It’s a fact that the Founding Fathers didn’t design a democracy. They gave us a governmental framework that established a constitutional republic.
For more than two centuries, however, voting rights—which in the original Constitution were limited to white male landowners—were steadily expanded, and most Americans believed that our elections were fair and honest. These perceptions led many Americans to assume that they lived under a democratic system.
Over the same period, the United States benefitted from our constitutional system based on three equal branches of government. We have had constitutional crises, to be sure, but for most of our history the branches accepted the spirit of the separation of powers and governed accordingly. This also enabled our system to change and evolve organically over time.
The Founding Fathers, for all their wisdom, anticipated the inevitability of governmental corruption. They settled on the separation of powers concept, in fact, precisely because they felt that such an arrangement made disasters (in the form of a true democracy or total corruption) impossible. The Founding Fathers did not plan, therefore, for an era in which all three branches of government would become completely corrupted, simultaneously, by a tiny cabal of the ultra-rich. The Supreme Court, whose members the Founding Fathers saw as dependably apolitical, would see to that.
But it wasn’t impossible. And it’s our misfortune—and great challenge—that it is our era in which this corruption has become total and made our system completely unworkable for ninety-nine percent of its citizens. Today we have a completely rigged system that takes maximum advantage of the long-standing constitutional restrictions on democracy and completely perverts—or, more commonly blatantly ignores—the rest of that foundational document to serve the interests of the ultra-rich. Most politicians are not admitting to this reality, but the vast majority of Americans understand it explicitly, and they have, not surprisingly, already lost faith in our government.
What we have now is a national death by strangulation by a tyranny of the minority that becomes more entrenched and more invincible with each passing day. (I hate it that the fascists have co-opted the term “tyranny” and that I run the risk of sounding like a member of an armed militia by using it, but it’s the right term for what is going on.)
Here in the United States corporations have been legally defined as people so that they can benefit from the laws protecting the rights of people to participate in politics. There is no limit on corporate contributions to political campaigns and those donations can be made anonymously. The votes of our lawmakers are not only owned by these corporations, but they spend the vast majority of their time raising even more money. Our laws indemnify corporations and the ultra-rich from being held accountable for their actions and their products. Our laws stifle competition by maintaining existing monopolies like the fossil fuel industry and crippling other options and strategies, ensuring that climate change will eventually cause nothing less than the end of the human race. Legislators have slashed corporate taxes and allowed the ultra-rich to move jobs—and their vast cash holdings—overseas and to pollute the environment with impunity, with no penalties for doing so.
Here in America the rich have engineered, in just the last few decades, a truly cosmic shift in wealth distribution—totally in their direction. They have won their war against labor unions, which built the thriving middle class in America by giving workers a say in wage bargaining. Union membership has been decimated by “right-to-work” laws and campaign finance restrictions. The unions are effectively dead, wages have been totally stagnant, and the much-vaunted American middle class has perished along with them.
Here in America when one party achieves a majority in a state legislature, it is free to redistrict that state to achieve permanent political majorities in Congress and in that legislature. These safe seats have killed bipartisan lawmaking at the state and national levels. The only people who have the power to kill these phony districts are the people who designed them in the first place.
Here in America ANY legislation has to be approved by the House, a super majority in the Senate, and the President, and upheld, if necessary, by the Supreme Court. The three hundred thousand residents of Wyoming have as much representation in the Senate as the thirty-eight million Americans who live in California. The six hundred and thirty thousand people who live in Washington, D.C. have no voting representatives at all. Congress has stopped passing any significant legislation—the huge exception being, of course, a massive tax cut for the rich—because of the impassable roadblock that is the Senate and because they don’t want to be held accountable by the voters or their corporate sponsors.
Here in America we have a criminal, ultra-rich President who has publicly declared war on the rule of law enshrined in the Constitution, refused to allow Congress to oversee the executive branch, and openly dared Congress to stop him from completely ignoring them and by ruling by tweet and fiat. He has allowed a foreign government to interefere in our national elections and hs made it clear that he will not stop it from doing so again. And he has filled his Cabinet with fellow white rich men who are utterly corrupt.
