Category: Trump effect

April 14, 2021

     Daunte Wright.  We are numb.  Angry.  Sickened by the reason that another name has been seared into our collective consciousness.  In pictures, Daunte looks like a baby, our baby.  Imagine your son, or little brother, or nephew at 20.  On the cusp of manhood, but still a baby.  Imagine a sweet young man who doted on his two year old son and was working hard to take care of him.  Imagine that you were the family who rewarded that sweetness and industry with the gift of a new car just two weeks ago.  Think about how Daunte was treating that gift, making sure it was clean inside and out.  Imagine he had borrowed $50 from you to take it to the car wash and that inside, he hung new air fresheners from the rear view mirror. Continue reading “Imagine”

April 9, 2021

     The current state of the Coronavirus pandemic is an apt metaphor for where we find ourselves as a country, on a knife’s edge between promise and disaster.  Buoyed by the accelerating pace of vaccinations and heedless of the threat of the escalating number of variants, we toggle back and forth between responsibility and recklessness.  Students flock to crowded beaches on spring break and governors announce reopenings, all trusting that, backstopped by the brisk efficiency of the Biden administration, we will win the race between the variants and vaccines.  We see no further than what is in front of us.

      Similarly, without the clarifying threat of the Trump presidency, we have become an atomized society, each of us prioritizing only that which directly affects us.  We fail to see that patriarchal white supremacy is the unifying thread connecting the disparate threats we face– from vote-suppressing laws in Georgia, Texas and 45 other states to laws outlawing appropriate medical care for transgender kids in Arkansas to violence against Asian Americans everywhere. Continue reading “Shared sacrifice?”

March 27, 2021

     On Thursday, barely one week after a gunman murdered 8 people in a racist rampage, Georgia Republicans responded by enacting the most sweeping package of voter suppression laws since the Jim Crow era.  As has been widely reported, the laws now on the books in Georgia are clearly targeted to impact Black, Brown and AAPI voters, who delivered the state for Democrats in November and January.

    The laws restrict voting by limiting drop boxes, curtailing who can vote by provisional ballot and cutting the period for runoff elections from nine weeks to four, (Source:  “Georgia G.O.P. Passes Major Law to Limit Voting Amid Nationwide Push,” by Nick Corasanti, The New York Times, 3/25/21).  The most notorious provision makes it a crime to offer food and water to voters waiting in criminally long lines to vote.  Although that provision grabbed attention for its obvious sadism, the most pernicious feature of the new law is the one which strips the power to regulate elections from the Secretary of State and enables the state Board of Elections to overrule county election boards and to suspend their officials, (Source:  ibid).

      Despite Brian Kemp’s Orwellian claim that these laws would protect election integrity, their true purpose was revealed in the brazen arrest of Black state representative Park Cannon for knocking on Kemp’s office door in an effort to observe this miscarriage of justice in real time.  The brutal images of a 5’2” Black woman being manhandled by burly white state troopers harkens back to the multiple arrests of Black protestors during the Jim Crow era for the “crime” of seeking their  civil rights.  

     Rep. Cannon was arrested despite the fact that the state Constitution explicitly states that legislators “‘shall be free from arrest during sessions of the General Assembly except for treason, felony or breach of the peace,’” (Source:  “Georgia Lawmaker As Governor Signs Law Overhauling Elections,” by Jaclyn Diaz, npr.org).

      Republicans around the country are undeterred by accusations that these laws are racist and anti-Democratic.  To them, that is precisely the point.  These laws are designed to wrest control of governance from the majority and relegate people of color to permanent second class status.

     What, you may ask, will Republicans do with this control once they have it?  A clue can be found in the widespread bills that they have introduced targeting transgender people. The Republican zeal to persecute transgender people is a close second to their brutal determination to reimpose Jim Crow.  In 2021 alone, 73 bills have been introduced targeting transgender people, with 65 of those focused on the ability of transgender youth to access healthcare or participate in sports, (Source: “More Anti-Trans Bills Have Been Introduced in 2021 Than Any Year in History,” by Nico Lang, Self.com, 3/9/21) .

    In addition, the Republicans’ continued intransigence on gun control in the wake of back-to-back gun massacres is evidence that the America they envision is narrow minded, cruel and violent.  There have always been two Americas.  The question is, “how hard are you willing to fight for the one you want to live in?”

