We Can Thank Trump for Waking Us, Not Just the Alt-Right

For the past several years I have felt like I was back in college. As a history major, I didn’t learn anywhere near as much about American history, racism, fascism and politics as I have learned over the last six years.

It became clear right away that having a sympathetic figure in the White House emboldened the alt-Right, as demonstrated by the 2017 “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, but that event in turn woke the rest of us up to the existence of those previously closeted forces in our country. You can draw a straight line from that rally to the events of January 6, 2021.

I remember how Barack Obama’s election in 2008 represented to many the arrival of a “post-racial America,” but now we realize that it simply awakened the sleeping giant of racism, which entered its fullness with the election of Donald Trump just 8 years later.

Those forces are in the minority, but they are highly energized and, thanks to the courts, they have enough military grade weapons to intimidate the rest of us into submission. But will they?

This “course” we’re all taking has a reading list. Books that I’ve read and recommend include: How Fascism Works, by Jason Stanley; Fascism: A Warning, by Madeleine Albright; Too Much and Never Enough, by Mary Trump; White Rage: The Unspoken Truth of Our Racial Divide, by Carol Anderson; Rage and Fear, both by Bob Woodward; Disloyal, by Michael Cohen; A Warning, by Anonymous; and The 1619 Project, by Nikole Hannah-Jones. I could also cite countless articles in The Atlantic, The New Yorker, and The Guardian.  (When you click on the links for those books, you'll see recommendations of books similar to them, many of which I have also read.) 

So, what have I learned from this course of study? For starters, I gained a far more complete understanding of slavery and racism in America and how both were embedded in the U.S. Constitution. As I learned from The 1619 Project, one motivation for our revolutionary war was to preserve slavery. (See last week's blog post for details.)  I learned how the 13th Amendment, which abolished chattel slavery, provided for inmate slavery, which was utilized by former slaveholders to continue slavery by leasing convicts who were imprisoned for petty or fabricated crimes in Southern jurisdictions. (The 13th Amendment reads, “Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States.”)

I have learned how Trump and his minions have followed the fascist playbook. For most of my life I was puzzled by how middle and lower-income Americans would vote against their own interests, but now I realize that emotional interests can trump financial interests, and that fear of immigrants and persons of color and fear of socialism (undefined, and equated with communism) are proven tools utilized by fascists. The manipulation of working class Americans by Trump (who boasted that he loves “poorly educated” voters) is a textbook case in point.

I also learned from Hannah-Jones’ book that fascist inspiration was a 2-way street.  Hitler’s American Model, by James Q. Whitman, describes how Hitler got inspiration from the Jim Crow racism in 20th Century America.

A 2021 book, When People Want Punishment: Retributive Justice and the Puzzle of Authoritarian Popularity, by Lily L Tsai, addresses this very dynamic. Although China is her case study, the final chapter brings the topic home to our domestic situation.

It’s looking as if we may have passed the “tipping point” when it comes to reversing the effects of climate change. Have we also passed the tipping point when it comes to saving democracy? As you and I have learned in this “course,” the U.S. Constitution allows for state legislatures, so many of which are ruled by Republican election deniers thanks to gerrymandering, to overrule the will of the people.

The U.S. Constitution does not dictate how states choose the slate of presidential electors. This has changed over time, but most states — except Nebraska and Maine — send a slate of electors, all of whom are committed to the candidate who got the most votes, no matter how close the vote count was. The U.S. Constitution does not care how a state’s constitution or statutes determine how its slate is constituted.

There’s a real possibility that those Republican-controlled state legislatures may ignore their state’s popular vote and send the electors of their choice to the Electoral College in 2024. That’s a development we all should fear.

 

 

Trump's "Enemy of the People" Rhetoric Led to Police Assaults on Reporters

Maybe you have seen the footage of TV reporters and their crews being targeted and even arrested while covering the demonstrations and rioting which followed the murder of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer.

I'm waiting for someone to suggest that assaults by police officers on reporters displaying press credentials is the logical and inevitable result of President Trump's declaring that the mainstream media are the "enemy of the people."

As a long-time journalist myself, the CNN program "Reliable Sources" (Sunday at 9 a.m.) is a must-watch for me, and their nightly email newsletter is a must-read.  You can subscribe to it here. 