Here in America we have a Supreme Court whose most recent members were selected for their partisan views and approved along party lines. One of those justices owes his seat to blatant partisan thievery. It is these justices who have defined corporations as people and upheld partisan redistricting on behalf of the minority party. And that minority party has appointed 123 federal judges in the past eighteen months, ensuring that if by some miracle Congress does pass meaningful progressive legislation, the judicial branch will certainly kill it.
The corrupting influence of money has corrupted all three branches of our government and exposed our system’s lack of enforcement mechanisms for such a situation. Our system requires a makeover--a task that seems impossible given that all three branches of government are utterly corrupt. Removing Trump is critical since it may be our last chance as a country to throw any kind of roadblock in front of the tiny gang of rich criminals who own this country. But if you think Trump created this phony excuse for a government, or if you think that removing Trump will reverse it, then we’re done for. We in the currently powerless majority need to roll up our sleeves and fight like demons to take back our government--precinct by precinct, county by county, and state by state. We can’t pass a constitutional amendment, but we don’t need to do that to make the Senate more democratic by adding more states by breaking up California and giving D.C. statehood, and we can at a minimum add one more seat to the Supreme Court to replace the one that was stolen. The Democrats took back the House with their landslide last year, but given that a criminal gang that holds all the cards and all the money, it’s clear that working within the system will not be enough. All we have is our numbers, and that’s not nothing. But we will need to be brave enough and committed enough to show up in the streets to demonstrate that we are the majority and to put as much pressure as possible on the entrenched minority. At this point we have allowed things to devolve so precipitously that many of us won’t likely live long enough to see a real change of power, but a struggle beats the hell out of sentencing our children to lives spent as pawns of the rich.
I’m reading Gordon S. Wood’s “Friends Divided,” an account of the friendship and rivalry between John Adams and Thomas Jefferson. The Founding Fathers did not build a perfect system, but they created the greatest and most liberal political experiment of their age. These were privileged men who turned away from their comfortable lives, their successful careers, their guaranteed privilege, and many of their countrymen to risk arrest and execution in order to launch an experiment that was the envy of underdogs the world over. We may no longer have that will or spirit in our national DNA. We’ll find out.
Dispatches from Post-Racial America
The 2019 graduating class at West Point numbered about 1,000. Thirty-four of them were black women, which makes that class the most diverse in the history of the academy. A photo of these women was widely circulated in the press. On /r/The_Donald, Reddit’s most popular forum for Trump supporters, a user posted the photo of the recent West Point graduates along with a title that read, “Diversity just means ‘less white people'” and the comments below followed.
Read them and weep. This is our “post-racial” America. These are the Trump supporters to whom we are supposed to build bridges. These people raise children. These people vote. These people have a proud champion in the White House.
Why are they all standing haphazardly and holding their sabres like toys? There is zero discipline in this picture
Yeah, you don't act like this in the military
I mean, not in the Marines. Certainly not enlisted.
I have seen pictures where they do something funny, but certainly not something that would be put out to the public.
army.... pfft!
Lol says the seaman
lol
Ah as the prophecies foretold
Seamen
It’s one of several pictures, I’m assuming this is the silly one. This one is much more formal.
This is a fake picture right? They look like they could barely run a block to a Mc Donalds.
Well, they're half-swording of course!
In this case, no white people
So diverse. So many shades of brown skin, brown eyes, and black hair.
A rainbow of brown.
That’s a shitbow Randy
#45
I wouldn't think this was even in America - this does not reflect our actual population at all.
What? That’s like, 30 black females in a class of 1,000 cadets. The school is mostly white males - not that there’s anything wrong with it, but let’s not pretend that this is some crazy fact.
And just where, of the 930 other cadets, are the non black female's at? Why aren't any of them included? Would a segregated photo of just Asian males, or white females, let alone white males not cause mass SJW REEEing?
Class photos should be of the intire class of American soldiers , not just identity politics.
There are literally hundreds of photos of the entire class. I have literally no opinion if anyone wants to take a picture for whatever reason.
As a vet, I look at that and cring. Looks like a bunch of fools who can't even read a damn map to me.
Wake up, maps are racist.
Googled: are [maps] racist.
Yes, they in fact are.
