On building walls

The New Neo Posted on by

There are walls, and then there are walls.

Robert Frost wrote:

Something there is that doesn’t love a wall,
That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it,
And spills the upper boulders in the sun;
And makes gaps even two can pass abreast.
The work of hunters is another thing:
I have come after them and made repair
Where they have left not one stone on a stone,
But they would have the rabbit out of hiding,
To please the yelping dogs. The gaps I mean,
No one has seen them made or heard them made,
But at spring mending-time we find them there.
I let my neighbour know beyond the hill;
And on a day we meet to walk the line
And set the wall between us once again.
We keep the wall between us as we go.
To each the boulders that have fallen to each.
And some are loaves and some so nearly balls
We have to use a spell to make them balance:
“Stay where you are until our backs are turned!”
We wear our fingers rough with handling them.
Oh, just another kind of out-door game,
One on a side. It comes to little more:
There where it is we do not need the wall:
He is all pine and I am apple orchard.
My apple trees will never get across
And eat the cones under his pines, I tell him.
He only says, “Good fences make good neighbours.”
Spring is the mischief in me, and I wonder
If I could put a notion in his head:
“Why do they make good neighbours? Isn’t it
Where there are cows? But here there are no cows.
Before I built a wall I’d ask to know
What I was walling in or walling out,
And to whom I was like to give offence.
Something there is that doesn’t love a wall,
That wants it down.” I could say “Elves” to him,
But it’s not elves exactly, and I’d rather
He said it for himself. I see him there
Bringing a stone grasped firmly by the top
In each hand, like an old-stone savage armed.
He moves in darkness as it seems to me,
Not of woods only and the shade of trees.
He will not go behind his father’s saying,
And he likes having thought of it so well
He says again, “Good fences make good neighbours.”

Originally, I had thought to offer just an excerpt from the poem. But then I decided to put the whole thing up there because—as so often is the case with Frost—there’s so much food for thought in it. The speaker in “Mending Wall” is someone who represents the view that walls might not be a good thing to have. His neighbor represents the more conservative view, in the old-timey—not necessarily political—sense of “traditionalist.”

The two lines in the poem that made me think of it recently are these: “Before I built a wall I’d ask to know/What I was walling in or walling out…” Indeed, that’s an important distinction that many people who are part of the “don’t love a wall” political contingent forget when it suits their purposes.

Now, I can’t say I always love a wall. But I’m New Englander enough to know that good fences ordinarily do make good neighbors—or, rather, they can help keep goodish neighbors from going bad.

Walls mark boundaries and help avoid disputes. Walls are also symbolic in terms of personal boundaries—in other words, “don’t get so close that I feel smothered by you; I require some privacy.” Neighbors are often so close physically that each can feel invaded by the other if they aren’t careful to respect personal boundaries as well as property ones.

Different areas of the country and the world have different standards and customs about this. In New England, we’re known for being a bit standoffish. That can be bad when you’re new in the neighborhood and expecting the welcome wagon. It can be good if you’re a bit reserved and like your privacy. But fences don’t keep people from being close if they want to be.

Which brings us, of course, to countries. The “walling in or walling out” distinction is all-important there, and often glossed over by the left. Berlin Wall, border wall with Mexico, Israel/Palestinian wall—all the same, all pernicious. The left would like you (or the US, or Israel) to be forced to have your boundaries overstepped, although at the same time they’re not above living in gated communities themselves.

The Berlin Wall was to keep people inside a country, not out. The purpose was to make the country itself—East Germany—a prison, and escape punishable by death. The purpose was to end liberty for its own citizens.

Building a border wall to keep people from another country out, on the other hand, is protective. One can argue with whether it’s necessary or not in any given case. But it is well within the rights of any country to build one, and it does not change the rights or restrict the liberty of its own citizens. The only thing it does is protect the country’s territory from people from an adjacent country who want to enter without permission of the host country. And for the most part, those people are also still free to visit that country and even to emigrate there if they follow the rules of the country they want to enter.

Seems pretty reasonable to me.

Such boundary walls are actually quite common around the world, as you can see, and there are myriad reasons for having them (scroll down at the link for the very long list). Is it only the US that’s not allowed to have a wall?

[NOTE: By the way, regarding whether an actual wall could be built along the entire border, I tackled that question in August of 2015.]

Reassuring evidence that we’re in the best of hands

The New Neo Posted on by

NOT.

Reports of an alert about a missile threat to Hawaii ricocheted across social media Saturday and caused anxiety in the state. But authorities said the alert was false and sent as an error…

According to screenshots, the alert read, “BALLISTIC MISSILE THREAT INBOUND TO HAWAII. SEEK IMMEDIATE SHELTER. THIS IS NOT A DRILL.”

Well, I’m used to ignoring a great deal of what my computers tell me: Your phone is infected by a virus and unless you go here something terrible will happen etc. etc. etc…

But man, that must have been a scary thing to receive. It’s frightening even to think that it takes some error like this to correct such glaring flaws in the system:

Hawaii’s Governor David Ige, who said he was meeting with authorities to determine what caused the alert, said on remarks broadcast on CNN that an employee had pressed the wrong button. “This change in shift routine happens three times a day, seven days a week, 365 days out of the year. For the most part it occurs flawlessly. There was an error today and we will be investigating and changing procedure so that we can avoid this from ever happening again,” Ige said.

Seems to have been a local Hawaii thing. Gremlins?

The special qualities of ballet dancer Margot Fonteyn [Part I]

The New Neo Posted on by

British ballerina Margot Fonteyn was never showy, never athletic, never gymnastic. She was restrained, delicate and refined, light as air. She seemed like a real (although ideal) human being rather than an infinitely stretchable creature with elastic for connective tissue.

Fonteyn’s biggest strengths were acting ability and charm, which Fonteyn had in particular abundance. They made up for her lack of the sort of modern-day high extensions I’ve referred to as “extreme ballet”:

Although many arts contain elements of the physical””for example, musicians must use their bodies to coax a glorious sound from inanimate instruments””dance has always been the art that most seamlessly merges the athletic with the esthetic as well as the dramatic. But balance must be there or it becomes an empty physical exercise (what some of my dance teachers used to call circus tricks or nightclub acts), sensational in the physical sense, empty of the soul that makes it all meaningful.