Here's an excerpt from the Tuesday, June 2nd, Reliable Sources newsletter:

The U.S. Press Freedom Tracker says it has counted 211 "press freedom violations" since the start of the George Floyd protests, which in some cases have led to riots. The group's records show "33+ arrests, 143 assaults (118 by police, 25 by others), 35 equipment/newsroom damage."

This huge total # of infringements is partly a reflection of the sheer scope of the unrest... but it also an indication of something sinister at work. Many of the affected journalists have said they felt targeted. Tuesday's letter to Minnesota authorities addressed that: "In every case that we are aware of, there are strong indications that officers knew the journalist was a member of the press."

Words matter, especially from the President of the United States.  Since 32% of the general population is Trump's "base," which accepts as truth what their "great leader" says, it only makes sense that 32% of police officers, more or less, are part of his base, too, and have blindly accepted Trump's statement that journalists (except from Fox News, of course) are the enemy of the people.  It makes sense that some of those pro-Trump police officers would feel justified in attacking a journalist who embeds himself or herself in a demonstration. It only makes sense that a paramilitary officer would feel justified in attacking or arresting an "enemy of the people." 

We saw this same dynamic at work earlier in Trump's reign.  His anti-immigrant and anti-minority "dog whistles" emboldened white supremacists and other alt-right members to come out of hiding and participate openly and blatantly in such demonstrations as the Unite the Right Rally in Charlottesville, where they carried torches and chanted "Jews Will Not Replace Us!"  These people always existed in society, but it was only when the President of the United States started "speaking their language" that they felt comfortable making their feelings known.

I mentioned the Charlottesville rally in last week's "Talking Turkey" column and got several emails and a few letters from Trump supporters, one of whom made a point of defending Trump's statement that there were "many fine people" among the alt-right and white supremacist demonstrators.  Here's a paragraph from Jane W.'s email:

When you refer to the statement about “many fine people” during the Alt right and Antifa demonstrators’ in Charlottesville what do you think these peoples’ “day jobs” were?   These demonstrators may have carried around their “torches” when they were demonstrating – but probably were wearing business suits and holding very important positions and jobs in their communities (fine people to those that work with them and know them-they probably don’t know their “dark” side)?  I would bet that among these demonstrators there were upstanding citizens in their communities, maybe they were leaders, business men, church goers, PTA officers, teachers, city council members – fine people respected by their communities when they are living their daily lives. (Remember the democrats KKK when very prominent men would dress up and terrorize and kill colored people – wearing hoods, of course so they were not recognized, but undoubtedly considered “fine people” when their robe and hood was off.)

Yes, and some of them may have been police officers -- very fine police officers, when among fellow white people.

And that's the problem, isn't it?

Forgiveness Is an Important Trait, and Trump Supporters Get to Practice It a Lot

I have detected a common theme in the writings of Trump supporters, one that is also present in his campaign advertising.  It goes something like this: “Yes, the man is crude, rude, and even obscene, but he gets things done.” As good Christians, which most of his supporters are, they forgive him his flaws and, after all, Jesus died for his sins, too. You’ll recall that one reader whom I referred to as “Mary” compared him to Einstein, noting that all geniuses (even stable ones like Trump) have flaws.

Donald Trump certainly does exercise his innate flaws, giving his supporters plenty of opportunity to practice forgiveness.

They forgive him — if not praise him — for saying that there were “many fine people” among the alt-right demonstrators in Charlottesville who marched with torches chanting, “Jews will not replace us!” even though one of them killed a young woman by driving his car into a crowd of people protesting those “fine people.”

They obviously have forgiven him for the Access Hollywood tape and for getting his fixer, Michael Cohen, to pay off a porn star — and then forgave him for lying about it.

They forgive him — or perhaps believe him — for saying that he knows more than the generals about military matters and more than all 17 intelligence agencies about Vladimir Putin.  They also forgive him for having Michael Cohen negotiate a Trump Tower Moscow during the 2016 campaign, which probably explains why Trump never criticizes Putin.  And, oh yes, they forgive him for attacking many of our allies while praising many dictators.

They forgive him, I guess, for having a one-on-one meeting with Putin in Helsinki with only an interpreter present and then confiscating the interpreter's notes. What did they discuss?  Real estate?  And why haven't the Democrats made more of an issue of this?

They forgive him for being a compulsive liar — or, worse, think he always tells the truth. All politicians lie, they say, so you have to forgive him for misstatements. They say that Obama lied too, but, coincidentally, every one of them cites the very same lie from Obama that “if you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor.”  Find some new ones!

