And yet, in some sense, he gets away with a lot. He stated, on national television, that he fired the Director of the FBI over investigations into matters related to Russia, the tangled web of which is so distressing that according to the Wall Street Journal, the CIA hides intelligence from the President because they worry that he is compromised. Yeah, remember that and let it sink in. Again, if you forgot. The President lies so egregiously, and so frequently that it is difficult to keep up with the task of trying to call him on his dishonesty. I could keep going, but the basic point is... shit is deeply fucked up, and it isn't just Congress that is whistling along as though everything is normal.
In cognitive psychology, we/they sometimes apply the concept of the schema. A schema is, essentially, a model used to organize an array of facts. In politics, people can use a variety of schemata (plural of "schema"-- don't ask). Consider, for example, a partisan schema. Most Democratic politicians hold one set of positions and Republicans another. Thus, if you know a politician's party and organize information within a partisan schema, you can simplify the process of thinking about politicians' platforms. D or R is all you need to know. Errors come about, then, when a politician holds a position out of alignment with his or her party. Susan Collins, for example, is a pro-choice Republican. Experimentally, if you hold a partisan schema and I present you with a set of policy positions from a politician and then ask you to recall those positions, you are more likely to make errors recalling positions that are out of alignment with that politician's party. Schemata can help you organize information, but they can also lead to errors.
I think you can see where I'm going with this.
I am about to commit a sin for which I criticize hack columnists. Warning. Danger, Will Robinson, danger.
In a recent class, I was addressing stock forecasting, and Trump's recent decision to cut off cost-sharing subsidies. For reference, I put up Anthem's stock, which dropped rather noticeably in response to Trump's action. From an investor's perspective, if you had known about this in advance, you could have profited from it. (Since you probably wouldn't know, you shouldn't buy individual stocks-- you should buy passively managed funds, like a simple S&P index fund). Students asked about conflict of interest laws, and I had to explain the fact that while conflict of interest laws apply to everybody in the federal government except Trump, the President does not have any formal "conflict of interest" constraints on his actions. The law is written in such a way that Donald Trump, as President, can take formal actions, as President, in order to benefit himself and his family personally, and it is legal because conflict of interest laws don't apply to the President. I didn't do an extended lecture on emoluments, but the mere observation that the President is immune from "conflict of interest" laws, combined with the fact that Trump has not disclosed his assets or taxes, didn't just strike students as wrong-- they were surprised that it was true.
The idea that the President is immune from conflict of interest laws, and might be personally benefiting from actions taken in office, is so far from what the general public would expect that it is difficult to accept. And yet, for those of us in political science, and those of us who follow politics obsessively, it is almost a given that Trump is taking actions to benefit himself. He is a shameless con artist who refused to divest and put his assets in a blind trust, or even perform full disclosure, and his financial past, including such despicable shit as "Trump University" means that anyone who trusts that vile sack of shit is either not fully informed, or, well...
And yet, the idea of the President of the United States using the office to benefit himself personally is so outside the... schema that a member of the general public might have that it is difficult for people to accept. It is difficult for people to accept that The President of the United States of America would lie as frequently and egregiously as North Korean state media. He does, but the idea of that happening is so outside the realm of expectations that it is difficult for people to process. So... they don't, and the political system moves on as though things are vaguely, kind of normal because accepting the possibility of a president who does the things that Trump does means accepting something so outside the bounds of an American schema that it is difficult to process.
The idea that the President of the United States of America might be influenced by Russia is so outside the realm of our experience that it is difficult for people to process. We hear the notion, and it sounds so absurd, so insane, so ludicrous, so completely batshit fucking crazy.... And yet, the Wall Street Journal reported that the CIA won't share intelligence with Donald Trump because they worry that he is compromised by Russia.
How does that kind of reporting not get remembered? Part of it is distraction. People are focused on mundane nonsense, like Trump's stupid twitter rants, rather than what is truly important.
Really, though, the biggest problem is that people cannot process that which is so far outside American experience. We have a President who is not just stupid (the theme of my last several posts), but almost certainly corrupt beyond historical comparison, and potentially even compromised by a hostile foreign government. And that's not just me on my snarky, profane blog. That's the CIA, as reported by the lefty, pinko-commie rag, The Wall Street Journal. I really want to see what Mueller digs up.
By all means, though, let's ignore the dancing bear. Maybe Trump will tweet something stupid today, and obviously that will be far more important than the fact that the CIA thinks that Trump may be compromised by fucking Russia, according to the Wall Street Fucking Journal.
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