That and they are out of shape. There is no way they could keep up with a class just out of basic, let alone do Ranger school without falling out on the first run.
I guess Army is now the Fat Branch of the Military.
I guess Army is now the Fat Branch of the Military.
No, just PAC clerks and REMF's.
That's what I noticed too. Most of them look overweight.
Are female cadets not required to adhere to physical fitness standards?
They have really lax fitness standards compared to men. It's sad.
They're part of a special program. When we get hit by the chinese human wave attacks these chicks will be rolled down special ramps to knock down the chinese soldiers like bowling pins.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but how is this diverse? It's like the opposite of diverse.
Here's a clue. Absolute diversity means no white people.
I know, but it's amazing how the media call such a photo diverse when there is literally no diversity in the picture. DoubleThink I guess.
The left likes to try and change the definition of words until they fit their narrative. If this is diversity, then imagine what they think equality means.
No. They want to eliminate white people. They want us marginalized and dead. It'll all make sense when you realize that.
"Wanted: Moar blacks for military."
Why are they all so fat? Jesus.
Fitness diversity
Fitness pizza in dem moufs
Underrated
be us
salty ass grunt Sergeant
on 7th Tour To Middle East
have a Purple Heart with a star
haven’t seen a chow hall in weeks
dirty as fuck but you want your boys to get fed take one step into chow hall
get snatched up by one of these Goblins on their first pump
have 2 ribbons
”ayyyo Sergeant, where is u think yous going?” boys_need_hot_chow.exe
”Nah Sergeant, we’s got standurdz here. This be my chow hall, You gots to clean up furst”
say fuck it and hit the PX and grab an MRE before you go back out
mfw we’re told to celebrate diversity: 🥴
I got kicked out of line once because my pants had a hole in them. Like a pinky sized hole. DFAC Nazis do exist.
I got kicked out of one in Fallujah, because I had blood on my trousers, because I was MEDEVAC’d, hadn’t eaten in 36 hours and didn’t have any other cammies to wear.
And we’re talking about a fist-sized blood stain that looked more like dirt.
I had just walked over from the BAS, with fresh stitches after being told by the Navy Surgeon to go eat and got turned away by some 240 lb land whale.
diversity hires
The worst things in life are fat sassy black chicks in charge of white men in stressful situations
God help us during WW3..
Came in to say this.
I say let it happen.
Shall we cull the weak now or later, once it’s worse and the Bolsheviks are in charge of the House, Senate and POTUS.
We need something to happen to allow us to clean house and it has to be extreme....
Anything short of something extreme and devastating will be viewed as “illegitimate” and/or “rayciss” by the Left
I get this is a right wing, pro Trump sub, and I support that. What it shouldn’t be (but is) is a club for assholes to congregate and make fun of other people.
Your comment has nothing to do with the content of this pictures, and quite frankly, it isn’t even true.
Now, I do agree that this isn’t a “diverse” group of people, but you shouldn’t make rude remarks about them. It makes you no better than the people you argue against. Comments like this are why the Left call Trump supporters racist and why I get lumped in with people like you.
It's a military school and the students are visibly out of shape. That's a topic for discussion.
Visibly out of shape? Go look at our general public if you want to see visibly out of shape. I see maybe 3 or 4 larger women, and even though they are larger, they are by no means “fat”.
The “general public” isn’t tasked with national security.
And by USMC standards, almost all of them are fat and outside the allowable height/weight standards.
And these people are at the premier Military college in the country/world.
It’s an issue.
How many deployments have you done?
I stopped counting at 13.
How many contracts have you worked with the Dept of State or Department of Defense in the Middle East?
I’ve done 6.
My point is, my comment is made from a perspective where EXPERIENCE backs up what I said.
And you know it’s true, which is why you felt compelled to do the “nuh-uh u bigot” thing.
Don’t shoot the messenger dude.
And for the record, I’m Hispanic, I’m in an interracial marriage, with mixed race kids.
Not saying that I get a pass, but I am saying you idiots need to grow up and admit that “being “color blind” is stupid and it causes more problems than it corrects.
And lastly, we couldn’t care less if y’all think we’re racist. Your side has worn that label out a long time ago and I’ve found, as a Hispanic guy, the most racist people are in the Left.
