More recent films on international migration

Mexico/Central America-USA edition. Continuing from the previous post, this Mexican film, ‘La juala de oro’ (English title: The Golden Dream; French: Rêves d’or), directed by Diego Quemada-Díez, is one of the more powerful I’ve seen on Mexican/Central American migration to the US—and I’ve seen several over the decades, beginning with the 1983 ‘El Norte’ (perhaps there was one or more before that one but which does not immediately come to mind). It begins in Guatemala, with three mid teenagers—Juan (Brandon López), Sara (Karen Noemí Martínez Pineda), and Samuel (Carlos Chajon)—who set out for the US (the reasons look to be economic, not flight from gang or political violence). Once across the Mexican border, they meet Chauk (Rodolfo Domínguez), a teen from Chiapas who doesn’t know Spanish—speaking only the Maya language Tzotzil—but attaches himself to them, and particularly to Sara, to whom he takes a liking. Samuel dropping out and returning home, the three head north on the dangerous trek, where they are prey to both police and criminal gangs, the latter who demand their addresses in the US—and they necessarily have them written down—to extort ransom from their families there (gangs these days being transnational). And for girls like Sara—who tries to disguise herself as a boy—the probability of being sexually violated is in the high 90% range. If the reasons for migrating may be economically motivated—at least for the characters in the film—the youthful migrants would have clearly had a strong case for receiving asylum in the US.

The film—which came out in France in late ’13 and the US last year—is certainly topical, in view of the tens of thousands of unaccompanied, mostly Central American minors who sought admission into the US in 2014. Most were fleeing violence—indeed terror—in their countries, and should have consequently been considered refugees. And it’s not just Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador, but also Mexico, where the violence and cruelty of the drug gangs puts the Islamic State to shame, and with the Mexican state often being in league with the narcos. One bit in the film that I was initially dubious about was the Chauk character not speaking Spanish. I am aware that such is the case for a certain number of indigenous persons in Mexico but couldn’t imagine that they would be able to navigate the journey to the US. Shows how much I know, as it turns out that there are indeed quite a few Mexican migrants in the US who do not speak Spanish (see here and here). One can imagine the challenges of living in the US and speaking only Tzotzil or Nahuatl. Sort of like being an Algerian in France and only speaking Taqbaylit. Bonne chance.

The film received top reviews in France and good ones in the US. Mexican reviews must have been stellar, as it is apparently the most awarded Mexican film in that country’s cinematographic history. See the interviews with director Quemada-Díez in the gauchiste webzine Counterpunch, the progressive Democracy Now!, and in IndieWire. Trailer is here.

Another Mexican film on the migration theme that received a slew of awards is ‘Aquí y Allá’ (English title: Here and There; French: Ici et là-bas), directed by Antonio Méndez Esparza. This one is rather different from the above, focusing on migrant return after many years away. Here, the middle-aged Pedro (Pedro De los Santos) returns home to his family—wife and two now teenage daughters—in his mountain village in Guerrero, after years of living and working in New York. His family is happy that he’s home but things have changed, particularly as he now hardly knows his daughters. As Variety’s Jonathan Holland’s review begins

A migrant worker returns to his native Mexico from the U.S. in “Here and There,” a quietly devastating exploration of the cruel paradox that, in order to feed their loved ones, emigrants have to leave them behind. Combining moments of lyricism with a documentary-like feel for truth, Antonio Mendez Esparza’s debut feature is far from hard-hitting, aestheticizing its tale with artful ellipses and juxtapositions. But its delicate portrayal of the emotional effects of immigration nonetheless amounts to a punchy social critique. Pic’s canny blend of artistry and politics should win it fest admirers.

I certainly admired the film, which is touching and, dare I say, poignant. IndieWire’s Ryan Lattanzio called it

the best film yet to screen at [the 2012] Cannes’ Critics’ Week, confidently made without a single wasted scene. The quotidian reality of Guerrero village life is realized with lyricism and lack of sentimentality. (…) Peaceful, almost biblical and completely absorbing, this film is a masterpiece.

French reviews were good to very good. Trailer is here.

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Recent films on international migration and refugees

Last week I had a couple of posts on immigration, migration, and refugees. Continuing in this vein, I want to mention a few films I’ve seen over the past couple of years on the general theme. One of the more noteworthy was ‘Mediterranea’, by American-Italian director Jonas Carpignano, which opened to good reviews in France last September and in the US two months later. Its timing was uncanny, in view of the refugee crisis of last summer and fall (and ongoing, of course). The film follows the journey of two young men from Burkina Faso, Ayiva (Koudous Seihon) and Abas (Alassane Sy), who head across the Sahara to the Libyan coast, to be smuggled across the Mediterranean to Italy. This part of the film—much of it, in fact—is documentary-like, particularly the scene, in Algeria or Libya (shot in Morocco), where the African migrants are robbed—and with a few killed—by criminals/terrorists (AQIM or one of those groups). The pic doesn’t linger on the maritime crossing—a whole film, La Pirogue, has been devoted to this aspect of African migration to Europe—the story mainly focusing on what happens to Ayiva and Abas once they make it to Italy, where they work as agricultural laborers, obviously exploited, with some of the locals being kind and welcoming but more not. Europe is not the promised land they imagined, that’s for sure. One naturally sympathizes with the two Burkinabé protags, though they’re not always angels (not that there’s any reason they should be). And, as tends to be the case with migrants, they are not les damnés de la terre in their home country, communicating regularly with their folks there via Skype—conversations in which they accentuate the positive and downplay the negative—home computers in a country like Burkina Faso signifying what may be considered middle class status there.

Director Carpignano’s inspiration for making the film was the events in Rosarno—a town of some 15,000 on the southern tip of Reggio Calabria province—in January 2010, which witnessed a riot by Africans after repeated harassment, beatings, and shootings of migrants by local residents (and with implication of the mafia), and which the pic reenacts. And, as it happens, actor Seihon was an actual Burkinabé/Ghanaian migrant in Rosarno, who had made the clandestine passage to Italy and participated in migrant protests there, which is where Carpignano met him (and with the two becoming close friends). In order to make the film, Carpignano did anthropological-like field research in African migrant communities in southern Italy, as he discussed in this interview. Carapignano also explained the reason for casting the film’s protags as Burkinabé, as he didn’t want to focus on refugees fleeing war but rather on people migrating to better their lives, as did the Sicilians and Calabrians who emigrated to the United States in the late 19th-early 20th century—and with southern Italy having been as “Third World” compared to the US—and as culturally alien to American society of the time—as sub-Saharan Africa is to Italy today. Trailer is here.

