(I regret that my reference in the headline has become somewhat obscure, because Peter Seller’s 1959 movie “The Mouse that Roared”1has always been one of my all-time favorites, and the sort of satire we desperately need these days.)
On this late August morning, we wake (once again) to a world turned on its head. (See Peter Baker in the NYT: “Threatening Friends and Courting Enemies in Trump’s ‘Upside-Down World’” The president continues to slaver praise on North Korea’s Kim Jung Un, while threatening to “bomb the shit” out of our longtime ally, Oman. Meanwhile, the commander-in chief obsesses over his Ballroom and his Natalie (about whom more below.) And the bond markets are flashing ominous warning signs.
But let’s start with the latest signs of resistance, because they feel like a turning point of sorts. During the early months of Trump 2.0 we saw one institution after another — law firms, universities, media companies — cower into a defensive crouch. But as Trump’s poll numbers have sunk and his endless war on the Constitution has escalated, the Disney Company has decided that it is time to fight back. And it is magnificent.
**
Note: We live in vertiginous times, and it is tempting to look away. And I don’t blame you. Which is why I try to chronicle the crazy, so you won’t have to.
Lord knows, I’d rather not have to wake up the latest Trumpian depredations, but (deep sigh) whether we wanted it or not, this is the fight of our times and the challenge of our generation. And someone needs to remind you that you are not the crazy ones. Please consider joining us.
The Disney Company did not decide to go to war with the Trump Administration easily or quickly.
For much of Trump 2.0, Disney and ABC tried accommodation, appeasement — and, on one lamentable occasion, premature capitulation (“ABC and Stephanopoulos to pay Trump $15M, apologize in defamation suit settlement). For a brief moment, the company even suspended Jimmy Kimmel in the face of MAGA pressure. But, as Oliver Darcy writes, “As Trump's complaints grew louder… and the FCC's demands became more and more expansive, Disney executives came to the realization that more aggressive action was needed.”
In other words, they recognized the limits of groveling. Trump and his FCC capo, Brendan Carr, pretended that their challenge to the licenses of ABC affiliates was about the company’s DEI policies.
But this was eyewash. Trump and Carr did not want compliance: they wanted abject surrender.
So Disney decided to fight back; and the result is an extraordinary lawsuit that calls out the Administration for its full-court assault on the First Amendment. In its lawsuit, Disney/ABC argues that the Trump-controlled FCC’s s investigations and regulatory actions are part of a Trump administration “retaliatory campaign” to curb the network’s free speech.
Given the “existential threat,” it faced, Disney’s lawyers explained, the company had “no choice but to seek redress from the judicial branch” and that there were “no alternative means to eliminate these ongoing and immediate threats other than total capitulation to the administration’s demands.”
“Acting through the Federal Communications Commission, the Administration has waged a retaliatory campaign against ABC for a single reason: it disapproves of what ABC broadcasts,” the lawsuit argues…
That campaign began in this Administration’s earliest days and has only intensified since. Again and again, the Administration has attacked ABC’s speech—the stories its journalists report and the viewpoints its network programs air.
Over time, those attacks have escalated into express demands that ABC be stripped of its broadcast licenses because of its speech.
….
“The Commission’s true target is not the Stations’ employment practices or their carriage of a single presidential address; it is the content of Plaintiffs’ programming—and thus their speech.
“Because the Commission cannot regulate that content directly, it has used its review of the Stations’ licenses as an instrument to the same end.”
And Disney lays out the ultimate stakes:
"If the administration gets its way, the message to every media company in the country will be unmistakable: tell only the stories the administration deems favorable, or face the coercive machinery of the federal government.
"In such a world, the press could in no way be described as free."
**
The lawsuit comes as the BBC is also aggressively pushing back on Trump’s attempt to bully it. In December, Trump sued the British broadcaster for $10 billion, accusing it of libel because it broadcast edited versions of Trump’s speech on January 6, 2021, when he urged his supporters to march on the capitol and pressure Congress into overturning the election.
This morning we learn that Donald Trump is outraged that the BBC is daring to defy him.
He expected the BBC to roll over and pay him off – as so many US institutions have paid him off. It had made an editing mistake that implied he had incited a mob of his supporters to storm Congress in January 2021. He sued for the extraordinary sum of $10 billion – and expected payment.
Instead of begging for mercy, the BBC is fighting back.
Drawing on evidence gathered by a US congressional committee, it wants to subpoena Trump’s children, Donald Trump Jr and Ivanka Trump. They were present in the White House, and the BBC wants to know what they know about Trump’s unwillingness to stop the riot.
It also wants to hear from Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law, who drafted a statement condemning the use of violence, which was never delivered.
Trump’s legal team is outraged. The BBC had “intentionally defamed” the president, it said. Its subpoena request was now “seeking to harass him, his family, and supporters by abusing the deposition process”.
Trump’s lawyers may be outraged, but they should not be surprised.
Exit take: This, my friends, is how you fight back.
An organization that released public election polling in recent weeks withdrew the results of two surveys, revealing that it had fabricated the polls as part of a “short-term social experiment” meant to expose how quickly false information could spread.
One of the surveys released by the group, Median Strategies, claimed that Francesca Hong was leading the Wisconsin Democratic primary for governor by more than 20 percentage points. (She went on to lose by less than one percentage point.) Another, shared by Mayor Karen Bass on X in a since-deleted post, showed Ms. Bass leading Nithya Raman by nearly 12 percentage points in the Los Angeles mayoral runoff.