So, everyone is racist, or no one is racist.
HONK HONK.
I honestly couldn’t care less about your military history (it doesn’t make you a good person), your race, or who you are married to. You made a comment that makes you look like an ass.
I didn’t say you or your comment was racist. What I meant is this, people on the left see shit like this and go “look at those right wing racist extremists”, and then people like you get mad because of it. You are doing this to yourselves.
Also, in case you missed it, I consider myself more right leaning than left. I think the left is hateful and spews lies, but my side (right) does it too, case in point, you.
Ok, but you understand you look like an idiot right?
Basically, what you’re saying to us is, “fuck you guys and your real life experience! While I’ve never served or gone overseas, I’m nevertheless going to disregard whatever you guys say because it makes me feel yucky and my morality doesn’t approve.”
Once you’ve experienced the “welfare with guns” club, come back and let us know.
You’re an absolute MORON if you think I’m the only one who feels this way and I couldn’t care any less about what you think of my or my service when you literally have no reference point to speak from.
Clown.
You seem like the person who wears targeted shirts about being a BadAss Marine and makes sure you get your military discount when you get your haircut. Byeeee
Well, I’m sure I seem like that to you since you have such a distorted view of the military.
You should probably stop watching NCIS and The Code and conflating that with real military service.
And for the record, I have a beard that is slightly longer than the hair I usually wear in a man bun while I’m contracting.
Army here chiming in.
Airborne infantry turned NG Armored Cav Scout, later Mech Infantry (Recon) over 16 years total service. Medically retired in 06.
Ignore the shill. They are invincible in their ignorance and take joy contemplating what real life has in store for them.
Scout brother!
I was a Scout/Forward Observer rolling in shit box LAV’s with missing propellers.
The tell is how they always scream they know more than anyone while not realizing they’re showing how little they know.
When I encounter a subject I don’t know anything about, I’m more than happy to admit it and seek info.
They never do.
Diversity is code (dog whistle) for racism against white people.
Diversity has come to mean "Only black people"
Sure let's casually ignore the other 900 cadets not in the photo. You are really blowing this out of proportion
One picture as an example is so easy to dismiss, isn't it.
Pay no attention to the others behind that curtain.
There is no war in Ba Sing Se.
If you really believe that there is a conspiracy against white people because 3% of the graduating cadets were black women, then I really don't know what else to say to you.
If you really think this is only because of this one picture, I don't know what to say to YOU to be honest.
If this was a post about how certain colleges handle admissions there may be something to talk about. But hating on West Point grads because they are black and using it to push a narrative is just low and unnecessary
hating on West Point grads because they are black
Call me racist next, go ahead, I dare you.
We are talking about Diversity, HELLO?? . We aren't talking about individual specific people. can I get through to you or should I use simpler words and make a diagram in bright colors for you? If you can graduate as a lard ass then there's something wrong with the institutio
Isn't this the same prestigious academy that pumped out Open Communists into the officer ranks?
They are like the fucking Berkeley of the US Military. Shut the Communists down.
Give us some credit, I believe that guy’s commission was rescinded, or at least he was severely punished. West Point is highly conservative on the whole.
Are there diversity quotas?
My class was about 75-80% white males, so I’m assuming not.
AMERICA FIRST
How much time has passed between then and now?
i pray we are not called to war any time soon.
Right now we are fine, in a decade, not so much. When the old guard General Officers retire, that is when our enemies will celebrate.
Good God, it looks like Beyonce trying to recreate Rhythm Nation.
The Military has a quota to fill and they need their diversity points. Disgusting.
I saw this coming when the Army kept jerking me around over blood pressure despite seeing a professional Cardiologist and getting their approval over a year ago. In short, it was deduced to nerves and White Coat Syndrome. I would have signed their stupid ass waiver but they did not want to give me one. Yet they let in people like that, and in West Point no less. I bet those people would shit their pants and go AWOL at any sign of conflict.
The BP readings on those fatties in the picture would make you rage.
They got a pass because of their skin color.
"Their culture has a high salt intake, you racist! Of course they can go to our West Point! Your white privilege doesn't work here anymore!"
Apparently it also means, "Holy shit that is cringey!"
