{"id":3222,"date":"2020-08-10T17:09:34","date_gmt":"2020-08-10T17:09:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lonecandle.com\/?p=3222"},"modified":"2020-08-10T17:09:34","modified_gmt":"2020-08-10T17:09:34","slug":"its-ideologue-meets-grifter-how-bill-barr-made-trumpism-possible-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/?p=3222","title":{"rendered":"\u201cIt\u2019s ideologue meets grifter\u201d: How Bill Barr made Trumpism possible"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\n\n“Under Barr, the Department of Justice has become a political instrument for President Trump. Whether it\u2019s misleading the public<\/a> about the Mueller report or using tear gas<\/a> to disperse peaceful protesters so that Trump could stage a photo op<\/a>, Barr has repeatedly sacrificed the dignity of his office in order to please his boss.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you don\u2019t know much about Barr\u2019s history, it\u2019s hard to make sense of his behavior. Having already served as AG under George H.W. Bush\u2019s administration, Barr had a solid reputation as a serious guy. When he reemerged in 2018 as Trump\u2019s pick for attorney general, he was widely seen as a creature of the Republican establishment, and his selection was \u201cgreeted with a measure of relief\u201d within the DOJ, according to the New York Times<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But events since have shown him to be a more than willing accomplice in Trump\u2019s slow-motion destruction of democratic norms. Which raises the question: Why has someone like Bill Barr given himself over to an aspiring authoritarian like Trump?”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

…<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“He believes the president should be more powerful than Congress and the courts. In his mind, that\u2019s the only thing that can keep the country safe when it is threatened by war, natural disaster, or economic collapse. He believes that is what the founders intended.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

…<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“it\u2019s funny watching interviews with him. He\u2019s very measured in how he speaks, but what he is saying is very far right and deeply conservative across the board. And his actions are extraordinary, at times unprecedented, for an attorney general, from dispatching National Guard troops<\/a> from multiple states all over DC, to setting up a command bunker<\/a> where he oversaw all of that, to removing prosecutors<\/a> and pushing for lower sentences for the president\u2019s allies<\/a>. He speaks carefully but his actions are anything but measured.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

https:\/\/www.vox.com\/policy-and-politics\/2020\/6\/24\/21281485\/bill-barr-donald-trump-congress-david-rohde<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“Under Barr, the Department of Justice has become a political instrument for President Trump. Whether it\u2019s misleading the public about the Mueller report or using tear gas to disperse peaceful protesters so that Trump could stage a photo op, Barr has repeatedly sacrificed the dignity of his office in order to please his boss.<\/p>\n

If you don\u2019t know much about Barr\u2019s history, it\u2019s hard to make sense of his behavior. Having already served as AG under George H.W. Bush\u2019s administration, Barr had a solid reputation as a serious guy. When he reemerged in 2018 as Trump\u2019s pick for attorney general, he was widely seen as a creature of the Republican establishment, and his selection was \u201cgreeted with a measure of relief\u201d within the DOJ, according to the New York Times.<\/p>\n

But events since have shown him to be a more than willing accomplice in Trump\u2019s slow-motion destruction of democratic norms. Which raises the question: Why has someone like Bill Barr given himself over to an aspiring authoritarian like Trump?”<\/p>\n

…<\/p>\n

“He believes the president should be more powerful than Congress and the courts. In his mind, that\u2019s the only thing that can keep the country safe when it is threatened by war, natural disaster, or economic collapse. He believes that is what the founders intended.”<\/p>\n

…<\/p>\n

“it\u2019s funny watching interviews with him. He\u2019s very measured in how he speaks, but what he is saying is very far right and deeply conservative across the board. And his actions are extraordinary, at times unprecedented, for an attorney general, from dispatching National Guard troops from multiple states all over DC, to setting up a command bunker where he oversaw all of that, to removing prosecutors and pushing for lower sentences for the president\u2019s allies. He speaks carefully but his actions are anything but measured.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[817,818,221,170],"class_list":["post-3222","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-article-share","tag-bill-barr","tag-department-of-justice","tag-donald-trump","tag-trump"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3222","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3222"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3222\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3223,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3222\/revisions\/3223"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3222"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3222"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3222"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}