Tag: trump

npr:

In late October, Donald Trump released an action plan for what he hopes to accomplish in his first 100 days in office. Below, NPR reporters and editors from the politics team and other coverage areas have annotated Trump’s plan. We’ve added context on several of his proposals, including whether he can really repeal Obamacare and what a hiring freeze on the federal workforce would actually look like. You can see a nonannotated version of “Donald Trump’s Contract With The American Voter” here.

FACT CHECK: Donald Trump’s First 100 Days Action Plan

Illustration: Chelsea Beck/NPR

Source: NPR

theweekmagazine:

America’s parallel universes

This was not a normal election. And there can be no normalizing of what happened here, no pretense that ordinary explanations suffice.

The creeping horror for many as they watched the electoral results come in was not the typical disappointment people feel during a political defeat; it was a realization that there is no overlap any longer in our scoresheets for what constitutes a leader — or even a decent person. Half the country either had no knowledge of the monstrous things the president-elect has said and done or else they simply didn’t care. The former is hard to believe, given the coverage Donald Trump received. The latter is heartbreaking, if true.

There is a third possibility: that half the country saw these things and simply refused to believe what they saw. Facebook and social media has flattened the distinction between information and disinformation. Even though his image was on video, even though his voice was on tape, many of Trump’s supporters attributed the facts to the “liberal media,” the outrageousness of Trump’s actions as “spin.”

Journalism cannot reach this world view. As responsible media outlets try to account for how every prediction went wrong, there will be waves of hand-wringing; there will be fatuous pronouncements on how “the elite” in the media failed to reckon with some deep unavailable truth about Trump’s supporters.

This is wrong. Worse, it perpetuates the error it seeks to correct by making the conversation all about the media instead of this transformation of the American electorate.

The Trainwreck Files: Melania Trump » MobyLives

sadydoyle:

Here’s me! On Melania Trump, and why the natural urge to laugh at her or hate her is disguising a very clear and present danger. 

As a woman who was once married to a narcissist, I can tell you that it is very compelling to believe in your partner’s aspirations.  They want to be wise, admirable, generous, and good, and sometimes they are.  They will reward you with love and affection when you reflect that image of themselves back to them.  But that’s not all that they are, and woe to the partner who is not constantly working at justifying, overlooking, and explaining away any of their imperfections.  

I don’t know anything about Melania Trump, and I think that there are very few people who do.  Sometimes I wonder if there’s a reason for that.  

When you’re in a relationship with a narcissist, eventually they will demand that you whittle away every part of yourself that threatens them or doesn’t reflect back that glorious mirror image that they crave.  It’s a death by inches.  Each thing it costs you is so small that it is barely noticeable.  You’re caught up in constant vigilance and defense against the emotional blows you are taking and can’t see more than a few feet around you.  It seems reasonable to accede that step on the battlefield, and then that one, and then another, until months and years go by.  By the time you look up and clear your head, you’ve lost the war and there is very little of yourself left.   

So, when we look at the public face of a partner of a narcissistic, I don’t really think we’re seeing who they are as a person.  The narcissist has shaped them into a blank screen onto which they can project both all those things they love about themselves and all of their failings to be what they aspire to be.  I don’t know Melania Trump.  I don’t know what role she has in her relationship with her husband and his family.  But if her experience of partnering a narcissist is in any way similar to mine, then her husband is doing everything he can to subvert her will to his, until she is a blank screen onto which he project at will.  When we call her names and dismiss her, we are projecting our own baggage onto onto someone who has been shaped by her relationship to take it, and we become just as guilty of emotional abuse as he is.  

The Trainwreck Files: Melania Trump » MobyLives