Category: Trump effect

June 30, 2020

     “Whoever, owing allegiance to the United States, levies war against them or adheres to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort within the United States or elsewhere, is guilty of treason,” (Source:  18 U.S.C.§2381).  When Trump was impeached, many of us said that blackmailing a beleaguered ally by withholding military aid to boost his own political fortunes was traitorous conduct.  When we pointed out that a weakened Ukraine helped Russia, our geopolitical foe, wags pointed out that we were not at war with Russia, so Trump’s alarming abdication of duty did not rise to the level of treason.  It was a shockingly low bar for the President of the United States, but every Republican save for Mitt “Black Lives Matter” Romney decided it was sufficient for Trump to remain in office.

      How do they explain Trump’s response to the alarming news that Russia was offering a bounty to Taliban forces for the murder of American troops?  Friday, the news broke that Trump has known of the Russian bounties since at least March and was given a menu of option for how to respond, (Source:  “Russia Secretly Offered Afghan Militants Bounties to Kill U.S.Troops, Intelligence Says,” by Charlie Savage, Eric Schmitt and Michael Schwirtz, The New York Times, 6/26/20).  Trump reacted by claiming ignorance and The New York Times responded by reporting that the intelligence was in the President’s Daily Brief in late February, even earlier than initially thought, (Source:  “Trump Got Written Briefing on Possible Russian Bounties in February, Officials Say,” by Charlie Savage, Eric Schmitt, Nicholas Fandos and Adam Goldman, The New York Times, 6/29/20).

      No amount of scrambling or spinning by Trump and his staff of inveterate professional liars can obscure the facts.  Trump, when confronted with reliable intelligence that Russia was paying for the murder of American troops did…nothing.

      It is hardly surprising.  Trump has never shown a shred of respect for the sacrifices made by American soldiers or a concern for the lives of any human beings. 126,161 dead Americans are the starkest testament to Trump’s deadly combination of amoral sociopathy and criminal negligence.  Faced with these damning revelations, Trump retweeted geriatric racists yelling “white power” from a golf cart and gun-toting wannabe militiamen in powder pink polos, rather than doing the only decent thing and resigning.

       Trump has never possessed a single quality required to be a decent President, or a decent human being, for that matter.  He is, and always has been, a vulgar, corrupt and racist bully; a one trick pony whose only cause was white supremacy.  It is a damning indictment of this country that Trump got any closer to the Oval Office than a White House tour.

       As the pandemic body count rises and more damning proof emerges that Trump has more loyalty to Russia than to the country he swore an oath to protect, it becomes clear why he wants to protect Confederate statues.  They were traitors too.

     In the five days since Trump’s disastrous Tulsa rally, we have all been laughing at what an abject failure it was.  Trump has been mercilessly mocked for being duped by K-Pop fans, for the pitiful 6200 people in attendance, for the unhinged, rambling speech.  Buoyed by the strong showing by progressive candidates in Tuesday’s primaries, gloating over Biden’s widening lead in the polls, we feel as if victory is so close we can taste it.

      Yet, while we were dining out on schadenfreude, we were reaping the bitter harvest of the toxic seeds sown by Donald Trump. Yesterday the Senate confirmed Cory Wilson, the 200th federal judge appointed by Trump (Source:  “Senate confirms Trump’s 200th judicial nominee,” by Devan Cole and Ted Barrett, CNN.com, 6/24/20).  Wilson will serve on the Fifth Circuit, the appellate court with jurisdiction over Louisiana, Texas and Mississippi, home to 9 million Black and Latinx Americans.  Wilson is a 50 year old Mississippi lawyer and former state representative, who once called for the “complete and immediate reversal of Roe v. Wade.” Continue reading “Little fires everywhere”

June 9, 2020

    In the two weeks since George Floyd’s murder, we’ve seen hundreds of thousands of people take to the streets to declare that “Black Lives Matter.”  There have been demonstrations in all 50 states and in international capitols like London, Paris and Berlin. Trump’s effort to silence dissent by stepping up a military presence, tear gassing peaceful protestors to clear a path for a ridiculous photo op, backfired spectacularly.  