They forgive him — even like him — for using  “locker-room language” to describe those who don’t like his policies. If he were a U.S. Senator and spoke like that in a chamber where Senators still address each other as “the gentleman from Texas” or “the gentle lady from Minnesota,” he’d be censured or even expelled, but his Senate enablers instead praise Trump, lest he endorse a primary challenger.

They forgive him for his constant and ongoing bullying on Twitter.  I wonder whether Melania Trump, who has made online bullying her issue, forgives him. We'll probably only know after Trump leaves office. 

After writing several “Talking Turkey” columns about the unwavering support President Trump enjoys and concluding that members of his base are “unreachable” through logic, reason or the recitation of facts, I have received many emails from Trump supporters who resent that conclusion and contend that we who oppose Trump are the unreachable ones who ignore facts and believe lies.

All of this has taken me back to school, it seems. I have been reading about “confirmation bias,” an academic term which Wikipedia defines as “the tendency to search for, interpret, favor, and recall information that confirms or supports one's prior personal beliefs or values.” Everyone, it seems, suffers from confirmation bias, so the question is what are one’s “personal beliefs and values.”  Fox News and talk radio feed the confirmation bias of Trump supporters. 

Currently I’m reading The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion, a 2012 social psychology textbook by Jonathan Haidt.  It is very enlightening but also very discouraging, in that I’m learning exactly how easy it has been to divide America and how hard it will be to bring us back together. The first part of the book is filled with academic details which I found difficult to follow at times, but his explanation of confirmation bias made sense. Wikipedia’s entry is much more readable!

What Values Would You Like to See Reflected in Our Social & Political Discourse?

Like many of you, I have stood by in dismay, watching the decline of civility and the rise of extremism in American society over the past few years.

There was a time — very recently, in fact — when politicians spoke respectfully of their political opponents, when they didn’t assign them crude nicknames, and when they weren’t outright mean to each other.

There was a time when the anchor of the CBS Evening News, Walter Cronkite, was “the most trusted man in America” and factual reporting of events was respected and not discarded as “fake” or “partisan” news.

There was a time when the work of scientists was respected. Indeed, the word “STEM” entered the dictionary as Americans saw the value of promoting science, technology, engineering and math in school curricula.

There was a time when 99% agreement (actually, less than that) among scientists on topics like global warming was considered enough to consider it “settled science.”

Americans fooled themselves after the election of Barack Obama into thinking we had entered a “post-racial” era, but now we realize racism will never die. Instead there are times when it’s not considered appropriate to voice those impulses or put them into action.

The election of Donald Trump was different. Seeing and hearing the President of the United States mirror one’s own thoughts emboldens him or her to express them or perhaps take to the streets with them, as we saw in the 2017 “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville. Thus emboldened, they often go further than the President, such as when the demonstrators chanted, “Jews Will Not Replace Us!” Making matters worse afterwards was when the President said there were “very fine people” among those demonstrators.

What brought this topic to mind for this inaugural edition of this column was a segment on last week’s Bachelor program on ABC, “The Women Tell All,” in which Rachel Lindsay described the hate and death threats which she endured as an African-American celebrity when she was the “Bachelorette.” The black women who were contestants in this season’s Bachelor program nodded their heads in acknowledgement of experiencing similar hatred.

That’s what has been so destructive of the current presidency — the emboldening of racists, white nationalists and others who in years past would have kept those thoughts to themselves and their loved ones, and certainly not acted on them as they so freely do nowadays.

But there’s more.

The President’s baseless demeaning of the mainstream media, abetted shamelessly by Fox News, has not been fatal — the press will survive and thrive after this president is gone — but it has contributed to the emboldening referred to above.

The most serious long-term effect of this presidency, however, will be the four-year hiatus in the national effort to address climate change. This is a president who has given voice to that 1% of climate scientists who are blind to this worldwide threat at a time when action is so critical. Fortunately, cities, states and corporations have understood the threat and are, to an extent, taking up the battle without the White House support they should be receiving.  Let’s hope it’s enough.

From the beginning, most Americans recognized Donald Trump as a narcissist and pathological liar, someone who returned love only for those who loved or pretended to love him through flattery, such as smart ex-KGB officers like Vladimir Putin.

What’s most surprising to me is not just the self-serving Republican enablers who have tied their wagon to Trump’s star, but how many day-to-day Americans see in Trump’s personality something to admire.