Another film on African migration seen last year was ‘Hope’, by French director Boris Lojkine. This one follows the journey of a Nigerian named Hope (Endurance Newton), as she crosses the Sahara to Morocco (where the entire film was shot), with Spain the destination. A single woman in a pitiless world of men, where it’s chacun pour soi. No need to say what happens to her along the way or what she has to do to survive financially. The social organization of African migrants is depicted in detail, particularly in the sequence in the migrant shantytown in Tamanrasset, Algeria, which is segregated by nationality, the migrants sticking with their own—Ivorians with Ivorians, Malians with Malians, etc—imposing strict rules of conduct and with hierarchies replicating those back home. Like Carpignano, Lojkine—who normally makes documentaries—did field research among African migrants, here in Morocco and particularly in Rabat’s African quartier, Takkadoum, where he recruited the cast, including the remarkable Newton, who was a migrant herself (she recounts her personal story here). In the words of one critic, some of the actors are basically playing versions of themselves on screen. After an act of sexual aggression committed against her, Hope hooks up with a Cameroonian named Leonard (Justin Wang)—she wants nothing to do with her fellow Nigerians—the sole man in the migrant column who showed concern for her. Their relationship is purely self-interested at first but they develop mutual affection in the course of their journey. The film does not, however, descend into sentimentality or pathos, nor is it misérabiliste in its portrayal of the migrants’ plight. It’s a good film and that I recommend, particularly to those who have a prioris on the subject. Reviews in France were good and with Allociné spectateurs giving it the thumbs way up. See, in particular, the reviews in Africultures and Variety. Trailer is here and here.

Though the two films portray “economic” migrants, many Africans who reach the shores of Europe are indeed bona fide refugees. For the anecdote, last August I went to a corner of the 18th arrondissement—near La Chapelle, on a quiet side street, seen only by riverains—where recently arrived migrants from the Horn of Africa congregate, just to try to talk with them. They were all from Sudan and Eritrea, with a few Ethiopians, so I was told. A couple of dozen men were lingering about, most riveted to their cell phones. None spoke French and only one English with any level of proficiency, the oldest man present—around 40 years of age—who said he was from western Sudan (i.e. Darfur). He was a truck driver by profession and said that he had decided to leave Sudan due to the security situation, i.e. civil war and absence of state protection. Sudan was a country one fled from if one could. He made his way to Europe via Libya, which he described as in a state of anarchy, with armed gangs running the show. I thought better than to ask nosy questions about the Mediterranean crossing or how they all made it to Paris. Or to delve too deeply into their actual circumstances back home and decision to migrate (which one cannot know or verify). One young Eritrean, who was listening to our conversation—which went on for half an hour—and spoke rudimentary English, said that he left his country because of its military service requirements, which last many years—ten years or even longer; it’s totally arbitrary—and that such was the case for all the Eritreans in the group. All had England as their final destination—naturally via Calais—though not necessarily because they knew anyone there (migrants invariably heading to a place where they have family or friends) or saw it as some kind of El Dorado. As asylum seekers—but in a legally precarious situation—they would, in principle, have been wiling to stay in France, except that the French state administration, such as they had dealt with it, was impenetrable. Not knowing French, they couldn’t communicate with it, and no translators were provided. And they were bereft of resources and with no local organism to help them (a middle-aged woman—in a hijab, no doubt Algerian—came to speak with some of them while I was there; my Sudanese interlocutor, who identified her as “French,” called her their guardian angel, a wonderful person who brought them cooked meals daily; no one else in Paris had shown them such kindness). As there was “nothing in France for us,” so I was told, the men wanted to move on to England, where they knew asylum seekers received temporary accommodations and assistance.

After a point I began to feel embarrassed with my inquiry, me the well-to-do, bleeding heart local who would go back to his comfortable home and life, and with nothing to propose or say to these desperate persons in a desperate situation. Apart from my questions, what could I say to these men or do for them? The one thing I did feel was revulsion at the demagoguery and general insensitivity of politicians and other public personalities who were piping off on the migration/refugee issue, presenting it uniquely as a threat to France and Europe. The men I met clearly cannot be sent back to their countries and it would be unconscionable, indeed downright immoral, to demand otherwise. Any ideas of what to do for them?

Briefly, two other films. One, ‘Macondo’, by Iranian-Austrian director Sudabeh Mortezai, came out in France a year ago—and to good reviews—under the title ‘Le Petit homme’. Borrowing from Variety’s positive review

This sensitive Austrian social drama from docu helmer Sudabeh Mortezai focuses on a [Chechen] refugee settlement outside Vienna.

Visit Vienna as a tourist and you aren’t likely to see kids like Ramasan, the 11-year-old [Chechen] subject of docu director Sudabeh Mortezai’s empathetically observed fiction debut, “Macondo.” To find such foreigners, one must venture to the outskirts, where the eponymous immigrant settlement offers housing to nearly 2,000 refugees taking shelter from their home countries. As an Iranian who split her childhood between Tehran and Vienna, Mortezai can clearly identify with the confused emotional state of her young protagonist, treating his unique situation as one example of Austria’s complex immigrant experience — a deeply humanist perspective…

It’s a coming-of-age story about a Chechen refugee boy caught between two cultures, whose combattant father was killed by the Russians, and who thus has to assume the role as head of the family, composed of his mother and two sisters. An impressive performance by the youthful actor Ramasan Minkailov. Hollywood Reporter and Indie Wire critics who saw the pic at the Berlinale also gave it the thumbs up. I thought it was pretty good too. Trailer is here.

