The New Confederacy

Sam Smith - Elsewhere is published something I wrote back in 2006 about the difference between fascism and Nazism. Although I still see strong connections between both and our own state of affairs, my thinking - in part due to the example of Latin American dictators' different cultures of impunity  - has added a new …

Moving beyond Trump

Sam Smith – I apologize for not writing in a more interesting fashion about our president but he is painfully predictable, repetitive, and simplistic. The media, unable to find anything else of interest going on in the United States, simulates him in its coverage, also predictable, repetitive and simplistic. Besides, how does one write with …

Why the Schneiderman saga is especially grim

Sam Smith – I had my money on Eric Schneiderman as the last play in bringing Trump down and saving what’s left of America’s democracy – after perhaps the firing of Mueller and the legal dehydration of the New York US Attorney. Schneiderman, after all, had handled the Trump University case well and was reportedly …

Trump’s new confederacy

Sam Smith - Almost 60 years ago, when I first started covering Washington, it occurred to me that while the South had lost aspects of the Civil War, such as slavery and secession, it continued to exercise stunning power over a nation that had allegedly defeated it.  Congress at the time seemed almost a southern …

Trump’s lack of 5th grade skills

Sam Smith - Early this year Sarah Sloat, in Inverse, reported that a “2016 analysis found that Trump’s grammar was roughly at the fifth-grade level. While most GOP candidates used words and grammar on the campaign trail that would be associated with students in grades six through eight, Trump’s were deemed the most immature, the …

The hidden political fact: the power of the young

Sam Smith Rarely mentioned in the mass media’s discussion of politics is the huge role played by age in the nature of our politics. What we are seeing is the disproportional efforts of older Americans to turn back the clock on various issues at a time when the clock is running out on them. This …

Why do so many unwealthy whites fall for Trump?

Sam Smith - One of the most frustrating things about the Trump phenomena is how many unwealthy whites have fallen for his con. This is, unfortunately, not a new phenomenon. You can go all the way back to the Confederacy and find it flourishing. As one commentator put it, "poor whites supported slavery because it …

How the mass media increases the Trump disaster

Sam Smith - Although channels like MSNBC spend an inordinate amount of time telling us how bad Trump is, they forget to offer us one key fact: who is the alternative and what would they do. A good example is to compare the media attention given Mitch McConnell vs. Bernie Sanders.  In the past month, …

What’s missing from the saga

Sam Smith  While there is a growing realization that the dysfunctional dictator docent in the White House shouldn’t be in the job, there is a stunning lack of alternative paths- save his impeachment and replacement by the consistently wrong and frequently evil Michael Pence. A main reason for this vacuum is the most apathetic, unimaginative, …

If Trump was a drug

Sam Smith - If Donald Trump were a drug, his TV appearances would have to be include a statement such as this: Trumpira is a medicine designed to make America great again. It is cheaper, faster and safer than any other. It will build a wall against all illnesses and Mexico has to pay for …

How the young can save us

Sam Smith Although Trump has caused a huge amount of trouble in just the few months he has been president, this doesn’t necessarily define the future. As the Review has noted from time to time, failing cultures often raise a lot of hell in their declining years, witness the Indian ghost dance cult or the …

Trump: The Lucious of the American Empire

Sam Smith Watching the TV’s show Empire the other night, it suddenly hit me that the program was a black hip hop version of of the Trump regime. Empire is one of those shows that is so complex and with so many characters doing so many bad things that it is easy to lose your …

Trump wants to increase funding for the least effective federal department

Sam Smith - Before the debate begins over Trump's plan to increase spending by the Defense Department it is worth noting that the Pentagon is about the least effective agency in the federal government. Since World War II it has fought only one clearly effective war - the invasion of Grenada in 1983,a Caribbean island …

The neo-segregationism of Trump

Sam Smith  - While Donald Trump hasn't called for Muslims to drink at separate fountains nor for gays to sit in the back of the bus, there is no doubt that he and his administration is already engaged in something that can be fairly called neo-segregation. For example, a key part of segregation was to …

When nominations are treated as jury trials

Sam Smith - Imagine a news account that began, "Barack Obama has denied stories that he once laid in a Moscow hotel bed watching two prostitutes urinate." If you can't imagine this, it's because nothing you know about Obama would suggest that it is true. While it is always possible that you have been deluded, …