Fonteyn was the antithesis of extreme ballet. Her leg never went very high, and I doubt that she could even land a job in the corps de ballet in one of today’s ballet companies due to this gymnastics failure. Somehow she managed to get the job done in terms of technique and doing the steps, perhaps through sheer willpower, but it was her perfectly-placed torso and arms and her expressive face that carried the day. They were the calm and serene center from which she danced.

No one moves anything like this today. Film has trouble capturing what Fonteyn actually did (or for that matter, what any dancer does). But I think this clip shows you at least a small glimpse of what was so very special about seeing Fonteyn in person. It’s a brief excerpt from “Sleeping Beauty,” often thought to have been her greatest role:

I’m not sure how old Fonteyn was in that clip, but I believe it was taken fairly early on (the narrator describes an opening night in 1949, when she would have been 30, but I think the film was taken somewhat later). Here she is again in the same ballet; this was in 1965 when Fonteyn was 45 or 46, geriatric in ballet years.

But watch Fonteyn’s backbend at 20:13-20:21 in the short excerpt I’ve cued up here. It’s not just some athletic feat, although it is an athletic feat. It’s a feat of timing and expression and line—how she pushes it beyond what you expect, how she sustains it, and then how she suddenly snaps right out of it. Note also the restraint and yet the beauty of her not-very-high arabesques:

As a contrast, take a look at the same moment performed by modern-day Diana Vishneva, a Maryinsky star who has often appeared in this country with American Ballet Theater. Vishneva can dance rings around Fonteyn in the technical sense, and she’s not devoid of artistry—she’s certainly not a mere automaton. But the line and the timing of Fonteyn in that backbend—a physical feat that ought to be a piece of cake for Vishneva—are nowhere to be seen. If you blink you might even miss the backbend moment; it begins at about :50 and ends just a few seconds later:

The role is supposed to be that of a 16-year-old at her birthday, but Vishneva looks so solemn and intent on getting that leg way up there, and keeping secure in her balances (neither thing really is a problem for her) that she forgets to show us why she’s dancing—the joy of it. This is what I so often see in too many dancers today: a sequential posing, an overriding attention to and awareness of the beautiful picture they are making with each separate step rather than a liquid and expressive flow of movement. Smiles that come and go often seem fake, alternating with a sometimes-tense preparation for the physical feat that is about to come.

[NOTE: To be continued in Part II, coming soon.]

Another changer worth reading about

The New Neo Posted on by

Another in a long long line of change stories.

The title? “Coming Out As A Republican To My Democrat Family Went Worse Than Coming Out Gay.”

No surprise to anyone who knows a lot about what happens to political changers, but it was probably a surprise to him. Here’s a quote:

I am not a sex offender. But a number of my friends no longer have time to see me. Lifelong acquaintances now regard me with fear and distrust. I have been unfriended en masse on social media and excoriated by friends who deign to remain. And I have been singly excluded from social gatherings when the rest of my family was invited.

No, I am not a sex offender. I am something even worse than that. I am a Donald Trump supporter…

When, in my adulthood, the liberal policy agenda became problematic for me, I found myself at a loss. I began to raise questions with my family and friends, and met resistance. It was not because my concerns were particularly inappropriate; I was just not supposed to be questioning at all…

For the first time in my progressive life, standing up for the values that I most strongly espouse””truth, morality, self-reliance, boundaries, tolerance, and a healthy dose of Jewish skepticism””was damaging my reputation and character. When I publicly opposed my dad’s support of the Iran deal, I was admonished. I had few friends with whom I could have a civil political conversation: one stopped all communication with me for two weeks because Trump won the presidency.

If Republicans are bad, Trump is nothing less than Satan embodied. Post-election family gatherings devolved into group Trump-bashing, which intensified as more rumors of my dubious views wafted across town. I did not even bother going to gay pride because it was fused with a Resist march. If you do not want to impeach our president, you have no place in gay life.

Please read the whole thing.

And if the author, whose name is Adam Levine, happens to come across my blog, I bid him welcome and invite him to read all my posts on the topic of political change, many of which deal with the social ostracism factor. It’s not an easy thing to experience, and it can be a real shock.

Immigration: the heart of the matter

The New Neo Posted on by

One of the better s***hole essays is this one by Roger Kimball, which explores a slightly different territory than most:

But sometimes, outrage is but a patina of indignation whose chief motive is incontinent delight. Which is it for the talking heads at CNN? Are they genuinely morally offended by the president’s comments? Or are they really absolutely delighted by the opportunity he has given them to say “shithole” over and over again while also running endless chyrons reminding viewers that the president referred to (if he did refer to) Haiti, El Salvador, etc., as “shithole countries” from which we should not seek immigrants?

I think it is the latter, and I believe there are two parts to the delight…

This is what I was referring to when I wrote, “But there’s no question that Trump’s choice of language made his enemies hoot and holler with glee…”—that “glee” being the “delight” of which Kimball writes.

Once it was clear that Donald Trump had done the unthinkable and won the 2016 election, the opposition was determined to prove him to be unfit for office and remove him from it, and anything Trump himself did to help their cause (or that they thought might help their cause) has been welcomed and celebrated. Sometimes they’ve had to invent things, but Trump’s often supplied them himself—although many of these incidents haven’t worked out for the left quite like they thought they would, have they?

I believe that this is the reason that Senator Durbin,—who was almost certainly the source of the s***hole story in the first place—spilled the beans on Trump. After all, “s***hole” wasn’t a public utterance, and if (as Paul Mirengoff points out at Powerline) Trump’s calling certain third-world countries “s***holes” was likely to “hurt America, then Sen. Durbin and others in the room should have kept Trump’s statement to themselves.” But there is little doubt that the opportunity to hurt Trump and the GOP trumped just about every other consideration.

Kimball goes on to say:

Which brings me to my second question: Was the president right to question the desirability of accepting immigrants from places like Haiti? Let’s leave his colorful language to one side. That was just a bit of rhetorical salsa on the burrito. The coarsening of language in the public square (and the private hearth) means that virtually anyone not cloistered hears and/or utters much ruder language almost daily.

The real issue is whether we justly prefer immigrants from some places over others.

I would say that the answer is an unequivocal Yes. Of course we do…

He is further correct that the Haitis of the world are conspicuously undesirable places: crime- and disease-ridden trous de merde that we may pity and may endeavor to help but that are not necessarily good sources of helpful immigrants.

And here we come to a second curiosity in the preening and ecstatic outrage over the president’s comment. Everyone, near enough, knows that he was telling a home truth. It was outrageous not because he said something crude that was untrue. Quite the contrary: it was outrageous precisely because it was true but intolerable to progressive sensitivities.