The other film is a documentary seen in late 2013, ‘Stop-Over’ (in France: ‘L’Escale’), by Iranian-Swiss director Kaveh Bakhtiari, which offers an up-close portrait of the daily tribulations of seven undocumented migrants—six Iranians and an Armenian—in Athens, who had been smuggled into Greece from Turkey but found themselves blocked in the country, that they initially considered to be a mere stop-over in their projected journeys north (to Germany or Scandinavia). And given the situation in Greece, it clearly could not be their final destination. The film is worth seeing for those with a particular interest in the subject. Variety’s great critic Jay Weissberg reviewed it here, The Hollywood Reporter’s review is here. French critics were particularly enthusiastic. Trailer is here.

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Michael Mariotte, R.I.P.

[update below] [2nd update below]

He died on Monday, at age 63, after a three-year battle with pancreatic cancer. He was the longtime executive director (1986-2013) of the Washington/Takoma Park-based Nuclear Information and Resource Service, whose singular issue is the fight against nuclear power—and for which he received a lifetime achievement award from fourteen environmental and anti-nuclear organizations. But that’s not why I am paying tribute to him. Michael was one of my closest friends in college—Antioch College, in Yellow Springs, Ohio—and since my freshman year in 1975. We spent a lot of time hanging out together during those years, not only on campus but also as housemates on internships (co-op jobs, they were called at Antioch), in Washington and Berkeley. He was always good-natured and always had a smile on his face when he saw me, as if he was always happy to see me. One doesn’t forget things like that. And he was a loyal friend in addition to being a good one. After graduation he moved to Washington (his hometown), where I saw him regularly through the 1980s and into the ’90s. His home was always open to me, with him and his first wife, Lynn—also a longtime activist in environmental issues—accommodating me no problem when I was passing through town or needed a place to stay while looking for my own.

Politically, Michael was naturally on the left but had no use for the Marxism—and its Leninist variants—that was in vogue among leftists during our college days—and to which I adhered for a brief period. He was allergic to ideologically driven activism, to anything that reeked of dogmatism, and to hair-splitting polemics over fine points of doctrine. Michael was the eternal soixante-huitard, whose gauchisme was festive and libertaire—and always pragmatic when it came to working within the “system”: electoral politics, supporting Democratic Party candidates, lobbying legislators, working the media, and the like. In his political world-view—and also sunny personality—he bore a striking resemblance to Daniel Cohn-Bendit. And I wouldn’t be surprised if they indeed met, on one of Michael’s anti-nuke organizing campaigns in Europe (mainly in former communist countries; he’s the one person I know who managed to visit Chernobyl).

Michael’s big passion apart from his anti-nuclear activism was music, specifically 1960s-70s (hard) rock. On this, our tastes overlapped though did not always coincide. In the late ’70s he and friends of his founded a punk rock/new wave band, Tru Fax & the Insaniacs, which did weekend gigs, mainly in and around DC (Michael having to give it up after he fell ill). I saw them once, in their very early years. They were a hoot. Michael proudly told me at the time that a local paper had proclaimed Tru Fax to be “the worst band in the Washington metropolitan area” (which Michael thought was hilarious, and with the band using the line in its promotional material). Michael was indeed known to famous musicians for his anti-nuke work, e.g. see this tribute to him from Bonnie Raitt, Jackson Browne, and Graham Nash. He would have been more than thrilled had he also received one from Patti Smith—whom he turned me on to back in ’76—and the Jefferson Airplane’s Grace Slick, who was one of his favorites (and we did see her in concert that same year, at the Capital Centre in Landover MD). With that, I will leave Michael with this cool Arabic rendition of ‘White Rabbit’, by the Lebanese singer Mayssa Karaa.

For anyone in the DC area who knew Michael, there will be a party to celebrate his life tomorrow, May 19th, at Busboys and Poets in Hyattsville MD, from 4 to 8 PM.

UPDATE: The Washington Post and New York Times have obituaries of Michael here and here.

2nd UPDATE: The Progressive magazine has a tribute in Michael’s memory here.

Tru Fax & the Insaniacs (circa 1979)

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The refugee question: A moral crisis

Off the coast of Libya, May 14 2015 (photo credit: Reuters/MOAS/Jason Florio)

[update below]

French polymath social scientist and physician Didier Fassin—who is based at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton—has an essay in The Nation dated April 5th, in case one missed it, “From Right to Favor,” on the refugee crisis in Europe—or the “so-called refugee crisis,” as he calls it—which he asserts is “a moral issue before it is a demographic one.” This is one of the best intellectual reflections I’ve come across on the subject, so I wholeheartedly recommend it. Didier Fassin is one of those incredibly smart and talented scholars, who is worth reading on any of the wide range of subjects he writes on.

On the (so-called) refugee crisis, Think Progress has a dispatch (May 2nd) by reporter Justin Salhani, “Refugees are rejuvenating dying Italian towns.” It concludes

Economic projections aside, the affect of repopulating dying villages has also had a profound affect on the people of these villages.

“Thank God they brought us these people,” Luigi Marotti, a 68-year-old who takes care of the Roman Catholic Church in Calabria’s town of Satriano, told Bloomberg in February. “Satriano was dead. Thanks to them it’s alive again. The village can start growing. If they leave, I don’t know where we can go.”

If any of the refugees don’t want to stay in Italy, they should come to small-town France, which could also use the shot in the arm—and Béziers in particular, which really does need it. If the mayor there is uncomfortable with the idea, he’ll come around…

UPDATE: Jean-Marie Guéhenno, president and CEO of the International Crisis Group, has a post (May 13th) on the Carnegie Europe web site, “Conflict is key to understanding migration.”

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America’s disastrous immigration legislation

North of the Mexico-Arizona border, 2007 (Photo credit: Don Bartletti/Los Angeles Times)

[update below]

In case one missed it, Vox had a must-read piece by Dara Lind dated April 28th on America’s “disastrous, forgotten 1996 law that created today’s immigration problem.” The law in question, the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act (IIRIRA), was forced on the Clinton administration by the Republican Congress of the time, though was not bereft of Democratic support and with President Clinton not exactly signing the bill under duress. Au contraire.

IIRIRA has indeed been a disastrous law, as it has dramatically increased the number of undocumented migrants in the US who could be—and have been—deported and without judicial recourse, curtailed the possibilities for undocumented migrants to regularize their status, and placed even legal resident aliens in more precarious situations. And Vox is correct to say that the law has been “forgotten,” as the only persons who know anything about it are professionals in the immigration field plus, obviously, undocumented migrants or legal immigrants who are directly concerned by its provisions.

