Is this the scariest shit Trump has said yet?

His Napoleonic gloss suggests that not only is he above the law, but so is anyone who supports him

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Tuesdays at 11:30 a.m. I talk with WGN-AM 720 host John Williams about what’s making news and likely to be grist for the PS mill. The WGN listen-live link is here.

L'etat, c'est Trump?

It’s very difficult to rank the ominous ravings of President Donald Trump, but it’s hard to get more ominous than this social media post Saturday:

“He who saves his Country does not violate any Law.”

At first glance this may appear like just another assertion of the supreme power of the presidency along the lines of Richard Nixon’s declaration, “When the president does it, that means that it is not illegal." Which is chilling enough.

But in the context of Trump issuing pardons to the J6 rioters, including those who brutally assaulted police officers, and his pardon of anti-abortion protesters who invaded and blockaded a women’s health clinic, his statement reads as a license to break the law for anyone who subscribes to Trump’s vision of America.

The quote is often attributed to Napoleon Bonaparte, but Emma Pearson, editor of The Local France, posted her doubts on Monday:

The most commonly cited French version of the quote is “Celui qui sauve sa patrie ne viole aucune loi,” He who saves his country, breaks no law.

Did he really say it? … (The) phrase first appeared in the book “Maximes et pensées de Napoléon” (Napoleon's mottos and thoughts) by the writer Honoré de Balzac, published in 1833.

Balzac does not cite any source … (but) if we can't say for certain whether Napoleon actually said this, it's probably hung around because it does fit with his known philosophy. … He became an absolute ruler and began parachuting his family and friends into key positions (such as making his brother Joseph King of Spain). …

Perhaps the best-known modern fan of the phrase is the Norwegian neo-Nazi terrorist Anders Behring Breivik. He quoted it in the 3,000 page manifesto that he created before killing 69 people at a youth camp on the island of Utoya in 2011.

Is one acting to “save” one’s country by brutalizing or killing those who have political views that differ from the views of the Trump administration? By defying federal court orders with which one does not agree?

I’m sure some will say that such questions are evidence of Trump Derangement Syndrome — excessive hysteria over Trump’s brash declarations.

Reince Priebus, a Republican who served in Trump's first administration, downplayed it as "entertainment for Trump" and "catnip" for the media. (ABC News)

It is so entertaining to be threatened with an autocratic takeover of our government!

There is no way that Trump’s statement itself is not, on its face, as deranged as “L'etat, c'est moi,” “The state, it’s me,” a declaration of absolute authority falsely attributed to King Louis XIV of France, who ruled from 1643 to 1715

It was “the single most un-American and anti-constitutional statement ever uttered by an American president,” posted New York Times columnist Jamelle Bouie.

On Substack, former Republican U.S. Rep Adam Kinzinger wrote:

Trump’s declaration explains why he felt he could simply ignore the law and fire roughly 17 independent government watchdogs (called inspectors general).

It explains why he believes he can summarily close the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, an independent agency created by Congress.

It explains why he ordered the ongoing federal corruption case against New York Mayor Eric Adams to be dropped. (At least seven high-level prosecutors have resigned over this move.)

And it explains why he is, without cause, firing tens of thousands of federal workers.

“We're getting into real Führerprinzip territory here,” posted never-Trump Republican Bill Kristol.

The Holocaust Encyclopedia explains the German word Kristol used:

With the establishment of Hitler's dictatorship, the Führer principle (Führerprinzip) came to guide all facets of German life. According to this principle, authority—in government, the party, economy, family, and so on—flowed downward and was to be obeyed unquestioningly.

That’s Trump’s vision for America. Those who don’t recognize or admit that are the ones suffering derangement, or at least a profound delusion.

Notes and comments from readers — lightly edited — along with my responses

On ending the penny

Deni —I have been preaching that we should get rid of the penny and the nickel for years. But the other thing we need to do is get rid of the paper dollar. There is no paper British pound or Euro, for good reason. The U.S. has tried and basically failed many times to get people to use coin dollar coins, and the way to make that happen is to take away the option of the paper dollar.

