In his unprecedented call to bar Muslims from entering the U.S., Donald Trump explicitly aligned himself with the fringiest of the anti-Muslim crusaders.
Texas’ big move to bar any Syrian refugees has virtually collapsed in a heap of big talk, weak legal arguments, and bravado. It’s remarkable how quickly the effort basically disintegrated.
Okay folks, it’s time!
Time to send in your nominations for the 9th Annual – yes 9th, Good Lord! – Golden Duke Awards. It’s not the holiday season without the Golden Duke Awards, TPM’s annual homage to the year’s best purveyors of public corruption, outlandish behavior and The Crazy. (The awards are named in honor of Congressman-turned-inmate-turned-ex-con Randy “Duke” Cunningham. See the letter Cunningham sent one-time TPM reporter Ryan Reilly back in 2011. Yes, we’ve been doing this so long, Duke Cunningham isn’t even in jail anymore.)
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Wingnut Nevada legislator will fly to Paris, Syria herself to start shooting refugees before they can seek asylum in America.
Ted Cruz, the GOP’s new great mainly white hope versus Donald Trump, explodes into first place in Iowa.
With everything else going on, I wanted to return to a theme I’ve be writing about in one form or another for almost 15 years. And quite apart from the counter-terrorism and military policies we pursue in fighting terrorism, there are a great number of people, often “policy intellectuals” but not always, for whom the ‘war on terror’ is a channel for their own grandiosity, personal boredom or wish that they lived at a more dramatic historical moment.
I first wrote about this at length about a dozen years ago when I reviewed (“The Orwell Temptation“) Paul Berman’s Terror and Liberalism for The Washington Monthly. This was Berman’s stab at standing himself up as the Orwell of the “War on Terror” and giving the whole effort an intellectual heft, gravity and pedigree. In other words, not just a vast counter-terrorism operation but a war of ideas, something that smart guys write career-making books about. Like Orwell. We’re thankfully many years since this sort of grandiose intellectualism was in vogue on this topic. But we are seeing a rapid return.
I wanted to share with you TPM Reader BF’s take on my weekend post (“The Condundrum“) and the President’s speech. I want to do so not only because I think he makes good points that are worth considering but also because he captures a viewpoint I have heard from a number of people in recent days. In so many words, they agree with President Obama on the policy merits. But they do not believe his rhetoric and his policies are connecting with the public in a visceral way or reassuring them that he takes the threat seriously, appreciates their fears or has a plan on a scale to address the threat.
I’d like to propose that there is another conundrum to consider. That is, in short, whether it may make sense to “over-react” in order to prevent something even worse down the line.
The president’s speech was just what I expected. Serious, reasonable, thoughtful. But will it do anything to cut into support for someone like Trump? Will it actually reassure anyone who is genuinely frightened of Muslims becoming radicalized and launching attacks in their backyard? I don’t think so. Obama’s speech, as sound as it was on policy grounds, won’t do any of the things he hopes in terms of convincing the skeptical public that he is doing enough or all that is possible.
As you likely are too, I’m watching conversations unfold among friends on Facebook and in real life about the terrorist attack in San Bernardino and what the United States should be doing in response. Depending on your point of view, the argument is framed as one between American values and bigotry or political correctness and getting tough on radical Islam. Admittedly, these are extreme formulations, in each case using one side’s caricature of the other. But all of this ignores the central conundrum we face when we think about counter-terrorism, especially ones of the lone wolf variety or even more organized ones like the recent massacre in Paris.
We’re watching a press conference held by two lawyers who represent the extended family of the suspected San Bernardino massacre attackers. That is, to put it mildly, a pretty challenging position to be in. But, I must say, they are doing about as badly at it as you can possibly imagine. As we noted, one of the two, David Chesley, earlier today floated the idea that not only were we not getting the full story about this attack (certainly a possibility and a reasonable question to ask) but that the Sandy Hook massacre may have been a false flag hoax. That claim certainly doesn’t build a lot of confidence.