrity? Why are there lapses in the judiciary, the police force, the education system and in the public service? Why did we let things slide?

Rebuilding Malaysia is not about you, or me, Dr Mahathir Mohamad, Pakatan Harapan, or even UMNO. It is also about the future of our children and their children.

We are investing in their future and hope to create a country which they will learn to love, as we love our country.

The success of Malaysia is tied to the success of everyone. Malay. Chinese. Indian. Orang Asli. Iban and Kadazan.

We need to iron out our differences, educate everyone and build our children’s future. We may not see the results of our work, but they will.

That is why we need to continue to talk with one another, even on sensitive issues, and learn from each other’s stories.

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MARIAM MOKHTAR is a defender of the truth, the admiral-general of the Green Bean Army and president of the Perak Liberation Organisation (PLO). Blog, Twitter.

The views expressed here are those of the author/contributor and do not necessarily represent the views of Malaysiakini.

The New Yorker: President Trump Implicated in a Criminal Conspiracy with Cohen’s Guilty Plea

August 23, 2018

by Adam Davidson

https://www.newyorker.com

The question can no longer be whether President Donald Trump and those closest to him, including his longtime adviser, fixer, and lawyer Michael Cohen, broke the law. Photograph by Mark Kauzlarich / Bloomberg / Getty

The President of the United States is now, formally, implicated in a criminal conspiracy to mislead the American public in order to influence an election. Were he not President, Donald Trump himself would almost certainly be facing charges. This news came in what must be considered the most damaging single hour of a deeply troubled Presidency (and flawed President).

On Tuesday morning, it was still possible to believe that Trump’s former campaign chair Paul Manafort might be exonerated and that his longtime attorney Michael Cohen would only face charges for crimes stemming from his taxicab business. Such events would have supported Trump’s effort to portray the Mueller investigation as a “witch hunt” perpetrated by overzealous partisan prosecutors. By late afternoon, though, Cohen, the President’s longtime adviser, fixer, and, until recently, personal attorney, told a judge that Trump explicitly instructed him to break campaign-finance laws by paying two women not to publicly disclose the affairs they had with Trump. At precisely the same moment, Manafort was learning of his fate: guilty on eight counts of bank and tax fraud, with the jury undecided on ten other counts.

The question can no longer be whether the President and those closest to him broke the law. That is settled. Three of the people closest to Trump as he ran for and won the Presidency have now pleaded guilty or have been convicted of significant federal crimes: Michael Cohen, Paul Manafort, and Michael Flynn. The question now becomes far narrower and, for Trump, more troubling: What is the political impact of a President’s criminal liability being established in a federal court? How will Congress respond? And if Congress does not act, how will voters respond in the midterm elections?

America’s Notorious Trio–You are known for the company you keep, so shall it be with President Donald J. Trump

The President spoke to reporters soon after the Manafort and Cohen news. He said that the Manafort guilty verdicts made him feel “very badly,” but they “had nothing to do with Russian collusion.” He then walked away, as reporters shouted questions about the Cohen guilty plea. While his comment was, technically, correct—neither man’s guilt was for crimes involving the Trump campaign colluding with Russia—the President would be unwise to consider the outcome of either case beneficial. Manafort was convicted of crimes he committed while being paid tens of millions for serving the interests of oligarchs and politicians closely allied with the Kremlin. The trial made clear that Manafort was in tremendous financial distress, in hock to some of those same oligarchs, just when he became Trump’s unpaid campaign chair. The trial contained a central but unasked question: What did this desperate man do when he needed money and had only one valuable asset—access to Trump and his campaign? Manafort, who faces decades in prison, is under renewed pressure to coöperate with Mueller’s investigation and to answer that question.

It is the Cohen plea that should be the most alarming, though, to the President, precisely because it has nothing to do with Russia. Instead, it demonstrates a comfort with law-breaking by people at the core of the Trump Organization. Cohen’s guilty plea is part of a long trail of evidence. Last month, a tape recording of Trump speaking with Cohen showed that the President had familiarity and comfort with the idea of using shell companies to disguise payoffs that, we now know, were illegal. This echoed evidence from depositions in a lawsuit filed by the New York Attorney General against the Trump Foundation that suggested deceptive—and almost certainly illegal—practices were standard at the Trump Organization. Cohen admitted in open court that Trump directed him to violate campaign-finance laws. Later in the day, Cohen’s attorney, Lanny Davis, issued a public statement that included these lines: “Today [Cohen] stood up and testified under oath that Donald Trump directed him to commit a crime by making payments to two women for the principal purpose of influencing an election. If those payments were a crime for Michael Cohen, then why wouldn’t they be a crime for Donald Trump?”

