Trump's Week: From FUBAR to Fiasco
Welcome to the end of yet another stupefying week in which Donald Trump tried to distract us from a national security FUBAR by plunging us into an economic fiasco.
Stocks crashed in response to his latest tariffs; masked agents snatched a dissident PhD student off the street; Kristi Noem videotaped her latest bit of performative cruelty wearing a $50,000 watch; VP Vance insulted Denmark during a diplomatically frigid visit to Greenland; Canada broke up with us; and Elon Musk was forced to back off his latest plan to bribe voters.
Meanwhile, some of the nation’s biggest law firms pushed back against Trumpian threats; while others (looking at you Skadden Arps) befouled themselves with their pusillanimity.1
Happy Saturday.
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Bonhoeffer on stupidity and malice
The other day we posed the question: Stupidity or Malice? In the comment section, one of our savvy readers referred us to Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s thoughts on the subject. He was murdered in 1945 by the Nazis. It’s interesting to note how familiar he was with a phenomenon that I suspect you will recognize:
“Stupidity is a more dangerous enemy of the good than malice. One may protest against evil; it can be exposed and, if need be, prevented by use of force. Evil always carries within itself the germ of its own subversion in that it leaves behind in human beings at least a sense of unease.
Against stupidity we are defenseless.
Neither protests nor the use of force accomplish anything here; reasons fall on deaf ears; facts that contradict one’s prejudgment simply need not be believed – in such moments the stupid person even becomes critical – and when facts are irrefutable, they are just pushed aside as inconsequential, as incidental.
In all this the stupid person, in contrast to the malicious one, is utterly self-satisfied and, being easily irritated, becomes dangerous by going on the attack.
For that reason, greater caution is called for when dealing with a stupid person than with a malicious one. Never again will we try to persuade the stupid person with reasons, for it is senseless and dangerous.”
―Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Letters and Papers from Prison
ICYMI: Week in Review
Sunday
Monday
Tuesday
Wednesday
Thursday
Friday
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COMING SUNDAY on “To the Contrary” podcast: Jim Acosta joins me to talk about dangers of “Trump Depression Syndrome.”
Saturday dog
Auggie is in a contemplative mood today.
Even as some surrender, the courts are pointing out that Trump’s threats are illegal — and unlikely to survive judicial scrutiny. "“Trump Suffers Day of Losses in His Retribution Campaign Against Law Firms” - The New York Times
Federal judges dealt twin blows to President Trump’s retaliation campaign on Friday by issuing temporary restraining orders blocking much of his executive orders targeting two major law firms that participated in investigations of him, Jenner & Block and WilmerHale.
The rulings barred the administration from carrying out punishments described in the executive orders, like banning their lawyers from government buildings, meetings, or jobs.
Remember Mark Twain's quote, "Never argue with stupid people! They will bring you down to their level and then beat you with experience!"
As a Big Law alumna I am aghast at the capitulation shown by many of the firms I have known and respected my entire career, and heartened that some of them are fighting back.
Tommy Vietor made a very good point about this on Pod Save America a few days ago - no one said this was going to be easy. But while everyone feels very qualified to aim their withering criticism at the fear of the firms in surrendering to Trump, and feels absolutely certain that if they all hung together they could weather this storm, no one seems to notice the deafening silence of the clients. Law firms are still businesses. If the ExxonMobils and JPMorgans of the world were willing to stand up for their legal counsel and publicly say they won’t abandon their firms because they’ve found themselves - illegally - in Trump’s crosshairs it would give the firms a boost of confidence and put them back in a place where they can use their skills to fight for their clients instead of for their very existence.