On Monday, Median Strategies withdrew those results, saying they “should not be treated as genuine polling data.”
It was October 2023, and Donald Trump was due at a New York City courthouse to fight his latest set of legal troubles. But as the motorcade idled outside his Trump Tower residence, staffers confronted a more immediate problem: There wasn’t room for Harp, the hyper-loyal aide whose devotion to Trump had quickly entrenched her within his orbit.
The episode, which has not been previously reported, served as an encapsulation of the role Harp has carved out in recent years as a constant and intensely dedicated presence at Trump’s side. Her methods have irked senior aides and at times prompted efforts to box her out of the president’s inner circle, according to multiple sources who described the dynamic to CNN.
FFS. But I repeat myself.
This morning, I would prefer to talk about David Jolly’s remarkable victory in Florida’s gubernatorial primary. Jolly, a former Republican congressman and OG Never Trumper, has created a Big Tent Unity Ticket and has a chance to actually flip Florida. Which is very much a BFD.
Vindman served on the national security council in Donald Trump’s first term and became a well-known whistleblower and witness in the US president’s first impeachment, centered on Trump pressuring Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Ukraine’s president, to investigate Joe Biden.
**
So once again, we have to talk about the DSA, and what its attempted hostile takeover of the Democratic Party means for the efforts to stop Trumpism.
While socialism may be in vogue and lefty candidates have been racking up wins, new polling reveals the next generation of wannabe Bernies are nowhere near as popular as the O.G. class warrior, and heading into 2028, more Democrats describe themselves as “moderate or centrist” than leftist.
And he lays out the threat for 2028:
[Not] since George McGovern’s calamitous loss in 1972 have the passions of the left flank been so risky to the party’s viability in a presidential election as they are today.
Hamby cites new polling numbers that suggest a growing gap between primary voters and the general public. The results ought to sober Democrats:
A new survey from our polling partners Echelon Insights gets to the conundrum facing Democrats and the progressive left as they try to win back the Senate and House this year and the White House in 2028.
A.O.C.’s favorable rating among Democrats is 67 percent. Her favorable rating among all voters? Just 33 percent.
Mamdani’s favorable rating with Democrats is a sky-high 59 percent. But among all voters, he’s at just 30 percent.
El-Sayed, the newly minted progressive Democratic nominee in battleground Michigan, is less well-known. His fans seem to love him: He has a +24 net approval rating with national Democrats.
But among all voters the numbers are roughly flipped: Only 19 percent of voters like him, while 37 percent do not.
s for the Democratic Socialists of America, a majority of Democrats (54 percent) have a favorable opinion, but a near majority of all voters (49 percent) do not.
To put a button on it: All of these figures have lower favorable ratings with the national electorate than the scandal-plagued, self-enriching, war-starting, blabber-mouthed, octogenarian Republican who currently occupies the White House.
[The] DSA—by which I mean the official organ that controls the infrastructure of the Democratic Socialists of America—is forking nuts. So nuts that if you told me that the DSA was a false flag operation run by the Heritage Foundation in order to discredit the Democratic party, it would make sense.
Individual DSA politicians might be closet normies (like Mamdani) but the organization itself? Guys, buckle up. We’re going on a tour of crazy.
A reminder: These people are not Democrats, or progressives, or defenders of democratic values.
There was the thunder, however, and this always terrifies Eli. Auggie’s reactions are milder, but he still becomes distressed. I had told my husband earlier, when he’d asked, that I was too tired to play the piano, but as the storm began, we knew that both dogs find it comforting. Auggie was with us in the living room when I sat down to play, and Eli was hiding in his favorite spot in the basement laundry room.
But as soon as he heard the music, Eli came at a run and lay down under the piano very close to my feet. I hadn’t planned on a full concert, but he was clearly depending on me. Within fifteen minutes he was out from under the piano and listening with deep attention.
Both dogs stayed, calmly, throughout the storm, so I kept playing. It’s a remedy better than any drug. I play classical music in the house throughout the day, and the dogs appear indifferent, so I think the resonance of the piano is what comforts them more than just the music. Maybe I can teach them that one piece in particular is comforting and we will be able to use it when needed. It’s worth a try, but most likely it is the experience of the instrument itself, possibly along with the presence of both humans in the room.
Eli started out under the piano, but as he calmed down, he moved into a more open space.
Eli brought his singing dumpster fire for comfort.
Thanks for reading To the Contrary! This post is public so feel free to share it.
The minuscule European Duchy of Grand Fenwick is bankrupted when an American company comes up with a cheaper imitation of Fenwick's sole export, its fabled Pinot Grand Fenwick wine. Crafty Prime Minister Count Mountjoy devises a plan: Grand Fenwick will declare war on the United States, then surrender, taking advantage of American largesse toward its defeated enemies to rebuild the defeated nation's economy. Duchess Gloriana is hesitant but agrees to the plan…..
Government censorship is deeply un-American. That fundamental principle predates the Republic, with our Founders recognizing that “the freedom of the press is one of the great[est] bulwarks of liberty.” And it is no less true today, as the Supreme Court unanimously reaffirmed only two years ago: the government may not “use the power of the State to punish or suppress disfavored expression.”
This case concerns the Administration’s sustained effort to do just that. Acting through the Federal Communications Commission, the Administration has waged a retaliatory campaign against ABC for a single reason: it disapproves of what ABC broadcasts.
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