This is one of those lois scélérates enacted in the 1990s—along with the crime and welfare bills—that will need to be repealed—that must be repealed—if the US is to reform its calamitous immigration system—and which is certainly worse than France’s. For that, there will, at minimum, need to be a Democrat in the White House and a Democratic majority in Congress. Inshallah.

On Donald Trump’s proposal to build a wall on the Mexican border, Princeton University sociologist Douglas S. Massey—who is one of the top academic specialists on the subjects of immigration and international migration, notably between Mexico and the US—has a tribune dated April 21st on the Market Watch website saying that it “would be a waste of money.” The reason: undocumented immigration from Mexico essentially ended in 2008, with more Mexicans returning home in the intervening years than heading north to the US. And the reason for this: there are fewer jobs for them in the US and more in Mexico. It has nothing to do with more restrictionist laws or border fences.

I somehow doubt Trump will read Massey on this—or change his mind if he does.

UPDATE: Vox’s Dara Lind explains (October 17, 2017) that “Democrats are taking a hard line on immigration—from the left: How they stopped chasing the center and started embracing the activists.” Alhamdulillah. Hopefully whenever the Dems regain control of the White House and Congress, they’ll abrogate IIRAIRA. Inshallah.

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Trump (what else?)

(Credit: Ian Bremmer)

[update below]

Everyone’s seen his Cinco de Mayo tweet of last Thursday. Looking at it slightly agape, I proceed to do something I had heretofore not done, which was to go through The Donald’s Twitter feed. It’s a spectacle to behold. If you haven’t seen it, you must. Click here, scroll down, and then keep scrolling. One is simply amazed that these are the public words of the presumptive presidential nominee of one of the two major parties—that a hypothetical president of the United States can trash talk this way and with political impunity—but one is riveted to them nonetheless. There’s something brilliant about the way Trump has mastered the new media platforms (not to mention older ones, like television). I shudder to imagine what Jean-Marie Le Pen would have done with Twitter and other social media has these existed in the 1980s and ’90s.

On the Cinco de Mayo tweet, Mother Jones’s Kevin Drum thought everyone was “badly misinterpreting” it; it was, Drum insisted, “really a genius tweet,” showing that “Trump is playing this game at a higher level than most of his critics.”

One critic who looks to be playing the game at Trump’s level is Elizabeth Warren, who’s been tweetstorming him back, giving as good as she gets. Way to go, Madame la Sénatrice!

Vox’s Andrew Prokop has a must-read interview (May 6th) with Norm Ornstein, “[t]he political scientist who saw Trump’s rise coming.” As I mentioned in the preceding post, I began to take Trump seriously after reading Ornstein last August. Lots of good stuff in the interview, e.g. this response to Prokop’s question on where Ornstein thinks the anger within the Republican Party electorate has come from and why it’s so powerful

When you look at populism over the longer course of both American history and other countries that have suffered economic traumas as a result of financial collapse, you’re gonna get the emergence of some leaders who exploit nativism, protectionism, and isolationism. They’re components — sometimes greater, sometimes lesser — that are baked into the process. So you’ve got a bit of that.

But if you forced me to pick one factor explaining what’s happened, I would say this is a self-inflicted wound by Republican leaders.

Over many years, they’ve adopted strategies that have trivialized and delegitimized government. They were willing to play to a nativist element. And they tried to use, instead of stand up to, the apocalyptic visions and extremism of some cable television, talk radio, and other media outlets on the right.

And add to that, they’ve delegitimized President Obama, but they’ve failed to succeed with any of the promises they’ve made to their rank and file voters, or Tea Party adherents. So when I looked at that, my view was, “what makes you think, after all of these failures, that you’re going to have a group of compliant people who are just going to fall in line behind an establishment figure?”

Trump clearly had a brilliant capacity to channel that discontent among Republican voters — to figure out the issues that’ll work, like immigration, and the ways in which populist anger and partisan tribalism can be exploited. So of course, to me, he became a logical contender.

On how the Republican Party has gotten to where it is today, with Trump as its presumptive nominee

Back in 1978, when I first came to AEI, Tom Mann and I set up a series of small, off the record dinners with some new members of Congress. And one of them, Newt Gingrich, stood out right away. As a brand new member of the House, he had a full-blown theory of how Republicans could break out of their seemingly permanent minority, and build a majority.

And over the next 16 years, he put that plan into action. He delegitimized the Congress and the Democratic leadership, convincing people that they were arrogant and corrupt and that the process was so bad that anything would be better than this. He tribalized the political process. He went out and recruited the candidates, and gave them the language to use about how disgusting and despicable and horrible and immoral and unpatriotic the Democrats were. That swept in the Republican majority in 1994.

The problem is that all the people he recruited to come in really believed that shit. They all came in believing that Washington was a cesspool. So what followed has been a very deliberate attempt to blow up and delegitimize government, not just the president but the actions of government itself in Washington.

And Republican leaders, like Mitch McConnell and Eric Cantor, were complicit in this. I think when Republicans had their stunning victory in 2010, Cantor et al thought they could now co-opt these people. Instead, they were co-opted themselves.

As for Trump’s chances in the general election, the temperamentally prudent Ornstein offers this

I think if we’re laying the odds here, I still think it is more like 80/20 that he loses. There are a lot of reasons to think that he is not gonna be able to expand this message to a much larger group of people once you move beyond trying to impress a Republican Party audience.

(…) Having said that, I would not discount entirely the possibility that he could win, for the following set of reasons.

One, tribalism is still a dominant force. We do know that straight-ticket voting has increased dramatically. This to me suggests we’re not gonna have a 45-state blowout like Goldwater faced, or a 49-state one like Mondale or McGovern had. You’re gonna start with some states and you’re gonna start with 45 percent of the votes. Most Republicans are gonna come back into the fold.

And then, what if Brexit happens and you get turmoil in the global economy? And it affects the US? What if ISIS decides that a Trump presidency would be wonderful, so let’s stage a couple of showy, Paris-type attacks in the US in October?

