Aug. 6 Open Thread: The Endgame Begins

Yesterday was the best day for anti-Trumpism since his election. His own tweet removed the fig leaf Republicans have been hiding behind ever since the Trump Tower meeting went public: He admitted the meeting’s true purpose while maintaining that meeting with foreign nationals to receive stole documents is “totally legal” and “happens all the time in politics.” Sure. That’s why you’ve lied about it right along.

The President’s Sunday-morning tweet should be seen as a turning point. It doesn’t teach us anything new—most students of the case already understand what Donald Trump, Jr., Paul Manafort, and Jared Kushner knew about that Trump Tower meeting. But it ends any possibility of an alternative explanation.

It also leads us into a new and crucial stage of the Trump interregnum:

He allowed us to move away from a no-longer-relevant debate about whether or not he and his campaign had done anything wrong. Our nation can now focus on another question: What do we do when a President has openly admitted to attempted collusion, lying, and a coverup?

Another sign the corporate state has figured out where its bread is buttered: Alex Jones is being purged from Facebook and other social media platforms. One of his supporters told me last week, “He’s just asking questions.” And he’s just getting an answer: No.

Anxious liberals — yes, there is “any other kind,” smartypants — have suggested the media stop covering Trump rallies to deprive him of the free air time. Amanda Marcotte argues that the media simply should keep doing what they’ve been doing lately: Turning the cameras toward the crowd.

Putting the spotlight on the people at a Trump rally inevitably shows viewers exactly what kind of jackals and bigots show up for this sort of thing, which is exactly the kind of unvarnished truth that liberals should want the media to be showcasing.

In case anyone was wondering what side the cops are on, the alt-right rally in Portland should answer that one for you. When violence threatened to break out, they turned not on the Nazis but the anti-fa protesters. The pretext was that bottles and rocks were being thrown at the police. Anybody who remembers the ’60s knows the undercover cops get assigned to that duty so the rest can justify busting hippie heads.

On the easy-to-win front, judging by his obsession with it, Trump’s trade wars apparently were undertaken to improve the U.S. balance of trade. Even by that measure, it’s not working. The hot economy has people buying more, helping to produce the country’s largest deficit since 2008.