Trump Is Making 'Soak The Rich' Inevitable

Cat Warren: I was disgusted reading about the correspondents’ dinner -- and the coverage was typically predictable, with the NY Times pulling its punches and providing a kind of sanitized version of what Trump actually said. I feel as though the mainstream media embarrassed themselves. Kaitlin Collins, whom I respect, shook his hand after his transphobic, mysoginistic attack on her. I feel as though the mainstream media continues to normalize what is egregious/outrageous behavior on his part. Staying silent…appeared to be the extent of the press’s disapproval of his attacks. Would love your thoughts.

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No disagreement, really.

The truth is, it wouldn’t have been much better if Trump were a “normal” president. The White House Correspondents’ Dinner has been professionally indefensible on the reporter-source dimension, and basically corrupt on the reporter-sponsor and reporter-guest dimensions for decades. Arguably since the tradition began, but certainly since it became this networking festival of celebrities, politicians, and lobbyists 40ish years ago.

The correspondents’ association papered these defects over by emphasizing the fact that the proceeds fund journalism scholarships, and the idea that subjecting the president to a roasting sends a powerful signal to the world about the importance of press freedom. These are thin fig leaves.

Washington journalists are well connected enough to raise scholarship money without hosting a big party for the president and political operatives and lobbyists and advertisers. They spread the good word about speech and press freedom by challenging the president in public, to advance the public interest, not by teasing him at a fancy dinner.

And that was all true before it meant feting a man who’s abusing his powers, official and unofficial, to destroy the vocation of journalism.

So where it was once indefensible and corrupt, it’s now indefensible, corrupt, debasing, and an affront to the free people in this country resisting authoritarianism. Few will pick up on the subtle fact that the dinner honored the Wall Street Journal’s reporting on Trump and Jeffrey Epstein, as Trump sat captive on the dais. Few will understand the professionalism of those journalists, in treating Trump politely, as providing a symbolic contrast to his corrosive behavior. But many will draw the inference: If this man was really trying to end democracy and destroy the first amendment, surely journalists wouldn’t break bread with him.

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Phil Schumacher: I listened to an interview of Kim Lane Sheppele on Strict Scrutiny discuss the walk back from autocracy to democracy. One interesting comment she made is some human right’s groups have come down on the new Hungarian government for attempting to remove Orban’s Supreme Court justices and other corrupt Fidesz officials. I am all for removing corrupt MAGA officials that have burrowed into the civil service and doing significant reforms to the Supreme Court similar to what Hungary is attempting. How do Democrats prepare for attacks by bad faith actors (Republicans, Fox) and norms/law afficionados who will criticize Dems for not following the “rules” to remove MAGA obstructors or reform the court? Is there anything Dems should be doing from now through 2028 to proactively blunt the damage of these attacks and how would you structure their messaging?

I’m much less concerned that norms police will get all huffy if and as Democrats root out MAGA officials who’ve burrowed in to the government than I am about how they’ll react to court expansion. So, to use a term I hate: Democrats should “socialize” the idea of expanding the court, and frame it in terms of both accountability and democracy reform.

We have to take for granted that the right wing will portray any post-Trump democratic reforms as terrible affronts to norms, democracy, “the Constitution” as it exists in their fictional universe. Filibuster reform? What would the founders think?! (There was no filibuster at the founding.) Statehood for DC and Puerto Rico? They’re trying to rig the Senate!!! (We’ve added dozens of states to the union in our history, and adding these would give representation to disenfranchised U.S. citizens.)

At the same time, we probably can take for granted that the overwhelming majority of liberals and progressives (read: Democratic Party voters) will not be taken in by this. We’re really talking here about tastemakers and gatekeepers in the middle. How do we get a critical mass of them to side with us over the clowder of Republicans caterwauling in bad faith?...