March 18, 2021

      Months of escalating and unanswered attacks on Asian Americans culminated in the horrific targeted massacre of eight people on Tuesday night.  Six of the 8 people murdered were Asian women, who were gunned down in three separate locations in the greater Atlanta metro area.  The 21 year old gunman sought to deflect from the obvious racism by claiming that he had a “sex addiction,” and was seeking to eliminate the source of his temptation.  To add insult to injury, Captain Jay Baker of the Cherokee County Sheriff’s Office downplayed the heinous crime by saying that the suspect “had a bad day” and “this is what he did,” (Source:  “Suspect, 21, charged in Atlanta slayings,” by Tim Craig, Sarah Pulliam Bailey, Paulina Firozi and Griff Witte, The Washington Post, 3/17/21).  Given that characterization, it was hardly surprising to learn that Captain Baker had shared racist anti-Asian posts on Facebook.  In the wake of the killings, even those we consider liberal or progressive murmured that they didn’t know the motive, giving credence to the fig leaf of Long’s “sex addiction” excuse, as if they have never heard of intersectionality. Continue reading “#StopAsianHate”

March 12, 2021

     Yesterday we marked the grim milestone of one year since the start of the global pandemic.  One year since we were brought low by a virus that was both extremely contagious and frequently lethal.  Those of us fortunate enough to work remotely, retreated to our homes, which became our offices, our gyms, our bars and restaurants.  We struggled to impose boundaries and relieve tedium.  We had friends and family members die without being able to comfort them or properly mourn their deaths.  Our children were robbed of rituals and rites of passage.  It was a year with no proms, no homecomings, no junior year abroad, no graduations.

      Yet when we saw George Floyd murdered on camera for 8 minutes and 46 seconds, something snapped.  Around the country, and around the world, heedless of the risk of contagion, we streamed into the streets together to say that we would not tolerate a society that would tolerate such depravity.  A critical mass of us finally decided that, although this is the country we have always been, this is not the country we want to be.

      In response, the forces of the revanchist right wing in this country, from violent police officers to a white supremacist President, reacted to peaceful protests with violence.  As the election loomed, a corrupt Postmaster General sabotaged the system in an effort to undermine vote by mail.  The “former guy” demagogued the election, whipping his deranged supporters into a frenzy that culminated in a bloody insurrection on January 6th.  Despite all of the obstacles thrown in our way, we came out, not once, but twice — first in November to defeat Trump and elect Joe Biden by a margin of 7 million votes; and then in January in Georgia to elect Jon Ossoff and  Raphael Warnock to deliver a Democratic Senate majority.

     Yesterday, we saw the first fruit of our labor.  President Joe Biden signed the American Rescue Act which will deliver $1.9 trillion dollars in relief to our battered country.  In addition to $1400 checks for every person making up to $75,000 (or couple making up to $150,000), the law will provide an additional $1400 for each dependent child and an increase in the child tax credit (Source:  “Here’s What’s In The American Rescue Plan,” by Barbara Sprunt, npr.org, 3/11/21).  The extension of federal unemployment assistance and the billions in assistance to low income Americans is projected to cut child poverty in half and overall poverty by one third (Source:  “Joe Biden just launched the second war on poverty,” by Dylan Matthews, Vox.com, 3/10/21).

    Then last night, President Biden marked our solemn anniversary with an address to the nation.  The first few minutes were a catalogue of loss.  The President detailed the lives and livelihoods lost, the missed milestones, and reassured us that he understood and shared our sorrow. He went on to detail what his administration had done and would do, to get the pandemic under control, so that we could get back to living, instead of just existing. As we listened to a President who exuded competence and compassion, our relief was palpable.  As President Biden tours the country to promote the benefits of the American Rescue Plan, just remember, we put him there.  At the end of the day, we rescued ourselves.

#Electionshaveconsequences

March 3, 2021

      Yesterday the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in Brnovich v. Democratic National Committee, and Arizona Republican Party v. Democratic National Committee, consolidated cases seeking to uphold two controversial Arizona laws designed to suppress the vote.  The measures require that any vote cast in the wrong precinct be discarded and prohibit the collection of absentee ballots by any third party, (Source:  “Majority appears poised to uphold Arizona voting rules,” by Amy Howe, scotusblog.com, 3/2/21). 

     These laws are not designed to address an actual problem, but to throw as many obstacles as possible in the path of Black, Brown, AAPI and Indigenous voters.  In oral arguments before the Court yesterday, Michael Carvin, the lawyer for the Arizona Republican Party admitted that striking down these two laws would “put Republicans at a ‘disadvantage’ because it would help more people to vote and ‘those people would lean Democratic,’” (Source:  “Hardcore GOP Position For Defanging VRA Falls Apart Under SCOTUS Questioning,” by Tierney Sneed, talkingpointsmemo.com, 3/2/21). Continue reading “Save democracy—abolish the filibuster”

February 23, 2021

    The truism that “Politics is Hollywood for ugly people,” never rang more true than in the past week.  In the last week, a brutal storm crippled Texas’ “ruggedly independent”energy grid, exposing the folly of their go-it-alone, unregulated and fitfully maintained infrastructure and leaving millions of Texans to freeze to death in the dark.  In response, Republican elected officials performed for the right wing echo chamber, rather than working for their actual constituents.  By turns they:  1) blamed wind turbines (which only provide 10% of the state’s power and could have functioned had they been winterized); and 2) excoriated Texans for expecting the government to build and maintain a functioning energy and water supply.  The most egregious response was from “Flyin’ Ted Cruz” whose reaction to seeing millions of his constituents in distress was to say, “let me get the hell out of here,” and fly to Cancun, only to blame his 10 and 12 year old daughters when he got busted.

