October 19, 2017
Trump’s disgraceful cruelty to the widow of Sgt. LaDavid Johnson has exposed the hypocritical anti-blackness behind his objection to the anthem protests of the Black NFL players. Those that played along with Trump’s charade are now forced to confront how little regard our current Commander in Chief actually has for those who serve under him. Trump started the week by attempting to excuse his failure to reach out to the families of the soldiers killed in Niger by uttering the hateful calumny that Presidents Obama and Bush had failed to contact military families whose loved ones were killed in action. The lie was so vicious it prompted former White House Deputy Chief of Staff, Alyssa Mastromonaco to call Trump a “deranged animal.” That statement was manifestly unfair to animals, who typically lash out when cornered, out of a survival instinct. Trump, on the other hand, displays toxic petulance at any suggestion that he accept responsibility for his actions and seems to relish inflicting pain on those with the temerity to question him.
While we fulminate in righteous rage at Trump’s heartless lack of decency, we overlook more consequential disclosures and appointments. Serial perjurer and committed racist, Jeff Sessions’ testimony during yesterday’s Senate Oversight Committee hearings provided a chilling reminder that the path to autocracy runs through the Justice Department. Although most of the questioning focused on Sessions’ conversations with Trump regarding the fate of James Comey, we should note that Sessions refused to say that he wouldn’t attempt to jail journalists for doing their jobs, stating only that, “we have not taken any aggressive action against the media at this point.” (Source: “Sessions Won’t Discuss Talks with Trump on Comey,” by Matt Zapotosky, Sari Horwitz and Devlin Barrett, The Washington Post, 10/18/17).
We should not hold our breath waiting for a Republican not facing death or retirement to display the courage to stand up for bedrock Constitutional rights, like Freedom of the Press or basic human decency, like honoring military members who have made the ultimate sacrifice for this country. Although there are myriad reasons for their craven cowardice, such as fear of primaries from the right or slavish fealty to their donors’ demands for tax cuts, one key reason that has not received as much attention is the once in a lifetime opportunity to reshape the federal judiciary. Thanks to their intransigence during President Obama’s tenure, there are 121 vacancies on the courts, which will allow the Republicans to stack the courts with rightwing ideologues that could erase decades’ worth of progress for the rights of women, LGBT people and people of color.
One prominent example is Thomas Farr, Trump’s nominee for a seat in the Eastern District of North Carolina. Farr, the former campaign lawyer for avowed segregationist, Jesse Helms, represented the North Carolina legislature in the defense of its incredibly restrictive voting laws which the Fourth Circuit held were drafted to disenfranchise African Americans “with almost surgical precision.” We should note that the seat has been vacant for more than eight years because Congressional Republicans voted against two African Americans nominated by President Obama. (Source: “He Defended North Carolina’s Voter Suppression Law. Now He’s Set to Become a Federal Judge There,” by Ari Berman, Mother Jones, 10/18/17).
We must be clear that Trump is the symptom, not the disease. Although they exhibit more decorum, from Mitch McConnell and Paul Ryan to Tea Party back benchers in Congress and Republican state legislatures, they are united in their desire to turn back the clock to a time when they were not required to share power, or even respect the humanity of, people of color, LGBT people and women. They are scarcely different in outlook than the fundamentalist Taliban or ISIS terrorists they deride. So rather than spending our energy decrying Trump’s lack of decency, we need to spend it on voting these dinosaurs out.