It’s not customary for the President to speak at the Department of Justice, which seeks a measure of independence, but Trump is not a traditionalist. He spoke today at the DOJ, whined about how unfairly he had been treated (by clipping and hiding top secret documents and inspiring an insurrection to overturn the election), and railed against those who had prosecuted him. It was typical Trump: aggrieved, bitter, self-pitying, angry.
He said that his courtroom opponents were “scum,” the judges were “corrupt,” and the prosecutors “deranged.”
He said the people who did this to him are “bad people,” and they should be imprisoned.
Trump vowed to “remake the agency and retaliate against his enemies.”
He is unhinged, deranged, vindictive, and we are in deep trouble.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
I wrote something in response to an earlier posting about a French Senator warning the world about Trump’s & Putin’s plan for the world, but I’ll just paraphrase it here. It’s time for our 3 living presidents to step forward & condemn Trump’s shredding of the Constitution by saying that the DOJ is HIS department to do as HE wishes. If they show a united front against this lawlessness, they will be sure to get more coverage than any individual or groups of Congresspeople or Senators. If they really care about our country, they will show the courage to step up and stand up for our Democracy. It’s time.
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Great idea. Yes, where are these former presidents?
And, where are the Liz Cheney’s out there, too?
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I’m so old …
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How easily the press was shocked.. not even 10 years ago.
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The press would be similarly shocked and outraged today — IF it was a Democrat president doing this instead of a Republican.
This isn’t about normalizing this behavior, because it has only been normalized if it is a far right wing Republican OR a person who the far right wing Republicans adore.
Former NJ Senator Bob Menendez’ actions were practically misdemeanors compared to the corruption of many Republicans. But you wouldn’t know it from the news coverage.
Eric Adams’ corruption is truly at epic levels. But deemed to be no longer newsworthy once the Trump DOJ exonerated him. The public has already forgotten because the media considers it old news.
On the other hand, the NYT ran multiple articles that basically declared Dem lawyer Michael Sussman’s conviction a slam dunk. There were articles reinforcing the narrative that there was overwhelming and indisputable evidence of his very serious crimes in the NYT right up to the very day that the jury come back with their not guilty verdict.
I don’t think we will get the chance to test this hypothesis in the future, since it is unlikely there will ever be another election (except a Russian-style election where no president other than a right wing authoritarian can win), but if our democracy did miraculously survive the next 4 years and a Democrat president was elected, you can bet that the media would be shocked and outraged that the democratic president addressed the DOJ this way and it would be referred to in ever story to make sure the public was reminded in every single story that the president was dangerous, not to be trusted, and totally corrupt.
The media was “shocked” at Biden’s supposed dementia just one year ago. Somehow the media now forgets to be shocked despite being given constant evidence that Trump’s brain is clearly not working.
It’s just about the media being complicit in amplifying the narratives that the far right want amplified and minimizing and ignoring the narratives that the far right does not want amplified.
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Duh Corporate Media represents and promotes Corporate Interests. This should no longer be a surprise but somehow some people are still shocked that it keeps happening.
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NYC public school parent
Being on overload I can barely glance the headlines. Obviously many here are gluttons for punishment..
So how is the economic reporting lately. I don’t mean the projections of what Trump policy will do. How many sob stories about people choosing between gas or Heart medicine. Of Young families not being able to buy NINE GALLONS of milk a week to feed the family of 8.
As for another election, history shows that authoritarian regimes and their ardent supporters after causing much pain. They eventually meet the fate they deserve.
I can’t decide whether I prefer the fictional Dickens or the very real events of July 1918 .
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Joel,
If you are right (and I hope you are) that we will actually have a Democratic president in the next 20 years, then there will again be endless stories in the so-called liberal media about all the people suffering terribly because of the Democrat’s very bad economy.
Until then, any connection between Trump’s policies and the bad economy will be drowned out by endless stories about Trump and the supremely qualified doge hires weeding out inefficiencies who – if they do occasionally make human errors – always correct their errors. As long as MAGA rules our country, there is one absolutely indisputable fact that the so-called liberal media alludes to in every single story about Trump: Trump and Doge’s ONLY goal, and ONLY motivation is to make America the great nation it used to be and hire supremely qualified people instead of unqualified DEI hires. Every news story begins with that premise and anything that might make readers doubt that premise is buried or minimized as simply a very partisan and untrustworthy opinion.
Voters will put up with a lot of hardships and “mistakes” IF they believe that the president is working for them.
Voters will reject presidents enacting all sorts of policies benefiting them and making their lives better IF they believe that president is working for (insert media narrative that Republicans decide is most helpful to them: corporate masters/open borders/rich Jews like Soros/trans women ruining women’s sports and dangerous to women/socialists/baby bombers/Ukraine Nazis/antisemites/and whatever dogwhistle is missing here).
Trump’s and Musk’s MOTIVES are always presented as being good – even in the so-called liberal media. Democrats’ motives are always presented as suspect – even in the so-called liberal media.
And too many on our side still believe in the tooth fairy and that there is a magical Democratic candidate whose motives will be characterized as just as pure as Trump’s and Musk’s motives! But it will never happen. There was a brief moment when the media was forced to cover the 2nd Trump impeachment where voters didn’t trust Trump and polls showed that most voters had lost trust in Trump. But once that was over, the narrative returned to the same one that the liberal media believes is “fair and balanced”: that Trump’s motives are only good while the Dems can’t be trusted.