In other words, the potency of taboo is still strong in our superficially rational culture. There are some things””quite a few, actually, and the list keeps growing””about which one cannot speak the truth or, in many cases, even raise as a subject for discussion without violating the unspoken pact of liberal sanctimoniousness.

There’s a lot packed in there, and I suggest you read the entire essay. But I think that Kimball misses a big point connected with the deeper immigration controversy that (as I indicated yesterday) has been going on for long, long before Trump.

This is the real heart of the matter: what should our immigration policy be? Is the idea to let in the people we think would be best for the country, and do it at a rate that doesn’t overwhelm the people already here either culturally or economically? And if so, how do we best go about vetting people who would like to enter, in order to get the best result for the US? Does it matter what country the immigrants come from? Should we ask more questions about their ideology? What about their education and skills? Don’t we care about that?

Or is the idea to take in the greatest possible number—and even encourage more and more and more immigration—of people from the world’s most-failed countries (call them s***holes or call them failed-states or call them whatever you want to call them), the less-skilled and more downtrodden the better?

The first option is roughly the position of the GOP, although the party is split between that faction and a group that favors the second option, which is very roughly the position of the Democrats. So although Kimball wrote “Everyone, near enough, knows that [Trump] was telling a home truth” I don’t think that he’s completely correct there. I think that many people believe that countries such as Haiti are the very best sources of illegal immigrants, not despite but because of their failed-nation status. Many people (some of them for religious reasons) believe that it is very much in our interests—both our moral interests and even (at times) our economic interests because they would provide a source of cheap labor. For Democrats, there’s a practical part as well in that they believe it would serve their own electoral interests because they predict that such immigrants will be reliably Democratic voters.

It’s a real disagreement, and it has many parts. I touched on the religious aspects of the issue in this previous post. Here’s an excerpt:

A great many Christians seem to be arguing that we Westerners have a duty to accept all the refugees coming from war-torn countries such as Syria, or those in economic distress such as illegal immigrants from Mexico, whether the “we” be individuals here or in Europe. I’ve read many such arguments on blogs in posts and comments, and have seen them offered by talking heads on TV.

To me as a non-Christian, it is a puzzling argument. To me it seems that the prescription to give to charity, to help the needy, never requires that one help all the needy to the point of beggaring yourself. Nor does it require putting yourself in personal jeopardy. In other words, although Christianity has long admired the saintliness of martyrdom, it does not require it of individuals and certainly not of societies.

I don’t mean to imply that Democrats’ motives are especially pure here; I already have said that part of it is very practical for them because they think the vast majority of such immigrants will become Democrats. But there is the moral, compassionate, and sometimes even religious element as well—and that latter piece operates quite a bit for some in the middle or on the right who support the Democratic position on immigration. Trump’s words were offensive to them not just because they were vulgar, but because they go against that philosophy.

My own position is that the country and self-interest comes first, although there is certainly room for some compassion. No country is obliged to take in anybody. On the whole, immigration does help the United States, but not unrestricted immigration. We need to be careful about the ideology and character of those we let in. To me that has zero to do with race and everything to do with the actual individuals who are coming here and whether they believe in the principles on which America was founded, and whether they are likely to become good citizens. I don’t think that’s an easy thing to determine, however. As I wrote in that earlier post:

There is a saying, “charity begins at home” that has these origins:

The notion that a man’s family should be his foremost concern is expressed in 1 Timothy 5:8, King James Bible, 1611:

But if any prouide not for his owne, & specially for those of his owne house, hee hath denied the faith, and is worse then an infidel.

John Wyclif had expressed the same idea as early as 1382, in Of Prelates, reprinted in English Works, 1880:

Charite schuld bigyne at hem-self.

So it seems clear that helping everyone in need is not possible in the real world. Nor does helping people require that you take them into your own home, either in small numbers or large.

Another principle to remember is that generally any behavior that is rewarded will increase in frequency. So, issue an open invitation to your house saying that all who come will be fed and clothed there and given money, and see what happens if you broadcast it throughout the entire world.

Those are the real issues, and the rest is a distraction.

How far will a psychopathic liar go? The case of Sharee Miller

The New Neo Posted on by

How far will a psychopathic liar go? Very far.

In a discussion yesterday about the ways in which unscrupulous people can be willing to lie, I was reminded of the story of Sharee Miller. If this were a movie it might be considered unbelievable. But it actually happened:

Speaking of movies, the story has been the inspiration for a made-for-TV movie that roughly parallels it in plot.

In 2016 Miller finally confessed to her guilt, by the way.

Here are more details, which will only make sense if you’ve watched the video or already know about the case:

Between her visits to Reno, Miller and Cassaday kept in touch through the Internet. They sent each other hundreds of e-mail and spent hours corresponding in private chat rooms. The two almost always used the same screen names: She was “Jerry’s Fool.” And he was “Sharee’s Fool.”

“Your fool for life, Jerry,” Cassaday would sign off.

“Love, your brat, Sharee,” she’d answer.

In a Sept. 23, 1999, chat session, Cassaday read that Miller had been pregnant, that he was the father, and he pressed for details.

“This next part will be hard. I lost my baby, Jerry.”

“No,” Cassaday responded.

“I never thought I would ever tell you that he hits. I got in trouble because I was with you.”

Cassaday demanded more details.

“Sharee, you can tell me now, or in person when I beat it out of him,” he wrote.

“Where did he hit you?” Cassaday demanded.

“Jerry, I can’t tell you.”

Cassaday pushed for more.

“He didn’t hit me, Jerry; he raped me. I lost the baby because of the force.”

The next day Cassaday wrote: “The things you told me ripped me in half. No one, I mean no one, is going to get away with the things he has done to you.”

The next month Miller wrote that she was pregnant again, this time with twins by Jerry.

“Baby, it’s all gonna be fine soon,” Cassaday tapped out on his computer. “We will live a wonderful happy life together.”

Soon, after Cassaday had moved back to Missouri, he received electronic pictures of the sonograms.

“I love the e-mails you sent me about the baby,” Cassaday wrote. “Please don’t stop sending me this stuff. I love you so much honey.”

Jerry Cassaday opened his e-mail Nov. 5 to a message written under Bruce Miller’s screen name. (The prosecution presented evidence to prove that Sharee Miller had posed as her husband, using his screen name, to send the following messages purportedly from Bruce.)

