Words of Wisdom
Here in their entirety are the comments of the New Yorker magazine’s Editor, David Remnick, that will appear in its next issue, dated March 10, but available earlier. In it he compares Donald Trump with Franklin Delano Roosevelt, concluding that Trump ‘has brought shame and disorder to the country.’
I have highlighted certain parts of it, including Remnick’s description of Trump and Vance as having ‘the finesse of a couple of small-time hoods’ (in meeting with Zelensky). But please read the entire article. (You should also understand, after reading it, why Jackspotpourri has dropped its initial posture of ‘abiding’ the present political situation.)
JL
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Trump’s Disgrace
David Remnick - March 1, 2025
"It was one thing to anticipate this prolonged political moment; it has been, these past weeks, quite another to live it. Each day is its own fresh hell, bringing ever more outrageous news from an autocrat who revels in his contempt for the government he leads, for the foreign allies who deserve our support, and for the Constitution he is sworn to uphold. Since beginning his second term, six weeks ago, Donald Trump has commandeered public attention to such an extent that it is hard to recall that there was ever a time when an American President went about his first weeks in office in a frenzy of activity characterized not by threat, chaos, and corruption but by discipline, competence, and compassion.
Yet there was such a time.
On the overcast morning of March 4, 1933, Franklin Roosevelt arrived at the U.S. Capitol to deliver his first Inaugural Address. The country was in a general state of misery. Since the start of the Depression, in late 1929, one out of three American workers had lost his job. Countless schools were shuttered. Banks were collapsing. Edmund Wilson, reporting for The New Republic, wrote that “there is not a garbage-dump in Chicago which is not diligently haunted by the hungry.”
Roosevelt, having defeated Herbert Hoover in the popular vote by eighteen points, could honestly boast of a mandate and understood its meaning. As he said in his speech at the Capitol, the demands of the “stricken” electorate were clear: “This nation asks for action, and action now.” Before the notion of a President’s “first hundred days” was ever codified, he set off on a tear of executive orders and legislative initiatives. Roosevelt, with the support of enormous Democratic majorities in Congress, quickly saved the national banking system, took the U.S. off the gold standard, paid out significant relief to the poor, and created federal agencies that not only provided work to the jobless but helped revive the country’s economy and infrastructure for decades to come.
It has not taken Trump a hundred days to match Roosevelt’s New Deal for its speed, its “muzzle velocity,” as Steve Bannon, Trump’s formerly incarcerated court philosopher, has put it. But, while Roosevelt set a modern standard for the revitalization of a society, Trump seems determined to prove how quickly he can spark its undoing. In record time, he has brought shame and disorder to the country. Where F.D.R. set out to build and to comfort, Trump has set out to fire countless civil servants, punish his adversaries, and threaten the press. He has cast aside essential climate actions, humiliated undocumented immigrants and trans men and women, coddled dictators, and unnerved allies. F.D.R. appointed Cordell Hull, Harold Ickes, and other formidable advisers to his first Cabinet; Trump has empowered extremists distinguished principally by their conspiracy thinking, sycophancy, and incompetence.
F.D.R. created the Civilian Conservation Corps and the Tennessee Valley Authority; Trump has deputized Elon Musk, who has billions of dollars in contracts with multiple federal agencies, to freeze federal funding for programs that millions of Americans depend on and to fire thousands of workers in vital government agencies. “We will make mistakes,” Musk said in the White House, flashing a smile of privilege and malice. So far, these little goofs include, but are not limited to, momentarily laying off people who oversee the nuclear-weapons stockpile and cancelling Ebola-prevention measures.
Roosevelt, in his time, led the conquest of global fascism and the rescue of Europe. On matters of foreign policy, Trump has rapidly made common cause with autocrats from Budapest to Beijing and has made it clear to our European allies that when they come to Washington they had best flatter his ego and bear gifts, such as an invitation to visit King Charles. In the Oval Office on Friday, Trump nakedly sided with Russian aggression, berating the Ukrainian President, Volodymyr Zelensky, for failing to show him sufficient gratitude and respect and for “gambling with World War Three.” Zelensky is a hero of historic scale, brave beyond measure; Trump’s behavior was disgraceful. He and his Vice-President, J. D. Vance, deliberately tried to intimidate Zelensky with all the finesse of a couple of small-time hoods. The incident was both shocking and inevitable, all in line with the over-all temper of Trump’s Presidency—the threats, the firings, the multiple doge fiascoes, the proposal to cleanse the Gaza Strip of two million Palestinians.
Is this really what Trump’s supporters voted for? How does the decimation of American values, institutions, and commitments bring down the price of eggs? Writing in Foreign Affairs, Steven Levitsky and Lucan A. Way make a painstaking and convincing case that most autocracies that have emerged since the end of the Cold War retain certain democratic features, particularly elections, but weaponize the state, purging it of perceived enemies. This sort of “competitive” autocracy—like Erdoğan’s Turkey and Orbán’s Hungary—is, the authors argue, what is now taking shape in Washington.
To minimize the unending fusillade of Trump’s first weeks in office, to choose to turn away, to shut off the news, is to indulge in self-soothing.
There is no guarantee that Trump’s perverse momentum will slow, or be derailed, of its own accord. He has the unwavering support of his MAGA base, the cowed compliance of his congressional caucus, and the backing of multibillionaires such as Jeff Bezos, who would rather diminish the vitality of his newspaper than risk the dinner invitations of the sovereign.