It doesn’t matter how good a candidate seems. Once the liberal media decides to chew them and spit them out in the interests of being “fair and balanced”, that candidate will no longer be trustworthy in the eyes of far too many voters who will be convinced to vote against their own economic interests.
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Agreed, Diane. Deep, deep trouble.
I guess the question is, what kind of authoritarian state could we end up being here in the United States?
Authoritarianism of a Stalinist-sort? Torture chambers and gulags in Montana?
OR authoritarianism-lite? Sneaky stuff like taking people’s jobs and health insurance so their families can suffer horrible deaths that way?
What will it be, America?
Or, will decent people rally? Does the United States still have it in us? Will the pendulum swing back and masses of citizens come to hunger for an era of authenticity, honesty and even simplicity.
Or, could young people of all backgrounds finally join together realizing that their futures have been sold out? The Villages in Florida -sacked by the young and able-bodied, commandeering all those golf carts and taking joy rides of their own, ha, ha.
One thought which I’ve had a few times since January 20, 2025:
I had a nagging toothache years ago and the solution to the throbbing pain was not immediately evident. And my dentist (who I love) offered some sage advice: it will either get better or it will get worse.
That’s how I’ve kind of felt since this despicable regime took control of the country I love -8 horrible weeks go.
But it just keeps getting worse….
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I don’t know where my first attempt to send this went. [I have to log in every time I send something.]
This bit of great news comes from a Trump lover. She won’t believe Trump is unhinged and sociopathic until she gets personally affected.
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Thank you for the link to this Kristof article.
Interesting that the NYT labels this as simply “opinion”.
My takeaway from the article is that it sure is a shame that those very qualified doge hires that Trump and Musk hired to advance their very important (and popular!) mission to weed out waste, fraud and inefficiency have made cuts that have harmed some children in foreign countries. That’s awful and those children need to be helped and I am glad Kristof tells people where they can donate to if they care about these children harmed because of Trump and Musk’s very popular mission to root out waste and fraud at USAID.
I’m sure that most people have great sympathy for these children and no doubt any people who are Trump supporters agree with Kristof that “Trump and Musk are right that U.S.A.I.D. needed reforms. It was endlessly bureaucratic, and much of the money went not to the needy but to American companies that knew how to work the system.” And they can be comforted by knowing that Musk and his highly qualified Doge hires who are rooting out waste and fraud are always correcting their “mistakes”. Plus they can donate themselves.
Very late in this article, Kristof mentions that “what Trump and Musk undertook was not reform but demolition” but since that was an idea clearly not worth expounding on, I assume that the “demolition” was just an inadvertent result of Doge staff who are highly qualified to root out waste and fraud doing their very best to achieve the mission that the American people elected Trump to do. Sometimes mistake happen, and sometimes charities have to step in when good Americans like Musk and Trump and their very qualified hires dedicate themselves to rooting out waste and fraud. Reading Kristof’s article certainly does nothing to disabuse readers of the right wing narrative that the Biden regime just didn’t care at all about rooting out waste and fraud at USAID. Presumably if they did, they would have hired 22 year old computer programmers to root it out! Since they are efficiency experts!
I like to imagine a “liberal media” that wrote news stories that did not reinforce absurdities (like that Doge is about rooting out waste, fraud and inefficiencies and Musk hired the most qualified people to do that job). I like to imagine a “liberal media” that amplified the facts that proved that Doge’s mission was never about weeding out waste and fraud, because if it was they would have hired people who knew how to root it out instead of hiring inexperienced computer programmers with no knowledge of the program to shut down a program in a couple days! I like to imagine a “liberal media” that treated Musk and Trump’s absurd claims about Doge’s mission with the obvious skepticism it deserves. But I guess that the truth staring us in the face is “too biased” to mention. Love the Emperor’s new outfit! Is the Emperor’s outfit gorgeous, or too over the top? Let’s get NYT reporters on the case to write a “very critical” story about the Emperor’s new outfit just not being all that wonderful, being careful not to write anything that would be too “biased” – like saying the Emperor isn’t wearing any clothes and the tailor who said he was is lying. It’s important that the story leave out anything that would insure that readers were clearly informed that the Emperor’s new clothes didn’t exist. That’s too “biased”. Maybe the Emperor’s new outfit is fabulous. Maybe 22 year old computer programmers really are who someone who wanted to root out waste and fraud in a government program would hire. Both of those are very credible “opinions”.
Thanks again for sharing Kristof’s OPINION. Very illuminating, and I’m sure many people will donate to the worthy organizations he mentions.
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I shared this because I found it informative and heart breaking. I don’t understand much of what you just wrote, but as I’ve said in the past, I do not share the obsession with nitpicking every choice of phrase in NYT articles.
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Thank you again for posting the article and your comment.
I agree with you that the article is informative and heartbreaking. And it frames the debate just as the NYT’s front page headline link says: “Why Is It Our Job to Keep Kids in Poor Countries Alive?”
I have further thoughts on the article, but I will respectfully post them separately so you can ignore.
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