“SHAREE IS GROWING FAT WITH TWO BASTARDS IN HER,” the message read. “SHE HAS DECIDED SHE DOESN’T LIKE THE EXCESS WEIGHT AND IS GOING TO GET AN ABORTION.” The e-mail taunted Cassaday for six more paragraphs.

Cassaday called hospitals in Flint and Sharee Miller’s cell phone with no luck.

“I’m beginning to worry. Where are you honey?? I love you,” Cassaday wrote in a Nov. 6 e-mail.

At 2 p.m., Cassaday found this message on his computer: “This is Sharee. I am going away for a few days. I will contact you next week sometime.”

This e-mail, again purportedly from Bruce, greeted Cassaday the next afternoon:

“WELL, JERRY, SHE TOLD ME TO LET YOU KNOW SHE WOULD BE HOME SOON. I THINK THE ABORTION WENT FINE. SHE SOUNDED LIKE SHE FELT BETTER KNOWING SHE WASN’T HAVING ANY MORE KIDS. THANK YOU FOR MAKING MY RELATIONSHIP WITH MY WIFE BETTER.”

Later that day, Cassaday went back online and found electronic photographs that seemed to show Sharee had suffered a horrific beating. (The prosecution presented evidence to show that these photos were fabricated by defendant Miller).

On November 89, 1999, at around 6:30 p.m., Bruce Miller was shot with at 12-gauge shotgun. Bruce had just gotten off the phone with Sharee. Forensic and medical testimony established that the blast tore into Miller’s neck and upper chest, killed him instantly and knocked him out of the chair onto an oily piece of carpet.

The email and instant messaging contents were read to the jury by two deputies. This was their testimony regarding a chat session the day before the murder:

Deputy #2 [reading Sharee’s messages]: (In court) (Reading) “Jerry, I am scared. Jerry, if this don’t work, he will hurt me bad.”

Deputy #1 [Reading Jerry’s responses]: (In court) (Reading) “It’ll work. What is the fastest way into the yard from 75?”

Deputy #2: (In court) (Reading e-mail) “75 to Mount Morris Road exit. Now you need to listen to me for a minute. I will call Bruce at 5 PM.

Deputy #1: (In court) (Reading) “OK.”

Deputy #2: (In court) (Reading) “Is the gun loud?”

Deputy #1: (In court) (Reading) “Somewhat.”

Deputy #2: (In court) (Reading) “Just do it and get the hell out of there.”

Deputy #1: (In court) (Reading) “I want him to know who I am.”

Deputy #2: (In court) (Reading) “Jerry, please.”

Deputy #1: (In court) (Reading) “He will know.”

Deputy #2: (In court) (Reading) “He will know.”

Deputy #1: (In court) (Reading) But not for long.”

Deputy #2:(In court) (Reading) “Are you going to be able to live with this the rest of your life? Because I can.”

Deputy #1: (In court) (Reading) “I love you. Yes, I can.”

Prosecutors argued the actual murder took place almost as it was scripted in that instant message exchange…

According to evidence presented by the prosecution, just about everything that Jerry Cassaday was told about Bruce and Sharee Miller was wrong. Sharee Miller could not have become pregnant. She had a tubal ligation after the birth of her youngest child in the mid-1990s, court records show. The sonogram pictures that Cassaday received also were a fraud. Prosecutors pointed out that they were dated 1994.

The prosecution discounted allegations of spousal abuse, too. Flint area police agencies had never responded to any complaint of domestic violence at the Miller household. Bruce Miller had no criminal record, no known ties to organized crime. Neighbors described Bruce Miller as a loving family man.

After her husband’s murder, Sharee Miller received the junkyard, which she subsequently sold, about $16,000 in the couple’s bank accounts, a little stock and $80,000 in insurance, according to probate court records and investigators.

Heart of darkness.

The s***storm about the s***hole countries

The New Neo Posted on by

Never a dull moment.

The latest furor is over certain remarks that Trump is alleged to have uttered during a meeting about immigration with Dick Durbin, Lindsay Graham, and “other government officials.” His remarks were criticized variously for both form and content: that the words were vulgar, and that they were bigoted.

I would love to be able to quote exactly what Trump said, but unfortunately we don’t know exactly what he said because his remarks were unrecorded. The meeting was not public nor were reporters there.

I always very much prefer to deal with actual quotes because anything said by anyone can (and probably will) be twisted, misquoted, or misinterpreted. I’ve read many different characterizations of what Trump said at the meeting and they differ somewhat from each other. But with that caveat I’ll discuss the situation as best I can, assuming for the sake of argument that the reports are at least somewhat true.

Of course, that may be a false assumption. Trump has denied portions of the stories:

President Donald Trump on Friday denied that he had insulted Haitians amid an uproar about his reported description of African nations as “shithole countries” during a meeting on immigration with lawmakers.

“The language used by me at the DACA meeting was tough, but this was not the language used,” Trump tweeted. “What was really tough was the outlandish proposal made ”” a big setback for DACA!”

On Thursday, Trump used vulgar language during a meeting with a bipartisan group of senators at the White House, a Democratic aide briefed on the meeting told NBC News Thursday.

Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., who was present at the meeting and spoke to reporters Friday, confirmed the president’s remarks and said that the media reports were accurate. In recounting the meeting, Durbin suggested that Trump’s “shitholes” slur was aimed at African nations.

Two sources and Durbin said that when the discussion turned to Haiti, Trump questioned why Haitians should be given specific consideration.

“Why do we need more Haitians? Take them out,” he said, according to sources.

The White House issued a statement Thursday that did not deny the remarks. But Trump tweeted Friday that he never said “anything derogatory about Haitians other than Haiti is, obviously, a very poor and troubled country.”

“Never said ‘take them out.’ Made up by Dems. I have a wonderful relationship with Haitians. Probably should record future meetings ”” unfortunately, no trust!” he added.

What can we glean from that? Trump writes “this was not the language used,” and added “Never said ‘take them out.'” So perhaps “this was not the language used” refers to “take them out” rather than “s-hole.” Who knows?

More importantly, who cares? Plenty of people. I am quite certain that among my liberal acquaintances who already thought Trump to be a racist—in other words, most of them—this report cements the deal. Of course, they were never going to be Trump supporters anyway.

