July 29, 2017
Friday was a day of reckoning. Any sentient being who watched the events of the last 24 hours unfold can no longer delude themselves. The current occupant of The White House is a vengeful, petulant toddler with armies and the nuclear launch codes at his disposal. Trump, enraged that Congressional Republicans were unable to ram through an ill-considered, hastily written tax cut for the wealthy masquerading as health care reform, lashed out and fired White House Chief of Staff, Reince Preibus. Further evidencing his ignorance of, and disregard for, how a competent White House is supposed to function, Trump plucked John Kelly from the Department of Homeland Security as his new Chief of Staff. Trump is heedless of the fact that the Chief of Staff’s job is to work with Congress to effectuate the President’s policy agenda. We can only surmise that Trump believes that Kelly, a former General, can “order” Congressional Republicans to be compliant with his whims.
Oleaginous sycophant Anthony Scaramucci presaged Reince’s fate in his foul-mouthed rant to Ryan Lizza. The fact that Trump picked this Gordon Gekko wannabe with absolutely no qualifications for, or understanding of, the job of White House Communications Director is further proof that Trump wants to act like the British in the War of 1812 and burn The White House down.
To add insult to the injury of Trump’s transgender ban by tweet, yesterday Trump addressed Long Island police officers and gleefully encouraged them to brutally assault those suspected of crimes. Given the fact that a Black person has been killed by the police every 28 hours in the first seven months of this year (Source: www.mappingpoliceviolence.org), it is not as if the cops need further encouragement to act as judge, jury and executioner where Black and Brown people are concerned.
At this juncture, it is beyond cavil that Trump is a viciously bigoted sadist, hell-bent on using the power of his office to inflict pain and misery on marginalized groups. It is also no secret that this is the source of his appeal for many of our fellow citizens. If we are being honest, we know that Trump is simply the apotheosis of forty years of the Republican politics of racial resentment. Although the language has been coded, a clear-eyed look at Republican domestic policies reveals that they are all rooted in this. We can go down the list. De-funding public education is federalized resistance to mandated school integration. Cutting the safety net is about starving Black and Brown people whose disproportionate reliance on these programs is the legacy of 150 years of state sanctioned discrimination and economic apartheid.
The day of reckoning is upon us. For Congressional Republicans, the question is whether they will finally assert their Congressional authority to serve as a check on Trump’s abuse of power or whether they will join his nihilistic quest to remake America as a white country through deportation, incarceration and extra-judicial murder? For the rest of us who are not people of color, women, or LGBT, the question is whether we are willing to face the history that has brought our republic to the brink? For those of you, the question is simple, “Do you hate us more than you love yourself?”