No one should be graduating from West Point over weight. This is discussing and not the West Point that my family attended many years ago.
No kidding, I would love to see the 2 mile times for this group.
"Physical fitness tests are misogynist and racist! They pass! Now go to the dining hall ladies, you earned a second lunch for listening to this white male spout hate!"
I got called fat in Beast Barracks, and I was 6'2" 190 lbs.
Bang your neck back, bean head! What are you gazing at? How's the cow? What is the Power of the Hour? Start the Days! 😎😉😄
(BTW, for the non grads, not swords, but cadet sabres.)
Who and what are they going to fight for?
How is a homogeneous group of people diverse?
Lmao. It's hilarious that they want to teach people to celebrate a lack of the white race. Less whites = good. I can't imagine why there is a rise in white nationalism... gee, so weird.
Where are the Asians, the native Americans, the east indians, the Caucasians?
Exactly. We are all being replaced. Hispanic or Black only, for Army.
To be fair, for this photo they just grouped together the 34 black women from the entire graduating class of 900+ cadets.
Affirmative Action.
Lower standards.
I think the biggest problem with it is that instead of celebrating unity with all their classmates that they are all soon 2nd Lt, they are celebrating something immaterial that separates them from their classmates. These diversity initiatives are death to unit cohesion.
The Army has a huge problem with black and Hispanic gangs. Some units cannot even get mission ready without them being onboard and releasing supplies/equipment.
This gang of cadets is going to rule with an iron fist over those of other races when they are in command.
The Army has a huge problem with black and Hispanic gangs. Some units cannot even get mission ready without them being onboard and releasing supplies/equipment.
Any sauce on that? If true, those units are not going to be on the side of the United States in the coming war with Mexico.
This isn’t diverse at all
So many useless pogs
I can’t help but be reminded of these diversity warriors
Stop appropriating baseball culture?
No asians, no whites, no mexicans, no russians no europeans. wouldn't diverese be at least 50/50 white/black?
Diversity is our strength guys, member that
Private Timmy toed the line
and did what he was told
Sent to fight to save the world
In places hot and cold
He gladly fought for you and me
While we sat home and surfed
He lost so many bros-in-arms
On god-forsaken turf
Timmy went to Afghanistan
To fight Islamic factions
Was led by a Westpoint graduate
A product of affirmative action
The battle became intense
They were blocked on every side
She bailed on them saying “Fuck dat shit!”
And Timmy fucking died.
(apologies to Sprog)
Made in America
Is this a mob or an army?
More like 'more communists'. The commies just have calculated that minorities are more susceptible to the commie message.
I can’t help but immediately wonder how low the standards have been lowered
I hope they track the careers of every one of them. 8 years from now will be a hoot.
They forgot to put the cleany bit of the broom on the stick, how they gonna mop corporate HQ with that sticky thing? Oh well, iq.
Total pull-ups done: 3.5
I will never understand why they intentionally separate and segregate themselves from everyone else then get mad when others notice.
NO WHITE PEOPLE
"Diversity" means the violent annhilation of Western culture, democracy, and morality -- to be replaced by a brutal and oppressive secular and socialist state.
Democrats use race as a misdirection for their ultimate goal.
I don't have a problem with this. Graduating from West Point is a great accomplishment. If this picture is used to influence other black men or women to better their lives in service to our country, then let this message spread.
You seem to be one of the few decent people on this thread. I mean what a ratio of gobshites! An article celebrating an increase in the numbers of black women in a class of 900 and all Trump supporters can come up with is wall of negativity. If you could build your Mexico wall out of American white male negativity it would have been built coast to coast at no cost long ago. And right across the Canadian border too for good measure.
How To Get Your Impeachment Ticket Punched and Get a 2020 Win, Too
Even though Trump has clearly committed dozens of impeachable offenses, I have argued for months against impeachment because of five undeniable realities:
· It will never succeed in this Congress
· It will give him yet another huge political victory just before the election
· It will only succeed in inflaming his base and increasing his fundraising
· It will suck up all the Democratic House’s energy and resources
· Impeachment without the support of the vast majority of Americans is a really, really lousy idea
· Elections have consequences and Trumpism is best removed by the ballot box and not through impeachment
· It encourages dangerously delusional political thinking by catereing to the most absurd and impossible fantasies of the resistance (e.g., impeachment has a chance of succeeding, Republicans will turn against Trump, impeachment hearings will change voters’ minds about Trump, impeachment will force Trump to resign) when we should be focusing on the election.