The most salient thing on which accounts seem to agree is that Trump referred to some countries—perhaps in Africa, perhaps also Haiti—as “shitholes” or “shithole countries.” Let’s go with that, anyway, as a good possibility.

The definition of the word is:

vulgar slang

An extremely dirty, shabby, or otherwise unpleasant place.

So the problem doesn’t seem to be the word’s definition; these are in fact pretty desperate countries in which to live, which is one of the main reasons so many people flee them in the first place. That’s what Trump is referring to in his later tweet where he writes, “Haiti is, obviously, a very poor and troubled country.”

There’s a problem, though, with the tone of the word “s-hole,” which is rightly called vulgar. That’s about decorum: what Trump said wasn’t couched in the sort of language presidents and diplomats ordinarily use in public, although it’s a good guess (and with some, a certainty—for example, LBJ) that they sometimes do in private. But although the meeting was private in a sense, Trump was nevertheless acting in his official capacity as president, with lawmakers from both parties in attendance. So he should have been on his guard and known that nothing like this remains private. Of course, maybe he didn’t care.

If Trump had originally said “dysfunctional” countries or “failed” countries or some other cliche more commonly used in public to refer to such countries that actually are a mess (such as in his later tweet about Haiti, “a poor and troubled country”), would it have mattered? Perhaps somewhat, although problems would probably have remained (I’ll get to those in a bit). But there’s no question that Trump’s choice of language made his enemies hoot and holler with glee, although it may have made quite a few supporters shrug and/or say “At last, someone’s telling it like it is.”

But tone was not the only issue here. And this is where we get into special difficulty because of the lack of a transcript or recording: what did Trump actually say and what did he actually mean? It appears that the context in which Trump is alleged to have said this was a discussion of a program that favors immigrants from these countries:

The lawmakers were describing how certain immigration programs operate, including one to give safe haven in the United States to people from countries suffering from natural disasters or civil strife…

The program that was being discussed at the White House is called Temporary Protected Status.

In November, the Trump administration decided to end the status for immigrants from Haiti and Nicaragua. It gave the approximately 59,000 Haitian immigrants who had been granted the status until July 2019 to return home or legalize their presence in the United States. Nicaraguans were given until January 2019.

This week, Trump moved to end the status for immigrants from El Salvador, which could result in 200,000 Salvadorans legally in the United States being deported, beginning in September of next year.

The bipartisan Senate plan would attempt to maintain TPS in return for ending or changing a “diversity” lottery program that has been aimed at allowing up to 50,000 people a year from countries with few emigres to the United States…

Another source familiar with the meeting said Trump was questioning why the United States should take in unskilled laborers from the countries under discussion and should instead welcome immigrants from nations that can offer skilled workers.

That seems to make sense, so let’s just assume that’s what Trump was getting at when he made the remarks in question. I think it’s likely that he was asking why we should favor people from these countries over those from more functional countries. It’s actually a good question although a non-PC one.

Liberals and the left (and some on the right, too, particularly some religious people) say that we actually have an increased duty to give safe haven to those who are from the more dysfunctional countries. On the other side, there are people who think our first duty is to make sure our country only accepts the number and type of immigrants we can safely handle, and that too vast an influx of people from dysfunctional countries at one time can lead to trouble and is unnecessary and unwarranted.

When I was very young, the rules about immigration were still governed by the The Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952, the passage of which had engendered a debate about our philosophy of immigration not unlike the debates we’ve had recently, although some of the details are different. The 1952 Act continued a previous quota system for immigrants from nations and regions based on their proportions already in the US population, and labor qualifications were part it:

The Act defined three types of immigrants: immigrants with special skills or relatives of U.S. citizens who were exempt from quotas and who were to be admitted without restrictions; average immigrants whose numbers were not supposed to exceed 270,000 per year; and refugees.

Harry Truman vetoed the bill; you can read his reasons why here. The gist of it was that he thought the bill was too inflexible in terms of reacting to crises and needlessly restrictive of immigration from Eastern Europe at the expense of Western Europe. But his veto was overridden and the bill enacted into law.

The remarks of one of the sponsors of the bill—Senator Pat McCarran, Democrat of Nevada—seem of special interest in light of more recent controversies:

I believe that this nation is the last hope of Western civilization and if this oasis of the world shall be overrun, perverted, contaminated or destroyed, then the last flickering light of humanity will be extinguished. I take no issue with those who would praise the contributions which have been made to our society by people of many races, of varied creeds and colors. … However, we have in the United States today hard-core, indigestible blocs which have not become integrated into the American way of life, but which, on the contrary are its deadly enemies. Today, as never before, untold millions are storming our gates for admission and those gates are cracking under the strain. The solution of the problems of Europe and Asia will not come through a transplanting of those problems en masse to the United States. … I do not intend to become prophetic, but if the enemies of this legislation succeed in riddling it to pieces, or in amending it beyond recognition, they will have contributed more to promote this nation’s downfall than any other group since we achieved our independence as a nation.

It’s certainly not difficult to recognize such sentiments, although they were made back in 1953. Interestingly enough, they came from one of Truman’s fellow Democrats, albeit one who was an ally of Joe McCarthy and was accused of having been anti-Semitic (McCarran’s statue may not be long for this world, either).

One of the challenges in discussions of immigration is how to voice very real concerns about the very real potential problems connected with the assimilation and absorption (or lack thereof) of immigrants from culturally different (in particular, “failed”) countries, and to differentiate those concerns from mindless bigotry. The left is pleased to call all such concerns bigotry, since they ordinarily emanate from Republicans.

Trump’s alleged s-hole remarks feed into the claims of those who say that Trump is both coarse and bigoted. What he actually said and what he actually meant by it has thus far been nearly lost in the tsunami of commentary on it. Will the entire episode actually matter in the end? Beats me.

[ADDENDUM: Ace suggests the “kinder, gentler term Garbage Pits of Wretched Refuse.”]

What could make a difference in Iran, and why it would be so hard to achieve it

The New Neo Posted on by

The most recent protests in Iran seem to have been successfully put down. This is a sad but not surprising thing, since Iran’s government is tyrannical and willing to use its muscle to stay in power:

Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei announced that the regime has squashed the uprising that took place the last few weeks. The protests left 22 people dead and 3,700 arrested.

The regime also disrupted internet communication, but more about that later.