The day had a feeling, on one level, of history, of recognizing that one is living through moments that will become central parts of the Trump Presidency. At the same time, the day felt small and shabby, as we learned more details about the crude crimes of those who surround the President. Manafort and Cohen did not commit clever, subtle crimes; they blatantly and crudely lied. They lied to banks to get money; they lied to the I.R.S. In Manafort’s case, he instructed countless support people to lie on his behalf. In Cohen’s case, it was Trump demanding that a subordinate do the lying. The crimes were not unraveled by brilliant detective work. All it took was law-enforcement officials looking.

It is conventional wisdom these days that views of Trump are fixed: those who hate him can’t hate him more and those who love him can’t be budged, and, all the while, Republicans in Congress will do nothing, no matter what he says or does. There is another way of understanding the impact of Tuesday’s news. Trump was widely viewed to be morally challenged, a man comfortable with pushing the limits of legality, before he was elected. Perhaps he did business with some bad characters, maybe he engaged in some light civil fraud. But that fact had been priced into the election and, anyway, we don’t impeach Presidents for things they did before they were in office. The possibility of the Trump campaign colluding with Russia was a separate matter that was worth investigating because it had to do with his election. Keeping these two matters separate—Trump’s private business and possible campaign collusion—has been an obsession of Trump’s, for obvious reasons. His business cannot withstand this level of scrutiny.

The Cohen plea and the Manafort indictment establish that this separation is entirely artificial. Trump did not isolate his private business from his public run for office. He behaved the same, with the same sorts of people, using the same techniques to hide his actions. It is impossible, after Tuesday, to imagine that a responsible congressional investigation wouldn’t thoroughly examine every deal with which Cohen was involved and wouldn’t even more aggressively seek to understand Manafort’s links to Russian figures. These two men are now convicted financial fraudsters, each found guilty of precisely eight counts of various financial crimes, though nobody, glancing at their record, would imagine this is an exhaustive list. Tuesday was not the end of an examination of their record; it is much more like a beginning. Manafort has another trial ahead, as well as a possible retrial for the ten counts for which the jury could not reach a consensus; Cohen is all but screaming that he has more to share.

What will this add up to? Well, at first, nothing. The Republican leadership has, indeed, made clear that its instinctive response to any Trump outrage is silence. And the increasingly desperate Trump apologias have already been tried: this has nothing to do with Russia, nothing to do with Trump, it’s a witch hunt, the President can’t be indicted.

It would take some remarkable news to shake Republicans from their moral slumber; while Tuesday’s events should be more than enough to do so, it is already clear that they aren’t. However, it could shake that small portion of the electorate that voted for Trump but never embraced him fully; even a slight downturn in Republican turnout could well mean a victory for Democrats in the midterms, which, in turn, will guarantee a far more aggressive—and far more public—investigation into the activities of Trump and his shadier cronies. Tuesday’s news also helps build an increasingly compelling case for impeachment and removal from office. It is now clear that the President engaged in at least one conspiracy to hide the truth from the public in an election he won with a tiny margin in three states.

We will know far more about Trump, his business, and his campaign in the months to come. The country will be moving down two tracks simultaneously. There is one track of investigation and prosecution in which more of the people close to Trump fall or coöperate and the man himself appears increasingly vulnerable and desperate.

There is the other track, though, in which he remains President. He will likely successfully transform the Supreme Court and imperil the environment, immigrants, consumers of financial products, and others. Those who carefully study Trump and those around him know where this story likely ends—in humiliation and collapse—but we can’t underestimate his embrace of mendacity and deflection. Shortly after the fateful hour, Trump flew to West Virginia for a rally with some of his strongest supporters. The crowd, referring to Hillary Clinton, chanted, “Lock her up.”

 

• Adam Davidson is a staff writer at The New Yorker.

Malaysia: Time for radical thinkers in our varsities

August 18, 2018

Opinion

Dr.Azly Rahman

http://www.malaysiakini.com

 

“Knowledge which is acquired under compulsion obtains no hold on the mind.”

– Plato

 COMMENT | I once taught Thinking Skills, Foreign Policy, and Ethics. My approach towards teaching thinking was about increasing the capacity of the mind to explore newer perspectives, make critical judgement, and envision a scenario of a society of peace and justice, based on the principles of multiculturalism.

Maybe it is Biro Tata Negara (?)

I value such an experience and have grown with it. We need to create and nurture a culture of thinking in a world that is increasingly hostile to radical and ethical ideas.

What could be even more important now as we enter a new phase of Malaysian intellectual evolution, at a time when we hear stories of vice-chancellors are enemies of the people’s mind and are being removed?

In my teaching, the approach combines universal ethical values, creativity, critical thinking and problem solving, and futuristics. I think there is value in such an approach.

If we can radicalise student thinking, teach them to stand for their rights, give them choices in thinking, have them articulate great ideas in their own words, we can make them better graduates.

We can train them to become good ethical revolutioners who will remove oppressive and corrupt leaders and redesign a society that will continue to rejuvenate itself. We can teach them to continue to demand the resignation of corrupt leaders – or even have an entire cabinet resign.