The argument in favor of impeachment that totally resonates with me, however, is another undeniable reality: that if Congress does not impeach Trump after his multiple impeachable offenses, it will not have upheld its Constitutional responsibility. In other words, if Congress and the Democratic Party won’t impeach someone like Trump, why do we even have a Congress or a Democratic Party?
Until this week I felt strongly that the realpolitik realities listed above outweighed this argument. But now we have Bill Barr.
I’m ashamed (heartily) to admit that I actually stated last month that the country was lucky to have Bill Barr in place as Attorney General before Mueller completed his investigation and submitted his report. I thought that because Matt Whitaker was a dangerous moron who would torpedo the Mueller finale; Barr was not stupid enough to commit a crime under Trump’s spell; Democrats and former Justice Department colleagues swore that Barr, although a conservative, was a staunch institutionalist; and Barr had a thirty-year personal relationship with Robert Mueller.
I couldn’t have been more catastrophically wrong. We now know that what we have in Barr is an Attorney General who is smart and politically savvy (he may be the only person in Trump’s administration who fits that description), completely dedicated to protecting any President from the law in any situation, thoroughly comfortable with a perpetual war with Congressional Democrats, and an aggressive advocate for the legality of Trump’s savage agenda (demolishing the Affordable Care Act, putting immigrants in concentration camps, suppressing the Democratic vote, etc., etc.). Barr is quickly usurping Trump’s standing as the most dangerous force for evil in the country.
Trumpland has no bottom, and this latest horror has got me thinking again about the how fundamental the rule of law is to any kind of civilized society. But it hasn’t led me to believe that any of my arguments against impeachment were invalid or mistaken, or that the 2020 election is the existential political event in the history of the United States. Millions of us share this feeling. We must have room for both. Doing the right thing—impeaching Trump—cannot mean that we fall into another GOP political trap.
Holding months of impeachment hearings would certainly give vast media coverage of Trump’s crimes, coverage that could be very powerful if it came in the form of public testimony from Trump insiders like former White House counsel Don McGahn. But we’ve had two years of this coverage. At this point, in this polarized country, very few votes would be changed. The Mueller report was a pretty savage indictment of Trump’s behavior, and it hardly registered in the poll. And months of hearings would consume vast reservoirs of Democratic and resistance focus and energy that should be spent on recruiting great candidates, executing on voter-registration efforts, and passing legislation in the House on nonpartisan issues that voters really care about and where Trump and the GOP are literally nowhere: health care, the environment, immigration, common-sense gun control, and infrastructure. Such legislation would be just as doomed in the Senate as impeachment, but it would force the Republicans to vote against these bills and allow the Democrats to use those votes against them in 2020.
There is a viable middle ground between a doomed impeachment and a collision with the 2020 election: a fast-tracked impeachment of Trump.
The Democrats should move heaven and earth to get Robert Mueller to testify in front of the House Judiciary Committee—soon. Given the contents of Mueller’s report, and his anger with how Barr has torpedoed it, it’s certainly possible that Mueller will testify that he didn’t indict Trump because of DOJ restrictions, that he wasn’t asking Barr to make the call he could make, that he instead prepared a report that he expected Congress to act upon, that Barr misrepresented his report in his four-page summary, and that Barr’s testimony about the conversations he and Mueller had about the report were untrue or misleading.
That’s as lethal an impeachment bludgeon as the Democrats are going to get this year. Instead of holding months of hearings and colliding with the 2020 elections, the House Judiciary Committee could draw up compelling, legitimate and detailed articles of impeachment based solidly on Mueller’s findings on Trump’s clear obstruction of justice in a couple of weeks. The Judiciary Committee could then hold a series of hearings over the next month to explain those articles to the media and the voters. Following those hearings, the Judiciary Committee could quickly vote to send impeachment to the floor for a vote. This would require another month of hearings, but the next step would be a vote by the full House, given the Democratic majority, to approve Trump’s impeachment and send it to the Senate for a decisive trial there. This results in a five- or six-month process by which impeachment would be handed over to Mitch McConnell’s Senate in late September or early October.