Every time there are such demonstrations in Iran I have a glimmer of hope for the country although I remain profoundly pessimistic about the possibility for overthrowing an Iranian government that’s clamped down on the country for nearly forty years. I was also musing on how the revolution of 1979 managed to succeed where recent movements have failed, and in doing so I reread some of my much earlier posts chronicling that 1979 revolt. I urge you to read them: Part I (Khomeini), Part II (Bakhtiar), and Part III (Carter), as well as this one about Khomeini as a con man.

Here are some of the differences between then and now. It’s not meant to be an exclusive list.

Khomeini was an extremely popular and charismatic figure who attracted millions in the street on his return to the country from years of exile. That made for a huge popular movement in 1979 composed of his religious supporters. But that group was also joined by a large number of leftists and human rights democrats. Each of those latter two groups thought they would be able to use the mullahs in the revolution and then control them when it came time to form the government—but of course the bitter laugh was on the leftists and the democrats, who were ruthlessly crushed.

Khomeini was also smart—strategically and politically smart—and he knew how to say just the right thing to lull those two groups (and most of the West) into thinking he wouldn’t be much trouble for them (in that con man post, I give some examples of how he did this).

In addition to the personality of Khomeini and his particular gifts, Iran also had a Shah who’d earned the enmity of many groups by killing hundreds of protestors, and by modernizing the country. The first approach (violence and/or imprisonment of protesters, much like the current mullahs’ reaction to the recent demonstrations) alienated groups two and three (leftists and human rights democrats), while the second approach (modernization) alienated group one, the ultra-religious.

The turning point for the Shah was reached in several ways: President Carter put pressure on him to release hundreds of political prisoners in the name of human rights. Afterwards, when that softening had emboldened the anti-Shah forces, the Shah cracked down on them again, thus angering several groups once more. But the crucial turning point was when army and police turned on him and refused to treat the protestors as they had in the past. After the Shah resigned under pressure, Iran’s temporary leader Bakhtiar—an anti-Shah human-rights-advocating democrat—let Khomeini back into the country:

On Bakhtiar’s appointment as the new Prime Minister, Khomeini condemned him, of course, from his exile in France. But Khomeini continued to live his charmed life; Bakhtiar allowed him to return to Iran shortly thereafter. The reason? A combination of Bakhtiar’s own devotion to freedom of speech, and the Shah’s old conundrum: Khomeini was so popular that to try to ban him would cause such public unrest in Iran that it seemed counterproductive. In essence, Bakhtiar, although a far different ruler than the Shah, faced the same dilemma; he resolved it in favor of not suppressing the opposition.

Allowing Khomeini back into the country was like lighting a match in an oxygen-saturated room.

You can see the differences between then and now. At present there doesn’t seem to be any particular charismatic figure who commands great allegiance and respect among large numbers of people, unlike in 1979. Now the demonstrators can use the internet to organize, but the government also uses the internet quite effectively as a tool of repression:

Iranian authorities shut down social media channels and disrupted internet access as protests against the government spread across the country over the past two weeks, showing an unprecedented ability for the nation to shut down dissent online, according to a new human rights report.

The crackdown showed that the Iranian government has developed an increasingly sophisticated ability to restrict, block, and monitor internet, according to a new report released Wednesday by the Center for Human Rights in Iran (CHRI).

“As the government shut down access to the global internet, protestors desperately pleaded for a restoration of internet access,” Hadi Ghaemi, executive director of the CHRI, told Newsweek.

This is their lifeline to the outside world and to each other.” Ghaemi said the Iranian government wants to show off that “it can retain its repressive grip on society.”

Social media platforms like Instagram and the Telegram messaging app, the main methods of communication protesters used to mobilize other demonstrators to join them on the streets, were blocked during the protests. Virtual Private Networks (VPNs), and other tools Iranians frequently use to circumvent censorship and access banned platforms like YouTube and Facebook, were also blocked. On December 30, the government blocked all Iranians from the internet for at least a half an hour.

It is my distinct impression that the current anti-government movement isn’t as large, or at least not the current active movement, compared to 1979. It consists (as far as I know) of mainly three factions with a certain amount of overlap—what’s left of the left; the human rights advocates, many of them young, who want more liberty; and those who are dissatisfied with the economy (is that the largest group?). Minus the large religious faction that fed the revolution of 1979, I wonder whether these protests can ever reach critical mass. And I wonder what (if anything) would cause the police and army (especially the elite guards) to turn on the government, this time—the economy, perhaps?

Nor are the mullahs being pressured—at least, not successfully pressured—to give people more rights, a la Jimmy Carter. Economic sanctions on Iran were lifted in 2016, post-Iran-deal. Nevertheless, they are doing poorly economically, but mainly because of the leaders’ failure to throw the population enough fish to keep them happy enough:

…[T]he lifting of sanctions on Iran in January 2016 has failed to deliver an economic boom.

Instead, the non-oil part of the economy has continued to struggle, with unemployment officially put at around 12.5 percent ”“ in reality, much higher for Iran’s millions of young people ”“ and inflation running at nearly 10 percent.

“There is a crisis of expectations in Iran,” said Tamer Badawi, a research fellow at the Istanbul-based Al-Sharq Forum. “It is a deep sense of economic frustration.”

To ease that discontent, Rouhani may need to spend more government money on creating jobs, restrain inflation by supporting the rial exchange rate and do more to eradicate the widespread corruption which angers the protesters.

But all of those actions would involve policy change. Rouhani has been pursuing a conservative budget policy to bring Iran’s volatile state finances under control, part of his effort to create an attractive environment for foreign investors. Meanwhile, fighting corruption would risk a backlash from powerful interests hurt by a crackdown…

Emadi [Iranian economist based in London] blamed much of the economy’s poor performance on a deep-rooted structural issue: the influence of paramilitary bodies such as the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps as well as religious institutions on business.

Those interests, which according to some estimates control over 60 percent of assets in Iran, generally do not pay taxes and stifle competition from small private companies, blocking job creation, he said.

More:

Indeed, Iran has not produced up to its maximum OPEC quota for some months now. The industry needs serious investment to improve, but Iran does not have the cash or the equipment it needs. The Iranian people see their country’s money wasted on military engagements and terrorism abroad instead of being put to work for their own economic wellbeing, and this has been a major complaint of the protestors.

For Iran’s oil industry, foreign investment ”“ especially from oil companies with the expertise and capital to work on Iran’s mature oil fields ”” is needed. Many foreign companies expressed interest in working in Iran after sanctions were lifted, but they have found it very difficult to sign contacts with the NIOC. The Iranian government has established rules and policies that make it difficult and unattractive for foreign businesses.

