September 15, 2020
As Bob Woodward continues the media blitz for his new book, “Rage,” each day brings the release of a new Trump recording, confirming what we’ve long known to be true. On each tape, we hear Trump, in his own words, practically crowing that he is a racist who makes common cause with murderous dictators. Most chillingly, we hear him calmly admit that he downplayed the lethality of the coronavirus in order to protect the stock market, his sole measure of a healthy economy.
What is more disturbing, though, is what it reveals about us. It is a profound commentary on our national,character that, not only did a majority of white Americans vote for a corrupt sociopath whose only concern was money, they voted for one too stupid to understand the nexus between public health and the economy. We have watched nearly 200,000 of our fellow Americans die preventable deaths that by and large, were not marked or mourned in any meaningful way. Worse still, a majority of Republicans found the number of COVID-19 deaths “acceptable” presumably because Black, Latinx and Indigenous people were disproportionately those who died, (Source: “More than 176,000 in US have died of COVID-19; 57% of Republicans polled say that is acceptable,” by William Cummings, USAToday.com, 8/24/20).
Trump’s most devoted fans have packed recent rallies in Nevada and Arizona, gladly sitting maskless, cheek by jowl. Out West, in Oregon, Washington and California, an area the size of Connecticut is on fire, but, rather than acknowledge that climate change is the cause of increasingly destructive wildfires, Trump repeats the same nonsensical quotes about “forest management,” and risible lines about “explosive trees”.
The joke is on us. As Woodward’s tapes prove, Trump is not as stupid as he pretends to be. Those of us who consider ourselves progressive intellectuals may shake our heads in dismay, or laugh in smug superiority, at the torrent of stupidity coming out of his mouth, but none of that changes the facts.
Trump is transforming the federal government into an engine of genocide. Yesterday a whistleblower revealed that an ICE detention center in Georgia is conducting mass sterilizations of immigrant women, (Source: “Staggering Numbers of Hysterectomies Happening At ICE Facilities, Whistleblower Says,” by Carter Sherman, Vice.com, 9/14/20). Those tempted to say, “this isn’t us,” should know that this country has a long, ugly history of sterilizing women of color. In California in the 60’s and 70’s, Latina women were routinely sterilized without their consent at the U.S.C. Medical Center (Source: “No Mas Bebes,” directed by Renee Tajima-Pena, Independent Lens (2015)). In North Carolina, between 1933 and 1973, state “Eugenics Boards,” sterilized over 7600 people without their consent. Almost 40% of those sterilized were Black, despite being only 25% of the state population, (Source: “Thousands Sterilized. State Weighs Restitution,” by Kim Severson, The New York Times, 12/9/11). Lastly, the Indian Health Service conducted such an aggressive program of sterilization of Indigenous women that a 1974 study found that “at least one in four [Native American] women had been sterilized without consent, (Source:”On Indigenous People’s Day, recalling forced sterilizations of Native American women,” by Ellen L. Kennedy, MinnPost.com, 10/14/19).
The Geneva Convention has been clear for decades:: “imposing measures to prevent births within the group” constitutes genocide. Then, as now, most people won’t even notice the horrors being done in our names. Heck, some people will take up arms to defend the state’s “right” to perpetuate that horror. If history is any guide, only a few of us will be willing to stand up and forcefully, nonviolently resist our descent into the unspeakable. Ask yourself, who will you be?