When you have an election and history is not to be completely discounted, we know that elections that occur after eight years of a two-term president focus around how much change you want. And Hillary Clinton still has that hurdle to overcome that she’s not exactly a candidate of change. And if events occur that create more of a desire for change, then people might roll the dice with Trump.

So I don’t discount it entirely. And I think 20 percent sounds like not much, but is quite tangible.

Correct. In my reckoning, the probability of Trump defeating Hillary in November is roughly that of Marine Le Pen winning the French presidential election next May, which is not going to happen. Except that one can come up with not totally outlandish scenarios in which it does…

To read the Ornstein interview in its entirety—which is well worth the while—go here.

For more on this aspect of the Trump story, see the article in the NYT (May 7th), “Republican Party unravels over Donald Trump’s takeover,” by Patrick Healy and Jonathan Martin. Money quote

[Trump] has amplified his independent, outsider message in real time, using social media and cable news interviews — and his own celebrity and highly attuned ear for what resonates — to rally voters to his side, using communication strategies similar to those deployed in the Arab Spring uprising or in the attempts by liberals and students to foment a similar revolution in Iran.

“Trump leveraged a perfect storm,” said Steve Case, the founder of AOL, in an email message. “A combo of social media (big following), brand (celebrity figure), creativity (pithy tweets), speed/timeliness (dominating news cycles).”

Mr. Trump is an unlikely spokesman for the grievances of financially struggling, alienated Americans: a high-living Manhattan billionaire who erects skyscrapers for the wealthy and can easily get politicians on the phone. But as a shrewd business tactician, he understood the Republican Party’s customers better than its leaders did and sensed that his brand of populist, pugilistic, anti-establishment politics would meet their needs.

After seething at Washington for so long, hundreds or thousands of miles from the capital, many of these voters now see Mr. Trump as a kind of savior. Even if he does not detail his policies, even if his language strikes them as harsh sometimes, his supporters thrill more to his plain-spoken slogans like “Make America Great Again” than to what they see as the cautious and poll-tested policy speeches of Mr. Ryan and other Washington Republicans.

On Hillary Clinton and whether or not she should now move to the center—to attract moderate Republicans—or tack left to win over skeptical Bernie supporters, David Frum, writing in The Atlantic, not surprisingly argues for the former. Vox’s Matthew Yglesias rightly counters, however, that “Hillary Clinton doesn’t need to choose between a reassuring campaign and progressive policies.”

Check out this anti-Trump ad currently airing in Arkansas, which is “a preview of Democratic attacks to come.”

So how many self-identified Republican voters will decline to vote for Trump in November? With all the dissension and tumult in the GOP, it’s hard to see him getting anywhere near the 93% who voted Romney in 2012 (whereas one does not imagine Hillary getting much less than the 92% of Democrats who voted Obama). One voter who will definitely not be casting his ballot for Trump is the NYT’s moderate rightist intello columnist Ross Douthat, who laid out yesterday “The conservative case against Trump.” And then there’s a Trumpophobic right-of-center friend of mine, who categorically informed me in an email today

I’ll probably vote for Hillary or vote Libertarian unless the GOP manages to choke out a reasonable Third Party candidate. It’s important that the Trump wing not only lose, but be savagely thrashed, to the point that Trumpism is comprehensively discredited. Sadly, I don’t know if even a devastating loss in the election will achieve that. To eradicate that political impulse in Germany, the place had to be firebombed, leveled, occupied, and divided for half a century — and the surviving leaders of the movement had to be hanged.

On the bright side, Trump has united my friends on both sides of the political spectrum. Like Pauline Kael, I don’t know anyone who’s going to vote for him.

I somehow doubt that my friend will reconsider her position as the campaign moves into the summer and fall…

On the matter of an anti-Trump, conservative-compatible third party candidate, historian Josh Zeitz, harking back to Jimmy Carter’s insurgent 1976 candidacy, writes in Politico (May 3rd) that this is “The worst way to stop a front-runner,” explaining what the #NeverTrump people can learn from the establishment Democratic Party’s last-ditch “Anybody But Carter” effort forty years back (was it that long ago?! that was my first presidential election as a voter…).

For a spot on commentary, see Paul Krugman’s column in today’s NYT, “The making of an ignoramus.” The lede: “Trump’s bad ideas are largely a bombastic version of what many in his party have been saying.”

In case one missed it, social scientists Stefan Pfattheicher and Simon Schindler have a research article entitled “Misperceiving bullshit as profound is associated with favorable views of Cruz, Rubio, Trump and conservatism,” published April 29th in the peer-reviewed open access scientific journal PLoS ONE. I thought at first that this was a parody à la Alan Sokal but ascertained that it was indeed legit, as Messrs Pfattheicher and Schindler are veritable legit professors, at Universität Ulm and Universität Kassel respectively. Asheley R. Landrum—Howard Deshong Postdoctoral Fellow at the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania—was, however, not impressed with their argument or use of data, riposting on her blog (May 5th), “When studies studying bullshit are themselves bullshit...” She begins

We have a problem with PLoS publishing bullshit studies.

One has no doubt not missed the two recent profiles of hypothetical future First Lady Melania Trump, one by Julia Ioffe in GQ—which earned her a torrent of abuse from Trumpistas focusing on her ethno-confessional identity—the other by Lauren Collins in The New Yorker. Michelle she’s not, ça c’est sûr.

À suivre, évidemment.

UPDATE: Political scientist Shadi Hamid, who is based at the Brookings Institution, has an excellent, must-read article (May 6th) in The Atlantic, “Donald Trump and the authoritarian temptation.” The lede: “The candidate has exposed the tension between democracy and liberal values—just like the Arab Spring did.”

Also see the piece (May 3rd) by political analyst Cliston Brown in the New York Observer, “No amount of working-class whites can win Trump the White House.” The lede: “Here’s the truth: There just aren’t enough ‘angry white men’.” As it happens, the publisher of the Observer, Jared Kushner, is Donald Trump’s son-in-law.

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Can Trump beat Hillary?

