Brazil Is Importing Trumpism

“If there was no Trump, there would be no Bolsonaro in Brazil. And if there was no invasion of the Capitol, there wouldn’t have been the invasion we saw yesterday. Bolsonarismo tries to copy Trumpism, and Bolsonaro supporters in Brazil try to copy what Trump supporters do in the United States.”

— Guga Chacra, a Brazilian political commentator, quoted by the New York Times.

Trump’s Military Parade to Cost $92 Million

$92 million

“President Trump’s military parade this fall is shaping up to cost $80 million more than initially estimated,” CNBC reports. “The Department of Defense and its interagency partners have updated their perspective cost estimates for the parade… The parade, slated for Nov. 10, is estimated to cost $92 million… An initial estimate last month pegged the prospective cost for the parade at $12 million.”

Donald Has Hired Hundreds of Lackeys and Lobbyists

20170308-beachhead-graphic-300x200ProPublica has obtained a list of more than 400 Trump administration hires, including dozens of lobbyists and some from far-right media. They include:

A Trump campaign aide who argues that Democrats committed “ethnic cleansing” in a plot to “liquidate” the white working class. A former reality show contestant whose study of societal collapse inspired him to invent a bow-and-arrow-cum-survivalist multi-tool. A pair of healthcare industry lobbyists. A lobbyist for defense contractors. An “evangelist” and lobbyist for Palantir, the Silicon Valley company with close ties to intelligence agencies. And a New Hampshire Trump supporter who has only recently graduated from high school.

And remember Donald’s pledge to “drain the swamp?”

The list is striking for how many former lobbyists it contains: We found at least 36, spanning industries from health insurance and pharmaceuticals to construction, energy and finance. Many of them lobbied in the same areas that are regulated by the agencies they have now joined.
That figure is almost certainly an undercount since we only included those who formally registered as lobbyists, a process increasingly avoided by many in Washington.

Read it here.

‘Trumpism’ Defined

The first thing we learned was that Trumpism is an utter repudiation of modern conservatism. For the last 40 years, the Republican Party has been a coalition of three tendencies [foreign-policy hawks, social conservatives, fiscal hawks]… Trump rejected or ignored all of them. … Trump’s speech … offered those of us who want to replace him an occasion to ask the big question: How in the 21st century should government unleash initiative and dynamism while also preserving order? Trump’s answer: Nationalize intimidation but privatize compassion. Don’t look to government to offer a warm hand; look to it to confront your enemies with a hard fist.

David Brooks