In a way, then, it may be that lifting the sanctions has had a paradoxical effect. Poor economic conditions in the country prior to that could easily be blamed by the mullahs on the sanctions and the West. Now they themselves have been exposed as the cause of the problem.

I don’t see much changing in Iran until unrest—for whatever reason—reaches such overwhelming proportions that millions upon millions of people demonstrate and risk death, and the police and army finally turn on the mullah-controlled government and refuse to cooperate in stopping the protests. But I make no predictions as to when that might happen—except that I don’t think it will be any time soon, and maybe it will be never.

Immigration deals are in the works

The New Neo Posted on by

But we have little idea what they are or what their ultimate fate will be.

More here—or about as much, which is to say next to nothing that isn’t very changeable:

A bipartisan group of senators, led by Richard J. Durbin (D-Ill.), Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.) and Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.), said they were nearing a deal that resembled the framework Trump laid out for Democrats and Republicans ”” legal protections for dreamers; changes in security along the U.S.-Mexico border; restrictions on family migration policy, which some conservatives deride as “chain migration”; and changes to a diversity lottery system that grants visas to 55,000 people from countries with low immigration each year…

Durbin, Flake and Graham have been part of ultimately unsuccessful bipartisan immigration talks that date back to at least 2006.

In a joint news conference Wednesday…Trump was asked if he would support a DACA bill that did not include money for the border wall he has proposed.

“No, no, no,” he replied. “It’s got to include the wall. We need the wall for security. We need the wall for safety. We need the wall to stop the drugs from pouring in. I would imagine the people in the room, both Democrat and Republican ”” I really believe they are going to come up with a solution to the DACA problem that’s been going on for a long time, and maybe beyond that, immigration as a whole.”

I’d take it.

But I wonder whether, if Trump concedes on DACA, his base will be very, very angry or surprised. They shouldn’t be surprised, because—as I’ve indicated before—he’s always given contradictory signals on DACA, even during the campaign.

Political sex scandal du jour

The New Neo Posted on by

I couldn’t be more weary of these sex scandals. The latest concerns a guy who’s never been on my radar screen until today: Missouri governor Eric Greitens, who is alleged to have had an affair in 2015 and threatened to expose the woman if she ever revealed it:

In a recording obtained by News 4, a woman says she had a sexual encounter with Missouri Gov. Eric Greitens and that he tried to blackmail her to keep the encounter quiet.

The details were provided to News 4 by the woman’s ex-husband, claiming the sexual relationship happened between his now ex-wife and Greitens in March 2015. News 4 is not naming the woman and she has not made an on-the-record comment about the story.

According to the ex-husband, the recording was made just days after Greitens’ and the woman’s first sexual encounter. And also that Greitens took a photograph during the encounter to use as “blackmail” according to the ex-husband.

The affair was consensual and seemingly brief. That’s not the issue so much as the purported threat involving the photo, which supposedly no longer exists. The governor has admitted the affair but denied the rest. The woman herself refuses to go on the record, so the blackmail story rests on a recording of a phone call (a recording made by the husband, apparently) in which she’s telling the story to her then-husband, but soon-to-be ex-husband.

Was she telling the truth in that phone call? Maybe. We have absolutely no way of knowing. I do know, however, that this kind of situation—affairs, confessions to husbands or wives, etc.—is one in which people often lie through their teeth. As I said, I have no idea whether this particular woman was lying or truthful. But what might her motivation have been to lie? To get her husband’s sympathy and make herself out to be a victim.

She apparently didn’t know she was being recorded, either, for what that’s worth.

I have no idea how this one will shake down.

[NOTE: I wrote that Greitens had never been on my radar screen till today. But then I decided to do a search on the blog and discovered I had written one post involving him. But it wasn’t about Greitens the politician; the post pre-dated his entrance into politics. It was about his training as a Navy SEAL, about which he once wrote an article in the Wall Street Journal.]

The pup and the bird of prey

The New Neo Posted on by

Here’s a story about a dog snatched by an eagle:

Felipe Rodriguez says he thought he was hallucinating when an eagle snatched his sister’s little white dog from her yard, flapped its massive wings and disappeared over the trees.

Did he really just see that?

He had. Zoey the 8-pound bichon frise was gone, taken by a hungry raptor Tuesday afternoon not 50 feet from his sister’s house on the banks of the Lehigh River in Pennsylvania, Rodriguez said.

“It seemed like something from the ’Wizard of Oz,’” he told The Associated Press on Wednesday. “I’m a city boy. This doesn’t happen in my world.”

Zoey was playing in the fenced yard when he heard a loud screech, hurried to the door and looked out.

“The bird was holding onto the dog. There was flapping of wings and then it was gone,” said Rodriguez, a 50-year-old healthcare executive visiting from Chicago.

Let’s pause to check out that “Wizard of Oz” reference:

The special effects there are quite primitive compared to today, when it would all be done through computer animation. And yet I love the more primitive effects, which still send a shiver of fear through me in a magical way that modern, more realistic-looking movies don’t even begin to summon.

As in “The Wizard,” Zoey’s story has a happy ending:

Zoey’s rescuer was Christina Hartman, 51, who said she was driving on a snow-covered back road when she spotted a furry white lump ahead and pulled over to investigate.

“I notice this little frozen dog, icicles hanging from all over. It could hardly move,” Hartman said.

She scooped up the whimpering pooch, wrapped her in a blanket and took her home, feeding the dog two bowls of chicken-and-rice soup. Gradually, the bichon warmed up and began to show some spunk.

…She spotted Newhard’s public Facebook post Wednesday morning ”” Newhard had uploaded a photo of Zoey ”” and made an excited call.

“I said, ”˜It’s a miracle! I have your dog!’”

Zoey had bruises and a few missing patches of fur. It’s not clear how far the eagle might have carried the dog, but Rodriguez said he can’t believe Zoey survived.

“She is not really herself, but she is getting lots of love,” his sister, Newhard, texted the AP late Wednesday. “She doesn’t want to go out. … I really can’t blame her.”

Zoey must think there are eagles everywhere. My guess is that the dog was too heavy for the eagle and after a while she was dropped.

I have a special interest in this story, because I owned a little white dog much like a bichon in size and temperament. We had a fenced-in yard, too, and when he was a pup he was gamboling around in it one day when a workman came to look at our yard.