(photo credit: AP)

[update below]

The short answer: no. The long answer: no, he can’t, and he won’t. I’ve already laid out my argument on this, e.g. here, and am not going to do so again, except to make a couple of points—that I’ve been arguing on social media since yesterday—and link to good analyses and commentaries since Indiana for those who are interested. E.g. in one exchange yesterday on a third-party thread, I responded to a comment by a knowledgeable French observer, who submitted that both Trump and Cruz could possibly defeat Hillary, with this

I respectfully disagree… The polls have showed Clinton beating both Trump and Cruz by similar margins (the latest poll has HRC at +13 over Trump, +10 over Cruz). There is, in any case, no way Trump will win the election (or that Cruz could have had he stayed in the race and gone on to win the nomination). If one wishes to argue that these two Republicans could win in November, I’d like to hear how they do it: what 2012 Obama states they would flip to get over 270 EVs and what the demographics of their victorious coalition would be, i.e. what Obama voters they would attract? I’m sorry but I do not see it.

He replied by bringing up working class voters in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, and Wisconsin. My rejoinder

So you think white working class voters in WI and PA who went for Obama in 2012 and ’08—and for Kerry and Gore against Bush, and for Bill Clinton both times—will, for some mysterious reason, suddenly defect to Trump in 2016? But why would this happen? Pour mémoire, PA has not voted Republican in a presidential election since 1988 and WI since ’84. There is, in any case, no polling data to suggest that Trump can flip these two states, or OH for that matter. It doesn’t make sense. As for IN, this is normally a Republican state (’08 was an aberration), but in which Hillary and Bernie together received more votes than did Trump yesterday (and I assure you, hardly any of those Bernie voters will go for Trump this November). And whatever new WC votes Trump picks up in November will be more than offset by moderate Republicans—and, above all, women—who will defect to Hillary.

In any case, the white WC vote is neither monolithic nor significant enough to move national election outcomes. And any white WC voters inclined to vote Trump have already been voting R for years now.

For more on this, see Nate Silver on “The mythology of Trump’s ‘working class’ support,” in which he informs us that “[Trump’s] voters are better off economically compared with most Americans.”

As for other good analyses and commentaries:

“President Trump? Not likely,” by Drake University law professor Anthony J. Gaughan, in The Conversation. The lede: “The GOP nomination may be Trump’s, but the general election is another story.”

“Donald Trump’s victory proves Republican voters want resentful nationalism, not principled conservatism,” by Vox’s Ezra Klein. Make sure to watch the six-minute video between nº 8 and 9, where Klein—who absolutely, totally nails it—explains why Trump cannot suddenly decide to become a “moderate”—and, ergo, why it is hard to take his chances in November seriously.

“Republicans have a massive electoral map problem that has nothing to do with Donald Trump,” by WaPo’s Chris Cillizza. See also, from last August: “Electoral map: How Hispanic and Asian voters could change the Electoral College.”

“The great Trump reshuffle,” by NYT contributor Thomas B. Edsall. The lede: “The 2016 election will deepen the division between those who support the social and cultural revolutions of the past five decades and those who remain in opposition.” Edsall, always sober in his analyses, offers this

The nomination of Donald Trump will sharpen and deepen the Republican Party’s core problems. Trump gains the party ground among declining segments of the population — less well educated, less well off whites — and loses ground with the growing constituencies: single women, well-educated men and women, minorities, the affluent and professionals.

“Trump begins in a massive hole,” by Politico’s Steven Shepard. The lede: “The presumptive GOP nominee trails Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders by polling margins not seen in a generation.”

In the same vein: “Donald Trump isn’t going to be president,” by Slate’s Jamelle Bouie. The lede: He’d have to win unprecedented shares of the very kinds of voters who hate him: blacks, Latinos, and women.”

Also in this vein, see the remarkable post by the très conservateur blogger Erick Erickson, who is a major voice on that end of the political spectrum, “Indiana Republicans hand Hillary Clinton the White House.”

Another conservative blogger, Ben Howe, had a widely-remarked upon post on the hard-right Red State blog Tuesday night, slamming Trump and fellow conservatives who support him: “I lied to myself for years about who my allies were. No more.” He later followed up with this tweet to his 46K followers: #ImWithHer. Wow.

Glenn Greenwald—who, while often right, is invariably an insufferable jerk—has a self-satisfied piece, co-authored with Zaid Jilani, in which he gives his fellow journalists a hard time, “Beyond Schadenfreude, the spectacular pundit failure on Trump is worth remembering.” Indeed. Quant à moi, I went along with the pundit crowd—notably Nate Silver—in a post last August 9th, in which I dismissed Trump’s chances, but—following Norm Ornstein—changed my tune two weeks later, when I started to take Trump more seriously.

It really is quite stunning, isn’t it? Who could have possibly imagined that, as of May 2nd, Trump would be the only Republican candidate left standing? He’s vanquished them all. There will be no contested or brokered convention after all. C’est vraiment incroyable.

Any idea of who his Veep pick may be? I can’t imagine what fool would want to run that errand. Marco Rubio is one name that’s floating. If that happens, all I will say is ‘oy vey!’

Hillary’s attack ads have now begun. And the first one’s a good one. Bring it on! The more the merrier.

UPDATE: Bernie supporters on social media continue to harp on about Hillary’s putative vulnerabilities against Trump, with many suggesting that she could lose. But they do not consider “what a Republican attack on Bernie Sanders would look like,” as Michelle Goldberg speculates on in Slate (May 2nd), asserting, rightly so IMO, that “Sanders’ ‘superior electability’ is still a myth.” See also William Saletan’s Slate piece (April 26th), “Polls say Bernie is more electable than Hillary. Don’t believe them.”

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Aleppo

Aleppo, April 28th (photo credit: AFP/Ameer Alhalbi)

A day of hell in. In case one missed it, see the photos taken last week—and with commentary—by Agence France-Presse’s Ameer Alhalbi. I don’t know how to think about what is happening in that city—and as I write—of the unbelievable war crimes that are being committed by the regime of Bashar al-Assad—and for which its Russian, Iranian, and Lebanese allies bear their share of responsibility. The reports in the French media are insoutenable. Idrees Ahmad, who teaches digital journalism at the University of Stirling in the UK, calls Aleppo “our Guernica,” though observes that there are a number of apologists for the Syrian regime in the West who are, as it were, cheering on the Luftwaffe. Ignoble. C’est tout ce que j’ai à dire.