We can also teach them to punish polluters, especially corporations that dump poison into our rivers or release deadly smoke into our environment. We can create socially-conscious futurists out of our children.

 

Futurists conjure scenarios of societies they want to have – build from the ruins of one that has crumbled out of the need for greed and economic speed.

Radical futurists create newer social order reconstructed out of the ruins of the ones ruled by leaders addicted to raw power; power employed to rape the environment and humanity these leaders are entrusted to “govern”.

But first, we must have the teachers and lecturers prepare for all these as well. We have many bright, young, academics eager to explore newer perspectives on politics, economic, and cultural aspects of our world. Can they do these in a cognitively-controlled environment? How do we help them?

Critical thinking is not about ‘criticising’

It seems that there is a deeper meaning to “critical thinking” than just “criticising” something or anything.

It is a process of the personal evolution of metacognition (beyond cognition itself); to understand one’s own thinking process and to govern it with the tools one acquires through interacting with the environment and processing information that will become meaningful through the complex neural connections made in the brain.

There has to be a good repertoire of knowledge in one’s consciousness in order to understand the “dialectical and dialogical” aspect of thinking.

Our education system must encourage this development through the love of reading – the exploration of good and great books taught by teachers who love books and have the passion to challenge students to think and think.

Thinking must be encouraged; students must live their daily lives in classrooms without fear of being punished or ridiculed for thinking critically and creatively.

Our classrooms must encourage dialogues and debates even if the subject matter is sensitive, difficult, painful, and intellectually challenging. We must have good teachers to groom students to become brave thinkers and communicators of ideas.

These professors themselves must embody the virtues of radical thinking and become beacons of hope for newer thinkers, much like what Socrates was to the Athenians in fifth century BC.

Thinkers of the Axial Age–Socrates, Plato and Aristotle

Radical thinkers must be celebrated and honoured, not imprisoned and shamed. Only a shameless government doing shameful acts would jail good, ethical, socially-conscious thinkers who speak truth to power.

If in our universities, thinking means thinking about what the state dictates and students are being punished for speaking out on issues that concern their role as future inheritors of their society, we have a got a national problem. How do we make our universities even free from the dictates of the new regime?

Higher order thinking

The essence of higher order thinking skills is the “Why” question and the “What if” and “Why not this”. These questions help our students to critique dominant paradigm and allow them to conjure newer perspectives, much like what radical social futurists would do.

What is the culture of critical thinking in our Malaysian classrooms these days? Is it enabling the culture of thinking or retarding it?

The Defender of the Trumpian Age–Where was this Italian American educated?

Critical thinking is also not about running in the streets screaming for this or that change; it is a process of intellectual embodiment and the democratisation of one’s personal understanding of the intellectual basis of change.

For too long we have seen our students doing that, yet the nature of protests could be traced to what politicians wanted or use the students to advance this or that politician’s desire for total power.

Thinking is a process subjective and individually unique in nature, first and foremost. The great American feminist and anarchist Emma Goldman once said, “If I cannot dance to it, it is not my revolution.” Such is a reminder of thinking as an existential act.

Today it must not be about blindly supporting the dying regime of Najibism nor the re-surfacing of Mahathirism. It has to be an act of deconstructing both and unshackling the prison-house of one’s thinking.

It is a process of constructing a “republic of virtue” in which each citizen is a philosopher-ruler in her own right. Each individual, perhaps like the notion held by the Buddhist, is “aware” of the surrounding, mastering her own environment, aware of cause and effects of beingness, to identify oppressive signs and symbols that govern her and others, to destroy structures that are shacking, to essentially be able to look at her life like a crystal ball.

Is this idea of creating world-wise radical intellectual and movers and shakers possible in our Malaysian educational system?

This is the greatest challenge of this century, for our nation especially. If we wish to remove, the University and University Colleges Act (UUCA) which has in it the ‘Pledge of loyalty to the state’, and remove all acts that are anathema to a healthy thinking culture, we must rethink how we think.

We owe a good education system to our children – a system that will encourage children to systematically revolt against systems, especially against those which still want to divide and rule based on race and religion. Especially against yet another regime that might also use the tools of colonialism and apartheid, even against its own people, retarding the grown of a progressive generation.

We are not yet free. We might still be moving from one totalitarian system to another. Hegemony in transition, as the Italian thinker Antonio Gramsci would say.

I think, therefore I exist (cogito, ergo, sum) Rene Descartes said. I’d say we think, therefore we revolt – we must work towards that.

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Dr. AZLY RAHMAN is an educator, academic, international columnist, and author of seven books. He grew up in Johor Bahru, and holds a Columbia University doctorate in international education development and Master’s degrees in five areas: education, international affairs, peace studies communication, and creative writing.

The views expressed here are those of the author/contributor and do not necessarily represent the views of Malaysiakini.