And yet the current torrent, fueled by years of planning in right-wing circles and by Trump’s demagogic energies, is hardly unstoppable. Will working-class and middle-class Americans tolerate the self-indulgence and the corruptions of Trump’s favored billionaires while their own interests go unaddressed? Will Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., who is currently being tested by an outbreak of measles in Texas, have the public’s trust in the event of another pandemic? We have already seen how at least some courageous judges, governors, and law-enforcement officials have refused to bow down to the politicization of the law, or, as Levitsky and Way put it, the weaponization of the state.
Roosevelt, at the start of his Inaugural Address, said that there was no need “to shrink from honestly facing conditions in our country today.” In our time, the crisis resides in the Oval Office. Whether there is a mandate for what is being practiced there will be made clear in the months to come––in Congress, in the courts, in the press, in the streets, and, eventually, at the ballot box. Fear itself was the singular enemy in Roosevelt’s time. It remains so today."
David Remnick
JL
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And When You ‘Speak Out for Democracy’
In the prior (March 1) posting on Jackspotpourri, in naming those to whom one should ‘Speak Out for Democracy,’ (social media, personal emails, newspapers. postal card and telephone campaigns, etc.), I omitted mentioning elected officials in Congress and State offices. Do this regardless of their party. There is a lot of ‘buyers’ remorse’ brewing among those who voted Republican in 2024. Keep calling, writing, and emailing them. Phone calls and the messages left, even if not answered, are counted and are particularly powerful weapons. Their email addresses and telephone numbers are available on their websites or just ask me for them.
As for contacting individuals, I have personally found that ‘phone banks’ are not as effective as postal cards. It’s easy for those called to just not accept calls or quickly hang up. Handwritten postal cards, while far better in reaching recipients who will read them, are expensive and require a well funded campaign. And that is another problem.
JL
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Playing Politics in the Department of Defense (which is supposed to be ‘defending’ you)
If a Democrat ever ordered a cessation of cybersecurity activities that were directed at Russia, they would be called ‘pinkos’ or ‘commies’ but Secretary Hegseth, obviously acting on orders from the White House, gets away with it as part of our disgraceful pivoting away from supporting Ukraine.
I suspect that there will be a sufficient number of loyal Americans remaining in the DOD who, while nodding ‘yes’ to Hegseth’s orders, will put our nation’s security ahead of his orders and quietly continue such crucial activities, an invaluable source of all sorts of intelligence information.
It is inconceivable that Hegseth, the President, and the Russians do not know that too. Such activities, of necessity, are rarely made public, and only the politically naïve, or those who already are Russian ‘assets,’ will pay any attention to meaningless directives like Hegseth’s.
Hegseth’s orders are part of ‘Trump’s Disgrace’ as explained in the New Yorker magazine article appearing above. For still more details of this particular debacle, check out what Heather Cox Richardson reported on March 2 about it by CLICKING HERE or copying and pasting https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/ on your browser line.
JL
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'If it weren’t so tragic, it would be funny' Department
In the unlikely situation whereby Donald Trump and J.D, Vance were to be impeached and removed from office, Saturday Night Live would hire them in an instant to revive the pair of small-time hoods that became the ‘Blues Brothers,’ frequently played by Dan Aykroyd and the late John Belushi.’
JL
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‘Voting by Mail’ Requests Must be Renewed
Those who voted by mail in the past must again request that they be sent a ‘mail-in’ ballot in future elections, their earlier ‘vote by mail’ status having expired after the last General Election in 2024!
In Palm Beach County, do this by CLICKING HERE or copying and pasting https://www.votepalmbeach.gov/Voters/Vote-By-Mail on your browser line.
Elsewhere, contact your local Supervisor of Elections.
JL
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Housekeeping on Jackspotpourri
Forwarding Postings: Please forward this posting to anyone you think might benefit from reading it (Friends, relatives, enemies, etc.) If you want to send someone the blog, you can just tell them to check it out by visiting https://jackspotpourri.blogspot.com or you can provide a link to that address in your email to them.
There’s another, perhaps easier, method of forwarding it though! Google Blogspot, the platform on which Jackspotpourri is prepared, makes that possible. If you click on the tiny envelope with the arrow at the bottom of every posting, you will have the opportunity to list up to ten email addresses to which that blog posting will be forwarded, along with a brief comment from you. Each will receive a link to click on that will directly connect them to the blog. Either way will work, sending them the link to https://jackspotpourri.blogspot.com, or clicking on the envelope at the bottom of this posting.
Email Alerts: If you are NOT receiving emails from me alerting you each time there is a new posting on Jackspotpourri, just send me your email address and we’ll see that you do. And if you are forwarding a posting to someone, you might suggest that they do the same, so they will be similarly alerted. You can pass those email addresses to me by email at jacklippman18@gmail.com.
Eliminating ‘Promotions’: Each morning when I check my Email, I first sweep out almost all the messages that end up asking for a donation. My Email ‘in basket’ enables me to do that, separating most of them out without my even clicking on them individually. That makes my life a little easier, and a lot of informative material still reaches me. If I want to donate to a particular cause or candidate, I can easily find a way to do so.
Again, I urge you to forward this posting to anyone you think might benefit from reading it. Bear in mind that the population of Florida is constantly changing and many newcomers are not familiar with Jackspotpourri.
JL
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