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More on the state of the race

[update below] [2nd update below] [3rd update below] [4th update]

Nice-looking map, though is not for real—at least not yet. It’s a projection of the outcome of a hypothetical Hillary Clinton-Donald Trump general election match-up based on polls taken in May and June of last year, which were worth what they were worth. I’m dubious about some of it—e.g. I really don’t see Wyoming voting Democratic under any circumstances and it is not out of the question that Texas could go blue—but am nonetheless confident that this is pretty much how the map will look on the night of November 8th in the now likely event that we do get that Clinton-Trump contest.

Continuing from my post of yesterday, in which I touched on the eventual legacy of Bernie Sanders’s candidacy, a likely one—that one hopes for, at any rate—is that it will push the Democratic Party to the left on issues relating to economic inequality, with the Dems advocating increased government action to reduce this. Bernie supporters are quite certain that such will not happen with Hillary in the White House but blogger-political science professor Scott Lemieux begs to differ. In a piece in TNR (April 29th) he explains, convincingly IMO, “Why Hillary will govern more like Bernie than people think,” arguing that if the Dems as a whole move left, Hillary will too, as, “in the end, parties matter just as much as individuals.” If Hillary is to govern from the left, though, it will be important that Bernie’s supporters stay mobilized and work within the Democratic Party, so Markos Moulitsas—founder-editor of the Über-partisan Daily Kos—exhorted them to do in a commentary after last Tuesday’s primaries.

Foreign policy is sure to be an issue in the campaign, particularly in view of what Trump has had to say on the subject, notably in his speech last Wednesday, which analyst Fred Kaplan trenchantly called “the most senseless, self-contradicting foreign policy speech by any major party’s presidential nominee in modern history” and “even more incoherent than his impromptu ramblings.” The Donald’s speech, needless to say, got low marks across the political spectrum (the NYT editorial on the speech has this great line: “When one has a hammer, everything looks like a nail. And when one’s experience is limited to real estate deals, everything looks like a lease negotiation.”).

Hillary, ça va de soi, has no such credibility problem when it comes to foreign policy, though lefties have been denouncing her as a neocon warmonger for years. And more grist was added to the left’s Hillary hysteria mill with the NYT Magazine’s widely read article last week on “How Hillary Clinton became a hawk,” with author Mark Landler observing that “[t]hroughout her career [Hillary Clinton] has displayed instincts on foreign policy that are more aggressive than those of President Obama—and most Democrats.” Landler’s piece—an excerpt of his newly published book, which looks most interesting—quite literally struck terror into one well-known Hillary-hating Bernie Bro academic political science friend—otherwise a smart guy but who has a severe case of Clinton Derangement Syndrome—who asserted on social media that “I really do fear for what she would do as president.” He and other lefties have indeed been of the intimate conviction that Hillary, the day she takes office, will look around for a war to start, that she will order the Pentagon to attack some country, probably in the Middle East but maybe anywhere. And why will she do this? Because she likes war. And she’s Hillary Clinton. C’est tout.

People need to get a grip. Landler’s piece did indeed reveal Hillary’s deep respect for the men and women of the US military, her internationalism, and greater propensity than President Obama to advocate the use of force in situations where the option is seriously on the table. In this, she may be a little more hawkish than other establishment Democrats but, I would venture, no more so than her husband was, or than Al Gore or John Kerry likely would have been had they been elected POTUS. Her 2002 Iraq vote is a big stain—and that lefties do not forgive her for (though it wasn’t redhibitory for them in John Kerry’s case in ’04)—but would she have attacked Iraq had she been in the Oval Office at the time? I doubt it. Really.

Hillary is also being pilloried by lefties for the Libya intervention—for which she was the leading proponent in the administration—and particularly for the failure to adequately anticipate and deal with the aftermath. Personally, I thought Libya was a close call but tilted toward intervention; and once Obama made the decision, I was 100% gung-ho. As for the post-regime change planning, sure, this didn’t happen the way it should have, but it didn’t seem that way at the time. And I don’t recall any of today’s Monday morning Cassandra quarterbacks warning of it back then. Syria: Hillary was the most interventionist actor in the Obama administration through 2012. I didn’t share her viewpoint. But the Syria policy she advocated was not beyond the pale among Democrats—and was indeed that of certain Syria specialists whose analyses I respect. And Israel and her AIPAC speech? Ouf. So what? What difference does it make?

In short, Hillary is getting a bum rap from the left on foreign policy. In point of fact, she is an establishment Democrat and mainstream Hamiltonian—in the Walter Russell Mead sense—in her foreign policy positioning. Though I have largely sided with Obama in his foreign policy decisions, I don’t have a problem with Hillary in this domain. And Hillary’s “toughness”—how I hate that word—on foreign policy will likely draw Republican defectors in November—who will discount her progressive positions on domestic issues (banking on the GOP holding the House and thereby acting as a brake). And the more Republican defectors, the wider her margin of victory will be and, consequently, the better Democratic candidates down-ballot are likely to perform. So let’s keep our eyes on the big picture.

But “[i]s Hillary Clinton really the foreign policy super-hawk she is portrayed to be?” so asks Vox’s Max Fisher? Answer: it’s a complicated question but, in short, no, she is, in fact, not; and she is far more dovish than any of the remaining Republican candidates. And, pour mémoire, she wholeheartedly supported the Iran deal and secretly pushed for normalization with Cuba for years before it finally happened.

All this being said, though, I still feel more comfortable with Bernie’s foreign policy vision as spelled out by UMass Amherst political science professor and informal Bernie adviser Charli Carpenter, in a post (April 27th) on WaPo’s Monkey Cage blog.

On the subject of foreign policy, did one see Obama’s speech in Hannover last Monday, in which he spoke about Europe? If not, watch it here. He’s excellent, comme d’hab’.