JayG — I couldn't agree with Deni more. In fact, I have used the term the "Sacagawea Dollar Problem" to describe a situation where you can't get folks to adopt a new, much better system until you make the old system unavailable. Coin dollars last hundreds of times longer than paper dollars. The research I've seen shows that the Crane Stationery Company (the sole supplier of paper for US currency, formerly based in MA, but now based in CT) has used skilled lobbying efforts for decades to put a stick in the spokes of all previous efforts to do away with paper $1 bills.

Zorn — It’s correct that people will not convert to dollar coins unless the greenback goes away. Coins are annoying. But the reason for making the switch — cost savings, has vanished.

In 2011, the Government Accounting Office estimated that eliminating the paper dollar would save $5.5 billion over 30 years. But an updated analysis in 2019 found that such a replacement would likely result in a net loss to the government of up to $2.6 billion over 30 years.

The lifespan of the $1 note has more than doubled since a 2011 GAO analysis, from 3.3 years to 7.9 years, largely due to changes in note processing technology, (and) armored carriers told GAO that their transportation costs would increase because coins weigh more than notes.

Madi-gone: The conviction of the former state House speaker

Marc Martinez — There is no hope for ethics reform in Illinois or Chicago as long as the Democratic party has a stranglehold on government. The last redistricting increased their power and reduced the ability of any opponent to defeat an incumbent Democrat. Pritzker and the Democratic legislature have also significantly increased the power of public employee unions in legislation and in the state constitution, and there is no reason for them to be troubled by ethics reform.

The lesson that local pols will take from the conviction of Madigan is that you can get away with it for 50 years, you can avoid conviction with the right story and they should keep the size of deals smaller than the ComEd deal. Also, as there is nothing in the convictions that was not well-known practices for decades, it can be assumed that the media and voters will overlook them again.

Joanie Wimmer — It always cracks me up when people say we’ll never have ethics reform as long as the Democrats are in charge. Corruption in Illinois politics is bipartisan. See the following Republicans: Governor George Ryan, Representative Dennis Hastert, DuPage County Republican political operative Scott Fawell, Edward Vrdolyak, former Speaker of the House Jack Walker, Roger “The Hog” Stanley, Illinois Attorney General William Scott, Illinois State Senator Edward Scholl, Bloom Township Republican leader Chuck Panici, Betty Loren-Maltese, to name but a few.

David Leitschuh — I would like to hope that the Madigan and Burke corruption convictions will be the catalyst for ethics reform in Illinois and Chicago. But I’m not holding my breath. Enriching oneself, family and friends through public office has been the lifeblood of Illinois for many decades.

When is the last time you heard about a public-official corruption investigation by the state? Only when the feds get involved does this occur. Look at Exhibit A, the notorious "aldermanic privilege" in Chicago which is specifically designed to funnel money to aldermen from anyone who wants to get anything done in their respective wards. But any attempt to change this is ferociously opposed, so it dies.

Make no mistake, corruption in Illinois is totally a bipartisan endeavor, But there is a higher incidence of this with Democrats simply because there are more elected Democrats in Chicago and Cook County. The real problem? Voters who continue to enable this corrupt system by continuing to vote for elected officials who will not commit to voting in serious ethics reform. Until voters wise up (and the election of Brandon Johnson shows this may be quite a ways off), things are not going to change. Confirmation once again of de Maistre's political theorem that in a democracy, people get the government they deserve.

Zorn — Indeed, Republican governors of Illinois — and there have been several in recent decades — have not exactly been pounding their shoes on the table for tougher ethics laws. And Republican attorneys general haven’t been aggressive about investigating corruption either, in large part because the state defers to the federal government for such investigations. Voters do need to make this an issue.

Money and schools

Marty G. — Is there any way that teacher compensation can be tied to reading or math score testing results in the same way that winning and losing is tied to coaching hiring, firing and compensation?

Zorn —The only sort of student performance-based teacher evaluation that I might be able to endorse would be one that does baseline testing of a classroom of students at the beginning of the school year and then compares test results at the end of the school year to see if the progress that was made was in line with standards set by comparisons with similar student groups. I know that sounds fussy, but this idea that teachers are “failing” because their students aren’t reading and writing and ciphering at grade level is nonsense.

