Journal of the Plague Years

September 3, 2017

Students of American History know that the Founders, inspired by the Enlightenment era philosopher, John Locke, created this country as a nation of laws, not men. The promise of that maxim is twofold. The first is that no person, regardless of position, is beyond the reach of the law. The second is that society will operate under a common framework that ensures the general welfare and provides citizens with a modicum of transparency and predictability. Consider the durability of that foundational principle in light of the events of the last several days. Continue reading “Law and Order?”

It has been frustrating to read statement after statement condemning antifa as the moral equivalent of neo-Nazis and white supremacists.  Everyone from Nancy Pelosi to David Frum has gone on record to decry the violent methods of the black clad antifa, asserting that they are no different than the white supremacists they oppose.  These critiques seem to deliberately miss the point, obfuscating the fact that opposition to fascism is clearly morally superior to Nazism and white supremacy.

Antifa should be strongly criticized for seeking to violently shut down speech, but NOT for defensively using violence to protect non-violent protestors.  As we saw in Charlottesville, when law enforcement passively watched as a white supremacist fired a gun towards a Black counter-protestor and walked away, those of us who protest white supremacists and Nazis cannot always count on law enforcement to protect us.  We should listen to the people on the ground in Charlottesville, who credited antifa with saving their lives.  Unfortunately, in many other instances, the antifa have escalated the violence, muddied the waters and allowed those with tepid opposition to white supremacy and anti-Semitism to take a hands off approach and say, “a pox on both their houses.” Continue reading “Take a seat”

We sit transfixed, watching Hurricane Harvey devastate our fourth largest city with a volume of water that could fill the Great Salt Lake –twice.  We are buoyed by the heroism on display.  In addition to the Coast Guard, the National Guard and the Houston Police Department, scores of ordinary citizens, from Louisiana’s Cajun Navy to journalists who drop the mic to save a drowning woman, have renewed our faith in Americans’ common humanity.  It is comforting to know that when confronted by epic disaster, we still rise to the challenge.  That is more than can be said for Trump, who sits on the sidelines inanely tweeting like a “weather pundit.” (h/t Jon Favreau – Pod Save America, 8/28/17).  FEMA rescue efforts are succeeding in spite of him, given that Trump has proposed cutting FEMA’s budget by $667 million, the National Flood Insurance Program by $190 million and that of the National Weather Service by $62 million.  Trump was not alone in showing his worst qualities in the face of disaster.  Insufferable Texas Senator Ted Cruz bristled at the reminder of his callous vote against Hurricane Sandy relief, now that his constituents needed help.  Prosperity Gospel pimp Joel Osteen refused to open his bone dry mega church to Texans fleeing life threatening conditions until he’d been shamed on Twitter for hours and exposed as a liar by The New York Post. Continue reading “Houston, we have a problem.”

August 26, 2017

 

We keep wondering where the bottom is. When will Trump’s lethal combination of cruelty, racism, incompetence and abuse of power reach its nadir? Or better still, when will that combination prove a bridge too far for those in the co-equal branches of government, such that they are compelled to stop him?

Yesterday was the perfect storm of actions to showcase the fact that Trump is far from hitting the bottom. First, Trump issued a formal directive to the military to enact the ban on transgender troops serving in the military. Then, as Texas braced for what looked to be the worst storm to hit the state in twelve years, Trump was a study in fecklessness, wishing Texans, “good luck,” while boarding a helicopter to Camp David. Although the current FEMA Director is well regarded, Homeland Security, which oversees FEMA, as been without a director since John Kelly was brought over to clean house as White House Chief of Staff.   Meanwhile, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which includes the National Weather Service and National Hurricane Center, is still leaderless. (Source: “Trump Administration Faces Hurricane Harvey, Its First Major Natural Disaster,” Nicholas Fandos, The New York Times, 8/26/17). Continue reading “Rock bottom?”

August 24, 2017

 

Once again, Trump’s actions render us speechless. One week after he doubled down on the false equivalence between violent white supremacists and those protesting them, Trump flew into Phoenix, over the objections of its mayor, to hold a rally for his devoted supporters. We have become inured to the pathetic need of this toxic narcissist for constant validation from his devoted supporters. We cynically recognize that by “campaigning” this early in his tenure, Trump is raising funds that can be used to pay for his legal defense against the obstruction of justice and other charges that are sure to come. Yet, while we can admit that it is hardly shocking when an indecent man behaves indecently, it is shocking, in the aftermath of Charlottesville, to see the extent to which his supporters will contort themselves to hear things that Trump clearly did not say. Most of us heard a sitting President rebuke two sitting Senators from his own party, including one fighting terminal brain cancer. We heard him excoriate journalists of enemies of the people. Continue reading “Enemy of the people?”