Some have expressed concern about Hillary being indicted for the email business, which would put a serious crimp in her candidacy indeed. But in point of fact, she most likely won’t be indicted and shouldn’t be, as Richard O. Lempert—the Eric Stein Distinguished University Professor of Law and Sociology emeritus at the University of Michigan—explained in an “objective legal analysis” in The American Prospect (March 20th), asserting that “[t]here is no reason to think that Clinton committed any crimes with respect to the use of her email server.” And how likely is it that the Obama administration’s Justice Department will legally pursue Hillary over this?

As for the emails, The Guardian’s political columnist Jill Abramson read through them, leading her to assert (March 28th) that “[t]his may shock you: Hillary Clinton is fundamentally honest,” adding that “I investigated Hillary and know she likes a ‘zone of privacy’ around her[; t]his lack of transparency, rather than any actual corruption, is her greatest flaw.” And then, FWIW, there’s the témoignage by an anonymous activist, who wrote that “[she] was one of the most ardent Hillary haters on the planet…until [she] read her emails.”

And Hillary’s speeches at Goldman Sachs and her stonewalling on releasing the transcripts? MoJo’s Kevin Drum is pretty sure there’s nothing there—that, as an issue, it’s one big nothing—and that “[e]veryone knows why [she] won’t release her Goldman Sachs speeches.”

And then there was Charles Koch saying that he could just possibly vote for Hillary in November, which prompted an “aha!” from Hillary-hating gauchistes on social media (which I saw with my own eyes). But The New Yorker’s Jane Mayer, who has written the most important book out there on the Koch brothers and their malevolent influence in the GOP—and in American politics more generally—dismissed that out of hand (April 26th), saying “Koch for Clinton? Not a chance.”

On the Republicans, just four points. First, though I am not displeased by the prospect of Trump’s nomination—in view of the debacle it will bring about for the GOP in November—I nonetheless adhere to Slate columnist Jamelle Bouie’s sentiment (April 27th) on Trump’s apparent triumph, which is “Don’t ever get used to it: This is unprecedented and terrifying.” Second, in case one missed it, read Paul Krugman’s April 25th column on the “The 8 A.M. Call,” on how we would really not want to have Trump or Ted Cruz at the helm in the event of a sudden global financial meltdown. Third, Trumpism is the likely future of the Republican Party—and Clintonism of the Democrats—as Michael Lind argued (April 16th) in the NYT. Fourth, as Politico reports (April 29th), both Dem and GOP insiders are convinced that “Clinton [will] crush Trump in November.” Voilà.

UPDATE: There have actually been a few analyses of Trump’s foreign policy speech by serious persons that have been less dismissive of it than those of most mainstream commentators. E.g. Jacob Heillbrun—editor of The National Interest—explained in Politico (April 27th) “Why [he] hosted Trump’s foreign policy speech.” Writing in TPM (April 28th), John Judis asserted that “Trump’s foreign policy speech should be discussed not dismissed.” Salon’s foreign affairs columnist Patrick L. Smith submitted (April 28th) that “Trump opposed Iraq, Hillary voted for war: Let’s take his foreign policy vision seriously,” further opining that “Trump gets some things very wrong, but [the] speech was still daring, spot on and [an] important contrast with Hillary.” And the Financial Times’s Edward Luce weighed in on the speech in a column (May 1st) entitled “Donald Trump’s war with best and brightest,” in which he asserted that “[Trump’s] confused foreign policy still offers a legitimate contrast to Clinton’s.”

John Judis has another column on Trump in TPM (May 1st), BTW, this on his economic vision: “Trumponomics explained – sort of.”

2nd UPDATE: NYT columnist Ross Douthat has had a couple of good pieces of late. One, “The idea of Trump’s electability,” examines the intriguing question of why Republican primary voters are about to deliver the nomination to a candidate who is manifestly one of the most unelectable of the 22 or however many it was who entered the race, when electability has always been an important criteria for voters in primaries. In the other, “Give us a king!,” Douthat discusses the increasing support in the American electorate for a strong presidency, or what he calls “executive branch Caesarism.” Money quote: “That clamor [for a strong executive] is loudest from the Trumpistas and their dear leader. Donald Trump is clearly running to be an American caudillo, not the president of a constitutional republic, and his entire campaign is a cult of personality in the style of (the pro-Trump) Vladimir Putin.”

3rd UPDATE: University of Nebraska political science profs John R. Hibbing and Elizabeth Theiss-Morse have a must-read post (May 2nd) on WaPo’s Monkey Cage blog, “A surprising number of Americans dislike how messy democracy is. They like Trump.” According to their data, the “surprising number of Americans [who] feel dismissive about such core features of democratic government as deliberation, compromise and decision-making by elected, accountable officials” are far more Republican than Democrat.

In this vein, Andrew Sullivan has a pessimistic, almost alarmist article in the May 2nd issue of New York magazine on—what else?—the Trump phenomenon: “Democracies end when they are too democratic: And right now, America is a breeding ground for tyranny.” Money quote (one among a number):

And so those Democrats who are gleefully predicting a Clinton landslide in November need to both check their complacency and understand that the Trump question really isn’t a cause for partisan Schadenfreude anymore. It’s much more dangerous than that. Those still backing the demagogue of the left, Bernie Sanders, might want to reflect that their critique of Clinton’s experience and expertise — and their facile conflation of that with corruption — is only playing into Trump’s hands. That it will fall to Clinton to temper her party’s ambitions will be uncomfortable to watch, since her willingness to compromise and equivocate is precisely what many Americans find so distrustful. And yet she may soon be all we have left to counter the threat. She needs to grasp the lethality of her foe, moderate the kind of identity politics that unwittingly empowers him, make an unapologetic case that experience and moderation are not vices, address much more directly the anxieties of the white working class—and Democrats must listen.

And the concluding paragraph

For Trump is not just a wacky politician of the far right, or a riveting television spectacle, or a Twitter phenom and bizarre working-class hero. He is not just another candidate to be parsed and analyzed by TV pundits in the same breath as all the others. In terms of our liberal democracy and constitutional order, Trump is an extinction-level event. It’s long past time we started treating him as such.

Sullivan’s article is long—almost 8,000 words—but is worth the read.

4th UPDATE: Bruce Bartlett has reposted on his Facebook page his thoughts (here) on Trump’s candidacy dated last August 30th. They were prescient and worth rereading today.

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