The ruling People Power party offered him a dignified exit when the first impeachment vote failed last weekend owing to their boycott. But rather than take the opportunity to resign, Yoon doubled down, defending martial law as a legitimate “act of governance” in a defiant address. This intransigence proved fatal. With his approval rating at just 11%, even conservative media turned against him. It was time for him to go. When parliament voted again on Saturday, 12 members of his own party joined the opposition, delivering the two-thirds majority needed for impeachment.
As this Guardian commentary explains, South Korea hasn't been a democracy very long by American standards, and older people there have vividly grim memories of dictatorship. They, and the people who represent them – and even right-wing media – said no to the president's attempt to re-create a dictatorship. A portion of their dislike of him was due to worries about policies that were, in fact, sensible (e.g. working to normalize relations with Japan as a counterweight to North Korea and China). But their recoil against going back to the bad old days appears to have been paramount. This raises the obvious question for Americans. Americans haven't lived in a dictatorship since King George ruled the North American colonies. Will our leaders – and our people – be willing to stand up when and if the time comes?
The procession of tech leaders who traveled to hobnob with Mr. Trump face-to-face included Sundar Pichai, Google’s chief executive, and Sergey Brin, a Google founder, who together dined with Mr. Trump on Thursday. Tim Cook, Apple’s chief executive, shared a meal with Mr. Trump on Friday. And Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon, planned to meet with Mr. Trump in the next few days. This was the week when many tech companies and their top executives, as reluctant as they may have been, acknowledged the reality of getting business done in Mr. Trump’s Washington. With their donations, visits and comments, they joined a party that has already raged for a month, as a cohort of influential Silicon Valley billionaires, led by Elon Musk, began running parts of Mr. Trump’s transition after endorsing him in the campaign.
Unsurprisingly, the ever-feckless New York Times describes this abject bootlicking (alternative link here) as merely the "reality of getting business done in Mr. Trump's Washington." It's vastly more than that (see the item below), but would be shameful even if it were only a demonstration of fealty to a extremist who aims to end democracy and so much that comes with it. Over recent years, the respect I once had for the technology industry has mostly evaporated. Not it's turning into pure contempt.
There is no way to view this except as a protection racket. They are paying Trump and praising Trump in the hopes that Trump will make sure nothing unfortunate happens to their nice little businesses. You may be thinking to yourself, “But this is so brazen! Everyone can see exactly what’s happening!” That is the point. Trump has reached the position—elected by a plurality of his fellow citizens, immunized from all criminal activity by the Supreme Court—where he wants the protection racket to be out in the open. He wants everyone to see it.
As this Bulwark piece notes, inaugural funds have been semi-sleazy slush funds for a long time. It's different now. The tech company CEOs paying tributes to Dear Leader are the sickening evidence of something much more deeply corrupt and, if you care at all about our future, dangerous. To our top political journalists – i.e. the eminences from the New York Times et al – this is merely part of the game. To a few journalists from outlets like the Bulwark, the game is the destruction of anything resembling government where the rule of law matters, as opposed to the greed of the criminal running it. Nothing to see here, move along.
Most Americans expect President-elect Donald Trump to do a good job upon his return to the White House next month (54%) and a majority approves of how he’s handling the presidential transition so far (55%), according to a new CNN Poll conducted by SSRS.... The findings suggest the president-elect has earned a honeymoon period with the public as he prepares to return to the White House after being voted out four years ago amid broadly negative approval ratings of his own.
By far the most important result of this CNN poll is nowhere to be found in the article the nation's top news channel published. That's no surprise, because any honest accounting would tell a truth that CNN – and its feckless compatriots in Big Journalism – will never pass along to their deservedly shrinking audiences: their utter, ongoing failure to do their jobs.
If 55% of poll respondents believe that Trump is handling the transition well, here's why: The vast right-wing "news"-o-sphere – led by the Murdoch family's poison-spewing Fox "News" and amplified a host of big (e.g. Sinclair Broadcasting), small (e.g. "War Room"), and distributed (e.g. tweets) outlets – is telling its Trump-cult audience that everything is great. And for them it is, because they want to end the democracy we've known and re-establish government of, by, and for the racist and rich.
Meanwhile, Big Journalism has continued its years-long normalization of extremism and taken it up a notch. It's covering the beyond-dangerous Trump appointees as if they're only slightly different than usual, and doing stenography for his louder and louder vows to use government to destroy the lives and livelihoods of perceived enemies and dissenters along with imprisoning and then shipping millions of brown people, including U.S. citizens, to other countries.
There's little notice in Big Journalism of the in-your-face plans to undermine and cut Social Security and Medicate. (For that you have to read invaluable small news sites like Talking Points Memo.) Or what it really means to turn over the FBI, the CIA, and the military to people who have no qualifications other than their delight in helping Dear Leader destroy enemies and dissenters, including members and former members of Congress. Or how the federal government will become a cash spigot to the endlessly corrupt Trump family and the people and businesses he favors. Or that the campaign vows to reduce grocery prices were just standard-issue Trump lies, as he admitted in that bizarre Time magazine interview last week. (The magazine published 2,400 words of fact-checking of just some of Trump's deceit.)
Pick an issue. Look at the people who'll be running things. Consider the degree to which so many – Republicans unanimously, business people increasingly, journalists pathetically, and even Democrats) – are obeying in advance. So much is simply horrific. If this transition is going well for 55 percent of the American people, the nation is looking, well, screwed.
The bigger institutions, quite plainly, aren't going to do their part to save, much less rebuild, liberal democracy and its pillars. In fact, they look more and more like collaborators, modern quislings. As they go further they go in that direction, I hope their audiences will move their media attention to the smaller but more honorable outlets – and work to build and support their own.
One of my goals is to help the people who are trying to rebuild liberal democracy – and honest journalism – from the ground up. It may be our only chance in the long run, and we'd better start now. If you're working on this and want my help, let me know.
How I put this together
This newsletter is a compendium of the reporting and commentary that best explains the America's political, economic, and social conditions – and, most important, how we can find a way back from the dark days ahead. You will rarely find anything here from the New York Times or Washington Post or any of the other Big Journalism companies that failed us so completely during the 2024 elections and are now sucking up – even more than usual – to Donald Trump, his cult, and corporate oligarchs. My focus will be on smaller, more honorable outlets (and individuals). I hope you'll support them with your attention and your money. For more details, please read my About page.
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Raphael Rashid
Jonathan V. Last
Jennifer Agiesta