   Protestors were emboldened, rather than cowed.  Alarmed former military brass went public with their dismay, most notably, former Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, who broke his monk-like vow of silence to pen a scathing takedown of Trump, (Source:  “James Mattis Denounces President Trump, Describes Him as a Threat to the Consitution,” By Jeffrey Goldberg, theatlantic.com, 6/3/20).  In his statement, Mattis said that “Equal Justice Under Law…is precisely what the protestors are demanding.”

       Friday morning, D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser trolled Trump in an epic fashion when she commissioned “Black Lives Matter,” to be painted in giant yellow letters on 16th Street in front of The White House and renamed the street Black Lives Matter Plaza.  By Sunday, Mitt Romney (Mitt Romney!) was marching with protestors in front of The White House tweeting “Black Lives Matter.” Time will tell if this was a deliberate echo of his father George Romney’s principled support of civil rights or an early salvo in his 2024 presidential campaign. Continue reading “Talk is cheap”

May 31, 2020

    The fires are real.  The fires are a metaphor.

      Around the country, cities are ablaze.  What started in Minneapolis has spread to Los Angeles,New York, Chicago, Atlanta, Seattle, Louisville and Portland, and countless cities too numerous to name.  In most cities, the protests and ensuing violence is not merely in solidarity with Minneapolis, but in response to the prevalence of police brutality in each city.

     Rumors have swirled that the instigators of the arson and vandalism were primarily white. Whether they were anarchists unwilling to defer to Black organizers, or white supremacists mobilized to discredit the protest, they have succeeded in changing the conversation from anger over the repeated brutalization and murder of Black people at the hands of the police, (Source:  “Black Organizers ‘Enraged’ by White Agitators ‘Here to F**k Sh*t Up,’” by Justin Glawe, Rachel Olding and Hunter Woodall, thedailybeast.com, 5/31/20).  Yet even if some Black protestors were involved in the vandalism and looting, it is the height of hypocrisy to condemn Black people for breaking the law by destroying property, when our lives are consistently destroyed under color of law with impunity. Continue reading “The Fire Next Time”

May 27, 2020

     Malls are closed.  Offices are closed.  Beaches are closed, but racism never takes a day off.  By now, millions have seen the video filmed by African-American birder and New York Audubon Society board member, Christian Cooper.  In it, “Entitled Amy” reacts to his request that she obey the law and leash her dog while walking Central Park’s Ramble by getting in his face to say that she was going to call the police and tell them that an African- American man was threatening her and her dog.  In the ensuing call, Amy’s voice rises and becomes increasingly frantic in an effort to convey the impression that she is in danger, (Source:  “Amy Cooper’s 911 call is part of an all-too-familiar pattern,” by Anna North, Vox.com, 5/26/20).

    Fortunately for Christian Cooper, the police did not show up with guns drawn and his quick thinking led Amy to suffer actual consequences for her actions, losing her dog and her job within 24 hours. It’s unclear whether she has learned anything, given her complaint to CNN that “her life is being destroyed,” with that passive voice doing the heavy lifting of evading culpability.  Amy is desperately trying to reconstruct her image as a person who is “not racist”, rather than confronting the fact that, without thinking, she weaponized her whiteness to try to harm a Black man because she was annoyed.

      This is the danger.  Far too many self-professed white liberals and progressives won’t hesitate to wield their privilege to the detriment of Black people.  Black people know this and deep down, white people do too. It may not be in as extreme a manner as “Entitled Amy,” but we’ve seen it play out in myriad ways.  Even when white people don’t call the police, they take it on themselves to be the police— to question Black presence in what they deem to be  white spaces.  That is what awaits those who are lucky enough to successfully navigate school systems and other institutions that are indifferent at best and hostile at worst to the fates of Black people.  We live with the knowledge that we can be challenged on a whim in our sleepy suburban hamlets or tony urban high rises.  Our sons and daughters, who we’ve painstakingly shielded and guided, can be brutalized by the cops for the crime of being young and unruly.  Even when the cops are fired, it doesn’t heal the psychological scars our children should never have to bear. Yet we are the lucky ones.  At least we are alive.