      It didn’t occur to any of these Republican elected officials to take responsibility for the catastrophic failure of the state’s energy grid.  None of them orchestrated wellness checks on nearly one million residents, or raised $2 million dollars for relief efforts like Democrats Beto O’Rourke and Alexandra Ocasio Cortez, (Source:  “While Cruz was traveling from Cancun O’Rourke and AOC helped Texans in crisis,” by Daniella Diaz and Annie Grayer, CNN.com, 2/19/21). 

       That’s because none of these people are in power to do the hard, unglamorous work of governing.  Their job is to jockey for appearances on the right wing propaganda outlets in order to deploy sound bites that demonize the “other.”  Their job is to whip up hatred and contempt whether that “other” is a Latino person in El Paso, a Black person in Dallas or a Democrat in Austin.  Republicans believe that politics is performance.  Their only goal is to win the news cycle and anger Democrats, no matter how many of their own constituents get hurt in the process.  Trump is the obvious avatar of the callous, media hungry Republican politician, but he has scores of would-be successors, from Cruz and the truly odious Josh Hawley, to dim bulbs Lauren Boebert and Madison Cawthorn.

      These people are all the spawn of Rush Limbaugh, the toxic radio host who died last week at the age of 70.  Limbaugh spent decades spewing his poisonous mix of racism, misogyny and manufactured white grievance.  He convinced millions of Americans that people of color and feminists were the source of their problems and fomented their misdirected rage.  Limbaugh was the first to equate progressive criticism of America with hatred of the country, so that his followers could cloak their venom in a mantle of righteousness, (Source:  “Rush Limbaugh’s toxic patriotism will be his worst legacy,” by Sophia A. McClennen, Salon.com, 2/20/21).

      We look at Texas and ask ourselves why white Americans vote against their own self interests, but that is the wrong question.  The question is, what have white Americans been taught is in their self interest?  As Heather McGhee details in her new book,The Sum of Us, the evaporation of widespread support for government policies benefiting the general public coincided with the redefinition of “the public” to include Black people after the success of the Civil Rights movement.  States closed public schools and paved over public pools, rather than share those resources with Black people, (Source:  “‘Sum of Us’ Examines the Hidden Cost of Racism—For Everyone,”  Transcript of Fresh Air, NPR.org, 2/17/21).

The withdrawal of government resources was justified by politicians who appealed to naked racism, arguing that Black, Brown and Indigenous Americans were “undeserving.” The end result of decades of demonization, deregulation and disinvestment is a cruel and callous country in which millions of white people suffer alongside those they revile. Maybe Texas will be a turning point. Our only hope is to show white people how much their racism is costing them.

February 15, 2021

     Saturday, in a result that surprised no one, the Senate failed to muster the 67 votes necessary to convict Donald Trump of the high crime of inciting an insurrection against a co-equal branch of government.  Despite having been directly attacked by a marauding mob of racist anti-Semites who defiled the Capitol and endangered their lives, only 7 Republican Senators voted to convict Trump.  Despite spending four days hearing the House Managers’ searing prosecution, which detailed the grievous injuries suffered by the police officers Republicans profess to love, 43 Republicans voted that Trump was not guilty.  Despite watching newly revealed footage showing how close they all came to danger, along with a timeline of Trump tweets showing that he directly endangered the life of his loyal Vice President, dead-eyed Puritan, Mike Pence, and that Trump delayed calling off the mob for hours, only 7 Republican Senators with nothing to lose voted to convict him, (Source:  “Quick end to Trump trial leaves unanswered questions,” by Rosalind S. Helderman, The Washington Post, 2/13/21).