August 22, 2017

 

      Last night, Trump delivered what The Atlantic’s James Fallows dubbed a “depressingly normal speech” announcing his “new” strategy for our endless war in Afghanistan. As many people have pointed out, it is nothing more than a schlocky re-branding of major elements of President Obama’s pre-existing strategy, with the added detriment of an undisclosed number of additional troops and an open-ended timetable. Continue reading “Don’t turn the page”

August 20, 2017

 

Our politics of late have become like Mark Twain’s adage about New England weather: “If you don’t like it, wait a minute.” One week after the horrific spectacle of violent racist and anti-Semitic animus on display in Charlottesville, we saw yesterday’s epic, peaceful rebuke of hatred in Boston. In response to what had been dubbed a “Free Speech Rally,” poised to prominently feature the speech of those who don’t believe in equality for people of color, 40,000 Americans came out to forcefully repudiate white supremacy and anti-Semitism. After an exhausting week in which the walking Klan id in The White House characterized Nazis and Klansmen as “very fine people,” it was a relief to see a massive demonstration rejecting that premise. It is an admittedly low bar. Continue reading “Boston and Bannon”

August 18, 2017

Toppling statues is a necessary, yet woefully insufficient response to the horror in Charlottesville. It is certainly satisfying to see activists and elected officials decisively moving to rid the public landscape of these monuments to white supremacy. It is edifying for some of us to learn that these monuments were erected at the dawn of Jim Crow, or during the Civil Rights Movement, as visible markers of the resistance of many Americans to Black equality. Continue reading “Toppling Monuments”

August 16, 2017

 

Thank God for the blessing of clarity. Although there has never been any doubt where Trump stood and whom he supported, yesterday’s defiant, impromptu press conference shredded any pretext that Trump stands for anything less than unvarnished white supremacy. No longer can anyone claim that Trump’s supporters are beset with economic anxiety or lured by his faux populism. Yesterday, Trump stood behind a podium with the seal of the President of The United States of America and truculently defended the “very fine people,” who marched in Charlottesville. Trump averred that not all of them were white supremacists and expressed sympathy with the marchers’ purported concern that their “history and culture” be preserved. Trump equated Robert E. Lee with George Washington and Thomas Jefferson. The nuance that two were slaveholding nation founders and one was a traitor fighting expressly to preserve slavery was seemingly lost on Trump.

In the wake of the press conference, a parade of pundits seemed aghast at the naked racism and anti-Semitism on display. They should spare us. Frankly, at this juncture, pearl clutching shock that the President of the United States is an unabashed racist who gives comfort to Nazis and Klansmen is a luxury we can’t afford. Trump is no mere doddering bigot muttering at the television from the comfort of his Naugahyde La-Z-Boy. He is the President of the United States with the full, fearsome power of the executive branch of the federal government at his disposal.

For those who have been in a coma for the last four days, let’s review what those “very fine people” on the “Unite the Right” side did this past weekend. On Friday night, hundreds of torch carrying white supremacists marched on the lawn of the University of Virginia chanting blatantly anti-Semitic, Nazi slogans like, “Jews will not replace us,” and “Blood and soil.” They then violently attacked a much smaller group of counter-protesters, punching them and spraying them with mace. The white supremacists surrounded a church where a mix of clergy, Black Lives Matter and local activists had gathered, making it unsafe for them to leave the building.

On Saturday, the white supremacists marched to Emancipation Park, outfitted with riot shields, brass knuckles, clubs and guns. While some of the anti-fascist counter protesters also had shields and clubs, there is no question that the vastly larger crowd of “Unite the Right” protesters was armed to the teeth and itching for battle. In addition to attacking counter demonstrators, white supremacists threw bottles of urine on journalists covering the rally. After the rally had been declared an “unlawful assembly,” one of the Nazis plowed his car into a crowd of peaceful counter-protestors, killing Heather Heyer and injuring nineteen others.

These are the “very fine people” that Trump defended. Don’t be confused. These people were not in Charlottesville to express their “views.” They were not simply trying to preserve “history and culture.” No one at a Black Lives Matter march wears brass knuckles. No one at the Women’s March brought clubs and guns. The Nazis and white supremacists that rioted in Charlottesville this weekend were proudly heralding the return of state sponsored racial terror and Trump is their standard bearer.

We have been here before. We have seen thousands of Black people lynched and terrorized for the crime of asserting our inalienable right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. We have seen six million Jewish people murdered by a genocidal regime that Americans fought a war to vanquish. So spare us tut-tutting “concern”, tweeted denunciations or sound bite expressions of revulsion. If you are not doing EVERYTHING you can to root out these forces of evil, root and branch, starting at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, you are wasting my time and risking my life, so spare me.

August 13, 2017

 

    Don’t pretend to be shocked. We all knew that we’d get here. We all knew that this vein of hatred ran rich through American soil, never far from the surface. The ideology of white supremacy is in our DNA and every serious effort to dismantle it has been met with a vicious backlash. Our bloodiest war was fought because half of our countrymen were willing to die for the right to keep Black people as property. Too many Americans never accepted that loss. Continue reading “Civil War”