       Just as we were relishing Christian Cooper’s karmic victory, we saw the sickening video of George Floyd being murdered in Minneapolis.  A gentle man who “fit the description” of someone suspected of the nonviolent crime of forgery was killed by a cop who ground his knee into George Floyd’s neck for nine minutes as he pleaded for his life.  Three other cops stood by passively and watched their fellow officer calmly murder George Floyd in cold blood, (Source:  “4 Minneapolis cops fired after video shows one kneeling on neck of black man who,later died,” by Ray Sanchez, Joe Sutton and Artemis Moshtaghian, CNN.com, 5/26/20).

     We tweet, we plead, we protest, we litigate, but little changes.  Black people are tired. And scared. And pissed.  We have one question for those of you who call yourselves allies. What are you going to do? Because we can’t breathe.

R.I.P. George Floyd

R.I.P. Breonna Taylor

R.I.P. Ahmaud Arbery

May 21, 2020

     After two months in lockdown, we are bored. The sameness of the days, and the inability to gather with anyone outside of our immediate household has us antsy and irritable. Yet, in our haste to emerge from quarantine, some ugly truths are being revealed.  

      Despite scientific evidence that wearing a mask will stop the spread of the coronavirus, thousands of Americans, like petulant children, refuse to do so.  They blithely venture out unmasked to malls and restaurants, breathing with impunity on the masked workers who serve them, heedless of the harm they’re inflicting on others.   Some have reacted violently to the suggestion that they can’t enter an establishment without wearing a mask.  These people confuse lack of responsibility for freedom.  They demand the “right” to do what they want, regardless of who it harms.  Who can blame them, though, when the tone is set from the top. Continue reading “Wild, Wild West”

May 14, 2020

     We are watching Trump disintegrate before our eyes, erupting in racist tirades directed at journalists; peevish and alarmed that anything has begun to dent his poll numbers.  Yet, any of us tempted to take grim solace in the thought that the escalating death toll might cause his defeat have not been paying attention. In case we have forgotten the knife’s edge on which we’re poised, three developments yesterday should serve as a stark reminder.

      Yesterday, Republican Mike Garcia trounced Christy Smith, 55% to 46%, in the special election in California’s 25th Congressional District.  This marks the first time in 22 years that the Republicans have been able to flip a California Democratic Congressional district, (Source:  “GOP wins special election in California after Democrat concedes,” by Ally Mitnick, Politico.com, 5/13/20).  The DCCC’s decision not to invest heavily in the race probably contributed to the lopsided result, where turnout skewed older and whiter in a district that is 53% Latinx, Asian and Black.  It is critical to remember that this special election was only necessary because the far right wing media forced Rep. Katie Hill from office by weaponizing revenge porn released by her estranged husband. Continue reading “Crisis…or opportunity?”

May 6, 2020

      After weeks of watching white men draped with Nazi and Confederate regalia, armed to the teeth march on state capitols and emerge unharmed and unmolested, we understood the message.  After seeing them get so close to state troopers that you could see the spittle in the corners of their snarling mouths, we hardly needed a reminder of the gulf between what passes for lawful behavior for white people vs. lawful behavior by Black people.  After one after another Republican governor defied science and ignored escalating infection rates to “open up their states,” knowing full well that it would be Black and Brown people forced to choose between their lives and their livelihood, we didn’t need to be told that, to them, our safety doesn’t matter and our deaths don’t even register. Continue reading “Freedom?”

April 30, 2020

Exhausted by isolation, we vainly scour the media for glimmers of good news, whipsawed by stories that alternately induce hope and despair. The hospitalization and death rate in New York State has continued to decline and Governor Cuomo has announced a tentative plan for beginning to re-open the state, starting with the North Country (Source: “Cuomo Details Plans For Reopening New York, Says NYC Needs ‘Summer Activities’ Open For Residents,” by Lisette Voytko, Forbes.com, 4/26/20). Conversely, New Jersey’s Governor Murphy cannot predict when the stay-at-home order might be lifted.

The “President” publicly muses that bleach and disinfectants could be injected or ingested as a possible cure for coronavirus and not only is he not dragged from the podium in a straight jacket, but poison control centers in New York, Maryland and Michigan reported a spike in calls to their poison control centers the next day, from people following Trump’s advice. Continue reading “Down, but not out”