Martin Gartzman — It was not a good look when you wrote "I didn’t check your numbers or your sources, but I have been noticing that AI has been getting more and more accurate when generating statistics and issue briefs.”

It would have taken perhaps 30 seconds to check the State Report Card data for CPS, which showed that CPS spends less than $20K per student and not the $29,028 that you published. And it was also not a good look for you to affirm the validity of AI-created work without doing even the slightest due diligence. In the end, that started a discussion using misinformation.

Zorn — It depends on what you count as spending. The Illinois Policy Institute reports that “dividing CPS’ total expenditures in fiscal year 2024, including operational spending, debt servicing and capital expenditures, by student enrollment in fall 2023 shows CPS spending $29,028 per student.”

Specifically, the IPI told me:

1. $29k figure is all CPS spending (Operational, Capital, and Debt) divided by enrollment. This is useful to gauge total spending, but we can't use this for comparisons between other districts unless we pull Operational, Capital and Debt spending for each of the districts we want to compare to.

2. $25,459 figure is the operational spending per pupil, according to ISBE. This figure is reported for each school district and allows apples-apples comparisons of education spending for all school districts in Illinois. Note that this figure excludes debt and capital costs though, it is simply money spent on day-day functions of the district.

3. $19,908 figure is the site-specific operational spending at schools. This allows you to compare per pupil spending across specific schools within a district. This figure is lower than the $25k above because it excludes items like the operational spending that occurs at the district office, for example. Note that this also excludes debt and capital spending, it is solely day-day spending per pupil at a specific school. Best to compare this figure to schools within the same district rather than across districts.

As for relying on AI, yeah, that was a little quick-and-dirty of me, but the numbers did match what was in my memory, and I stand by the overall contention that AI is getting better and better at identifying relevant sources and finding data. Almost always when I attempt to verify I find that the summaries and numbers match with reliable websites.

Subscription scams

Robert Piasecki — You have written a lot about how the Tribune sneaks in special charges for “Premium Issues” that subscribers don’t necessarily want. Well, the Sun-Times also pulls the same scam, except they call them “Premium Editions.” You need to give the Sun-Times equal criticism.

Zorn — I do and I will. In the fine print at the Sun-Times site I find:

All Print Subscriptions may include up to ten (10) Premium Editions per year. For each Premium Edition your account will be charged an additional fee of at least $3 in the Billing Period the edition is published. Each such additional fee will be deducted from your Subscription payment, which will shorten the length of your Billing Period.

Weird Trumpian capitalization noted. Shame on them. Newspapers ululate all the time about the need for transparency — and I agree — but then pull this kind of sneaky crap on their loyal customers.

The $3 charge for special issues stuffed into the Sun-Times pales next to the $12 the Tribune charges for its “premium” Sunday inserts.

I’ve never investigated how widespread this practice is in newspaper publishing, Seems like a project for an upper-level journalism class at an institution of higher learning. Maybe one of those plucky students can get a quote out of elusive Tribune publisher Par Ridder.

Blame it on the DEI

Bob Ryan— Diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) actions have helped our society slowly get to a better place and without hurting anyone, yet the Republicans have been driven into a hate frenzy over it.

To reframe the argument, let’s talk about Major League Baseball.

Until Jackie Robinson was brought up by the Dodgers, all Major League players were white. When that segregation foot was removed, baseball became much better. The Negro League players who came in weren’t brought in because they were Black; they were simply given a chance to play with the best and prove they belonged. And did they ever prove it.

DEI operates the same way. It doesn’t encourage the hiring of unqualified people; DEI encourages us to look at all candidates and then choose the most qualified from that much larger group.

Zorn — That’s a good way of looking at the concept of inclusion. I’ve been pondering all the fuss about DEI lately and wondering which element of that initiative has so many people in a snit. I hope most people can see how diversity is good for organizations — that people with different life experiences can bring valuable insight. And inclusion — the idea that organizations of all sorts should look at wide hiring/admissions pool to be sure that formerly and currently marginalized groups — not just racial, ethnic and religious minorities but also those with disabilities and unconventional gender presentations as well as the aged — are given full consideration based on their talents — seems hard to argue with as well. Jackie Robinson is an excellent example. Was he Branch Rickey’s DEI hire? Go on, I dare anyone to say so.

