November 14, 2018
Over the past week, as the huge number of Democratic gains has come into focus, Trump has retreated into a “cocoon of bitterness and resentment,” refusing to even venture out to Arlington National Cemetery on Veterans’ Day and rage-tweeting insults at French President Emmanuel Macron like a petulant toddler. Rumors of the imminent firing of alleged “adult in the room,” lying racist, John Kelly, and distaff Goebbels, Kirstjen Nielsen, are rampant, (Source: “Trump, stung by the midterms and nervous about Mueller, retreats from traditional presidential duties,” by Eli Stokols, The Los Angeles Times, 11/ 13/18).
In contrast, for the vast majority of us who abhor Trump, this week marks the first time in two years that many of us have felt hopeful about the future of this country. The hard work of organizing — the marches, the door knocking, the town halls and the postcard writing — has paid off in a tangible way. We know that a Democratic House majority will have real oversight power to hold these lawless authoritarians accountable for their cruelty and corruption. We know that having Democratic control in states like Michigan and Wisconsin will have profound implications for the presidential race in 2020. We know that flipping seven governorships in states like Kansas, Nevada and New Mexico will have an important impact on the redistricting that will happen in two years. We can see a dim light at the end of the tunnel.
And yet, the willingness of large swathes of our countrymen to vote for outright racists in Georgia and Florida should give us pause. The casual reference to lynching and the alacrity with which Trump is rushing to rally for pro-lynching candidate Cindy Hyde-Smith in Mississippi is an ominous sign of just how Trump and the Republicans intend to hold on to power.
The FBI reported yesterday that there has been a 17% increase in hate crimes in the last year, fueled in part by a 37% increase in anti-Semitic hate crimes. Notably, this is the third year in a row that hate crimes have risen (Source: “FBI data shows sharp rise in U.S. hate crimes,” The Guardian.com, 11/13/18). As Trump has felt more threatened he has escalated his racist rhetoric, leading to a concomitant increase in violent racist and anti-Semitic attacks. In the last few days, we have seen the vicious racist assault on a Black woman in the New York City subway and the murder in cold blood in Midlothian, Illinois of security guard, Jemel Roberson, by a police officer.
Jemel’s reward for courageously thwarting an attempted shooting at the bar was to be killed by the police officer he had summoned to apprehend the suspect. In the aftermath, the police followed a depressingly predictable pattern, claiming that Roberson ignored commands to drop his weapon, thereby attempting to justify his murder (Source: “Midlothian cop told Jemel Roberson to drop weapon before fatal Robbins shooting, state police say. Lawyer claims probe rushed,” by Zak Koeske and Matthew Walberg,The Chicago Tribune, 11/13/18).
This escalating violence is a direct result of what Trump has emboldened. Violent white supremacists are not only in the ranks of the Proud Boys and other neo-Nazi groups, but in police forces around the country, where they operate under color of law (Source: “Even the FBI Thinks Police Have Links to White Supremacists — but Don’t Tell the New York Times,” by Natasha Lennard, TheIntercept.com, 11/5/18). Jeff Sessions’ parting shot, a memorandum placing significant hurdles in the way of DOJ’s ability to monitor police departments, will give them free reign to kill innocent Black people with impunity.
The point of this parade of horribles is not to discount our accomplishments, but to make sure we are crystal clear on what we’re fighting.