I can’t remember what the man was there for—I think it was an estimate on work that had something to do with trees—but he was a very laconic New Englander of the old-fashioned type. As he looked around the yard, he pointed at my adorable pup, who was no more than seven pounds at the time although full-grown he ended up being about 23.

“Better watch out,” the man said.

I had no idea what he was talking about, so I asked.

“Hawk could get ‘im,” he answered.

Much like Rodriguez, I was a city girl, and that didn’t happen in my world. But I could well imagine it happening, and so until my dog got big enough to fend for himself, I watched him like—like a hawk.

Here’s a photo of me holding him, probably taken when he was around 2 or 3. What a great dog he was! He lived for about fifteen years [1988-2003]:

Trump in control

The New Neo Posted on by

So, what’s up with Trump’s televised conference with Congressional leaders on bipartisan immigration reform?

You can watch the video here; it’s close to an hour long.

This can be looked at in one or both of two ways: content or process. I explained the difference here:

Content is just what it sounds like: the subject matter about which two people [or more]…are arguing [or speaking]. “Did you do the dishes last night?” Process is everything else””for example, the emotion with which something is said, the type of vocabulary used, tone, repetition, body language, and the unspoken subtext.

Rush Limbaugh believes the meeting was all about process, and that listeners should pretty much ignore the content:

It was a brilliantly conceived and flawlessly executed rebuttal to this stupid Wolff book. The pictures tell the tale. Trump is in the room dominating it, controlling it. He is cooperative. He is open. He’s tolerant. He’s understanding. He’s in total command of over 45 minutes of televised meeting on immigration. He is totally informed on the issues. He’s going back and forth with the Democrats on whatever mundane aspect of it they bring up. He is in total command of his position on this…

It was not about immigration.

It was to counter the Wolff book…

Just look at it this way, folks, if you’re nervous. What happened today really had nothing to do with immigration. He didn’t say anything today that he can’t walk back. He didn’t say anything today that he’s gonna have to walk back, either. It’s all good. In fact, it’s better than that. Wait till you see the Democrats when they figure out what just happened to them.

Or is Trump getting ready to betray his base on DACA? William Jacobson agrees with Limbaugh on the process part, but thinks “maybe” on the content part:

Having the networks broadcast extensive coverage of Trump being “presidential” was an amazing counter-narrative to the demented line pushed by Democrats and the media that Trump is a bumbling idiot who barely can string more than 3 words together and should be removed under the 25th Amendment. People got to watch him in action running a meeting and in control, the master of ceremonies presiding over the congressional leadership from both parties…

BUT, BUT, BUT

As I was watching it, all I could keep thinking was, “here comes amnesty.”

The code words were all there, particularly “comprehensive immigration reform.”

The “best” view I can take of this is that a DACA deal gets done without amnesty now, since Trump has dangled something bigger down the road, and in exchange Dems have to agree to fund the Wall and other substantial restrictions on chain migration and so on. Then nothing happens on “comprehensive” immigration reform.

The “worst” view is that the Amnesty Train is rolling down the tracks, and to use a metaphor from the campaign, Trump will shoot his core campaign promise on immigration in the middle of 5th Avenue, figuring his base will stick with him anyway.

My opinion? I’ll tackle the content part first. I believe that Trump has long been unpredictable on DACA and some areas of immigration—what I’ve often called “mutable.” Even during the campaign, but also during earlier days of his presidency, Trump said many things about DACA, some of them contradictory (see this).

For example, here’s what I wrote in September of 2017, and it still stands:

I will repeat something I’ve said many times before, something that should be obvious to anyone who’s been following Trump from the start of his candidacy two (count ’em, two!) long years ago: he goes back and forth on things. He sends out mixed signals, or at the very least ambiguous, hard-to-read signals.

His admirers say it’s because he’s cagey. His detractors say it’s because he’s an idiot and/or a liar. I say he’s no idiot, and he’s sometimes very cagey, sometimes flat-out lying, and sometimes changes his mind. On DACA he’s been very waffley from the start. On the wall not so waffley, although he always talked about that great big beautiful door, too.

We’ll see.

Now, for the process part. I agree that Trump did this to show how in-control and rational he is. And that message would come across to those who are watching. I doubt most voters are watching; just the political junkies. I think it would take a lot more than this, even for those who are watching who previously thought Trump was senile/stupid/crazy, to actually change minds on the subject.

I figured, even before I read the commentary, that most of the Trump critics who watched the meeting would say that maybe Trump could sustain something like this for a little while for show, but in private he’s just as senile/stupid/crazy as Wolff said he was, and more; also that they would emphasize the fact that he’s waffling on immigration, in order to fan the flames of anger against Trump among his base.

Here’s how the WaPo handled it:

55 minutes at the table: Trump tries to negotiate and prove stability

He acted the part, listening intently and guiding the conversation with the control of a firm but open-minded executive. He spoke the part, offering a mix of jesting bon mots and high-minded appeals for bipartisanship. And he looked the part, down to the embroidered “45” on his starched white shirt cuff.

In short, President Trump on Tuesday tried to show that he could do his job.

Just an act? Just an attempt?

Then there’s this, where the authors quickly switch to content from process:

And for the 55 minutes that the scene unfolded on television, the president demonstrated stability, although not necessarily capability. In trying to erase one set of queries (is he up for the job and a “very stable genius,” as he claimed on Twitter?), he inadvertently opened another: What, exactly, is going to be in that immigration bill?

“Inadvertently”? Are they trying to say that the entire content of the meeting—what’s going to be in the immigration bill—was accidental on Trump’s part?

The article continues:

And while Trump offered captivating television drama, he also muddled through the policy by seeming to endorse divergent positions, including simply protecting the dreamers or a plan contingent upon funding for his long-promised wall at the nation’s southern border.

Anyone who has watched Trump for any amount of time, even those who detest him, should be aware that what happened here is not a case of “muddling through.” One thing Trump knows how to do very well is to purposely talk out of both sides of his mouth to confuse and befuddle observers and opponents. It may even be that the authors of the article are well aware of this tendency, but want their readers to think that Trump is the befuddled one, muddling through.

[NOTE: What’s the definition of “muddle through”? “to manage to do something although you are not organized or prepared to do it.”

I really don’t think that’s what’s going on here.

Towards the end of the article, it says this: “As he excused the press corps, Trump said: ‘I hope we’ve given you enough material. That should cover you for about two weeks.’”

What a muddler!]