The real issue is probably the concept of equity — which, as I understand it, is shorthand for providing extra support and assistance to members of marginalized groups in order to compensate for the disadvantages they have and continue to endure. I’ve seen this drawing on many websites over the years:

The way opponents of DEI would alter this drawing would be to have the view of the tall person (metaphorically a white person, probably male) view blocked by the fence while the shorter people, standing on crates would have a view of the game.

To frame “equity” as a form of affirmative action — preferences for members of historically disadvantaged groups in hiring and promotion — is to invite strong denials from DEI enthusiasts. But certain opportunities really are zero sum games, and denying that creates a flimsy defense for equity that contravenes much anecdotal evidence.

The better argument is that the toxic effect of decades, even centuries of discrimination can’t be erased with lip service for diversity and inclusion. To create a truly race-blind society — one where merit, however defined, is the only measure employers will ever consider, we have to make up for past injustices.

Unpopular opinions?

‘We should stop eating meat’

Reader Michael Gorman anticipates that his anti-meat opinion will be unpopular, and I suspect he’s right. But here:

Stopping eating meat would help us combat anthropomorphic climate change (the greatest problem facing humankind.) It would have the important side effect of reducing the unconscionable crime of mass animal cruelty.

Animal farming is reportedly responsible for up to 20% of greenhouse gas emissions, and is a major drain on water and land.

Greenpeace’s “Seven reasons why meat is bad for the environment” and the Animal Welfare League’s post “Inhumane Practices on Factory Farms” and a good place to start if you want to defend Gorman’s position.

“The Health Benefits of Eating Meat” from Premio, a sausage manufacturer, and “Factory Farming Is Essential to Feed the World” offer the counterargument that ending factory farming would deprive the world’s poor of affordable essential nutrition.

Since I’m in the middle on this — my wife and I are what’s referred to as “flexitarians,” meaning we don’t buy or eat much meat due to some of the concerns raised above, but are far from strict about what we buy, order and consume — I’ll offer a third option in the survey:

Last week’s result

499 votes

Four out of five readers are OK with at least one fewer day of U.S. mail delivery per week. Here’s one dissent:

Monica Metzler — Having USPS only deliver every other day sounds good at first glance for those who get little mail, and the mail they do get isn’t urgent. But doing so for businesses could really mess them up.

In an aside, one reader pointed out that the current price of a first-class “forever” stamp is 73 cents. I had no idea.

Jadrian Wooten posted a very smart explanation for why the cost of stamps is outpacing inflation:

While other industries benefit from technology and automation, the postal industry's reliance on human effort leads to slower efficiency gains. Yet wages continue to increase in line with other sectors, creating cost pressures for the USPS … As other sectors experience productivity growth and raise wages, the USPS must raise mail carriers' pay to retain its workforce. … (Also,) the evolving digital landscape and declining demand for physical mail services have challenged its historical business model. Yet, regulatory constraints and pricing limitations keep the USPS tethered to the past.

And the cost to mail a letter in the U.S. is still relatively inexpensive compared to other, much smaller countries.

This occasional Tuesday feature is intended to highlight opinions that are defensible but may well be unpopular. If you have one to add, leave it in comments or send me an email, but be sure to offer at least a paragraph in defense of your view.

NewsWheel

Inspired by the WordWheel puzzle in the Monday-Friday Chicago Tribune and other papers, this puzzle asks you to identify the missing letter that will make a word or words — possibly proper nouns; reading either clockwise or counterclockwise — related to current events in some way. The answer is at the bottom of the newsletter.

The week’s best visual jokes

Here are some funny visual images I've come across recently on social media. Enjoy, then evaluate:

There’s still time to vote in the conventional Quip of the Week poll!

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Info

Eric Zorn is a former opinion columnist for the Chicago Tribune. Find a longer bio and contact information here. This issue exceeds in size the maximum length for a standard email. To read the entire issue in your browser, click on the headline link above. Paid subscribers receive each Picayune Plus in their email inbox each Tuesday, are part of our civil and productive commenting community and enjoy the sublime satisfaction of supporting this enterprise.

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Answer to the NewsWheel puzzle

FENTANYL