Two Things

[Content Note: Authoritarianism; violent rhetoric.]

1. Me at Shareblue: Trump's refusal to acknowledge Russian interference is "deeply damaging to the country" and raises "the specter of treason."

At the last press conference he gave — in July, months before the intelligence community alerted the parties about hacking — Trump invited the Russians to hack the State Department: "Russia, if you're listening, I hope you're able to find the 30,000 e-mails that are missing. I think you will probably be rewarded mightily by our press."

Incredibly, after he publicly invited Russian hacking to harm his opponent, Trump is now claiming he is not ready to "accept the conclusion" that Russian hacking interfered in the election to influence its outcome.

This claim beggars belief.

The position is so clearly, as Schiff noted, "deeply damaging to the country" that John Shattuck, a former assistant secretary of state for democracy, human rights, and labor, writes in the Boston Globe: "A specter of treason hovers over Donald Trump."

2. Alison Parker at Shareblue: Trump offers chilling praise to his "vicious, violent" supporters.

To gleefully imply that his election owes at least some credit to the frightening and despicable actions of some of his supporters is repugnant, and is precisely the opposite of “presidential” behavior. But considering Trump could barely bring himself to utter more than two words — "Stop it." — in reproach when directly challenged to address the violence and bigotry among his crowds, it is, unfortunately, in keeping with who he is, as a future president and as a human being.

Moreover, his invocation of violent behavior not to condemn it but to praise its efficacy only invites more of the same in future. There is no value in acknowledging that his supporters are "mellow" as they "bask in the glory of victory," except inasmuch as it serves to congratulate them on using any means necessary to achieve what they want.

Thus there is little to stop any of them from resorting to nastiness and violence in the future, when there is a new goal in mind. If there is a bill they want passed or killed, if there is a nominee for an office or judgeship they want confirmed or rejected, if there is a resistance movement they want to silence and conquer, they have been implicitly told by their new President-elect that the means to achieve those ends is to ramp up the violence again.

"Because we won, right?"

There is much more at both links.