       Republicans refused to convict Trump because they are his unimpeached co-conspirators.  After all, the day of the attack, six Senators and 121 House members  voted against certifying the Electoral College results.  They gladly perpetuated the Big Lie that the election was stolen and that the votes of the Black, Brown and Indigenous people who powered Biden’s victory were illegitimate per se.  The acquittal is a signal from those at the highest echelons of the Republican Party that they don’t believe in democracy. Continue reading “Our only hope”

February 8, 2021

       While we should all feel comforted by the boring competence and steadfast progressive policies on display from the nascent Biden administration, on the eve of Trump’s second impeachment trial, we all have the jitters.  We are wary because it is evident that the Republican Party, with the literal exception of Adam Kinzinger and Mitt Romney, seems as committed to violent fascism as we are committed to democracy. Continue reading “Let’s get to work”

January 30, 2021

    Each of the first ten days of the Biden presidency has brought good news from the capable, competent women and men of the administration.  The President has signed a flurry of executive orders designed to reverse the worst excesses of the Trump administration, including an order to “strengthen anti-discrimination policies in housing,” closing private prisons and “increasing the sovereignty of Native American tribes,” (Source:  “Biden signs actions aimed at dismantling systemic racism,” by Cleve R. Wootson and Tracy Jan, The Washington Post, 1/26/21).

     Chastened by criticism that his plan for 100 million vaccinations in 100 days was not aggressive enough, on Tuesday, Biden announced that his administration was planning to purchase 200 million more doses , (Source:  “Biden Administration Aims To Buy 200 Million More COVID-19 Vaccine Doses,” by Scott Detrow, NPR.org, 1/27/21).

    Armed with a Democratic majority, the Senate confirmed Anthony Blinken, the stepson of a Holocaust survivor as Secretary of State, Lloyd Austin as the first Black Secretary of Defense and Janet Yellen, the former Fed Chair, as the first woman to serve as Secretary of the Treasury.

    In the Senate, the standoff between Chuck Schumer and Mitch McConnell over the filibuster ended without the Democrats signing an agreement to keep the filibuster, although Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema once again went on the record stating their opposition to eliminating it, (Source:  McConnell and Schumer ended their standoff over the new Senate.  Who won and what happened?” by Sarah Binder, The Washington Post, 1/26/21).  Still, the newly empowered Democratic majority refused to be stymied by their intransigence, putting the  $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief package into their  budget reconciliation bill.

      After four years of being conditioned to reflexively recoil at the sound of a Washington Post news alert, we are unaccustomed to alerts announcing executive orders focused on racial equity or climate change.  It will take us some time to adjust to an administration focused on ameliorating, instead of causing, harm.

     Yet our palpable sense of relief is laced with dread, thanks to the continuing fallout from the January 6th insurrection. With each passing day, the murderous intent of the insurrectionists and the level of planning that went into their attack becomes clearer.  The January 6th insurrection was no mere spasm of violence by people whipped into a frenzy by the incitement from Donald Trump and other zealots at his “Stop the Steal” rally, but a meticulously planned military operation.

      Wednesday’s indictment of three members of the Oathkeepers involved in the attack contains allegations that they began planning in November, (Source:  “Three Individuals Affiliated With the Oathkeepers Indicted in Federal Court for Conspiracy to Obstruct Congress,” Department of Justice, Office of Public Affairs Release, justice.gov, 1/27/21).  Worse still, there is evidence that several sitting members of Congress have ties to these far right militia groups.  In addition to bottle blond bigot, Marjorie Taylor-Greene, and barely literate gun moll, Lauren Boebert, Arizona representatives, Paul Gosar and Andy Biggs are alleged to have connections to these domestic terrorists, (Source:  “Republican Ties to Extremist Groups Are Under Scrutiny,” by Luke Broadwater and Matthew Rosenberg, The New York Times,  1/29/21).

     Even those Republicans without direct ties seem broadly hostile to democracy.  After all, nearly 70% of House Republicans endorsed Trump’s big lie and voted against the certification of Biden’s unequivocal victory, (ibid).  All but five Republican Senators voted in favor of Rand Paul’s resolution to declare Trump’s impeachment unconstitutional .  Taken together, that means that an overwhelming majority of Congressional Republicans either actively support or have no issue with violence in the service of authoritarian white supremacy.

     At the state level, Republicans in 28 states have introduced 106 new bills to restrict and limit voting, (Source:  “Republicans are going all-out to limit voting rights.  We know why,” by Jill Filipovic, Theguardian.com, 1/30/21).  In Arizona, the GOP has gone even further.  In addition to censuring Cindy McCain and the sitting governor from their own party, one Republican state legislator has introduced a bill that would permit the legislature to throw out the Secretary of State’s certification of the state’s electoral votes.

Ten days into Biden’s presidency, we must face the fact that one of our two major political parties is in thrall to violent terrorists. Biden should hardly be exempt from critiques of his policy or personnel choices, but stories that criticize him for owning a Peloton or wearing a Rolex make a mockery of the grave challenge we face. Clearly, those who publish them think that they have nothing to lose. As one murdered and 140 seriously injured officers could tell them, they’re tragically, horribly, wrong.