If you think Mitch McConnell will allow an impeachment trial to be held in the Senate, you don’t know Mitch McConnell or the Senate. He has the power to change Senate rules to ensure that a trial never even happens.
So the entire impeachment debate could be completed more than a year before the 2020 election, giving the Democrats the opportunity to:
· Truthfully state that they fulfilled their Constitutional responsibility to hold Trump accountable for his crimes
· Avoid a split between Pelosi and pro-impeachment Democrats
· Continue their other investigations of Trump, including those regarding his finances and tax returns
· Pursue their subpoena requests in the courts
· Force House Republicans to vote against their proposals on the issues most important to all Americans
· Most importantly of all, enable them to totally focus on campaigning against Trump and the GOP in every state in 2020 and defeat them at the polls.
Pelosi, Nadler, and the Democratic Party been struggling with impeachment for all the reasons I outlined in my first paragraph. But there is no doubt that they have the political skills and power to ram a Trump impeachment through the House well before the 2020 elections.
It’s the best impeachment hand the Democrats will ever hold between now and then.
Fighting the Real Terrorists
There is no doubt about it.
Domestic terrorism committed by radical-Christian white supremacists is the biggest threat to our national security, and it is increasing at an alarming rate.
The President of the United States is the leader of a homegrown, fascist movement based on maintaining white and Christian supremacy that we can call Trumpism.
The President of the United States is a professional racist whose actions are influenced by his desire to win and maintain the political support of radical-Christian white supremacists.
The President of the United States uses his bully pulpit to foment racial hatred, spread racist conspiracy theories, and encourage violence against immigrants, non-Christians, people of color, his political enemies, journalists, media personalities, and health-care providers.
The President of the United States has created a political and legal environment that encourages domestic terrorism, emboldens and protects domestic terrorists, and makes American citizens less safe.
The President of the United States tolerates domestic terrorism because he leverages it for his own political advantage.
Trumpism is bigger than Donald Trump and will exist as a political force after the end of his political career.
The Republican Party and the current Cabinet—including the Justice Department—have committed themselves to realizing fascist and racist goals and programs of Trumpism.
The Republican Party and the current Cabinet have turned against our Constitutional system and jeopardized national security in order to realize Trumpism.
The Republican Party and the current Cabinet are implementing a systematic program designed to suppress the votes of American minorities and divide the Jewish vote.
The Republican Party and the current Cabinet are implementing a systematic program designed to end legal immigration into this country by people of color.
The United States Supreme Court now has a conservative majority that seems poised to make Trumpist programs the supreme law of the land.
The Department of Homeland Security has disbanded its task force on domestic terrorism, eliminated funding for programs to prevent domestic terrorism, and removed radical-Christian white-supremacist groups from its terrorism watch lists.
Fox News, the most popular “news” network in America, most particularly the program hosted by Tucker Carlson, regularly promotes the “Great Replacement” and “White Genocide” racist conspiracy theory used as justification by many domestic terrorists in their personal manifestos.
Evangelical Christianity is a key wing of Trumpism. American evangelical Christian organizations have supported racism, sexism, misogyny, homophobia, anti-Semitism, and white-supremacist teachings since the Civil War and are currently engaged in blatant efforts to promote and fund Trumpist political candidates, despite laws to the contrary.
The President of the United States, the Republican Party, and the Trumpist National Rifle Agency oppose any restrictions on assault rifles and ultra-lethal ammunition, the tools of the trade for domestic terrorists.
One other fact: The majority of Americans do not support institutional, legalized racism.
So how did we end up here? Because we let it happen.
How do we fight racism and domestic terrorism in this country? By actively fighting it. By making racism and anti-Semitism loathsome again. By showing, through our actions, words and physical presence, that we are, indisputably, the majority.
We defeat Trump, because by defeating him we remove the loudest voice for white supremacy, end his power to implement racist policies, and destroy the myth of Trumpism’s invincibility.
We leverage Trump-resistance organizations and platforms like Indivisible to mobilize against racism, anti-Semitism, and white-supremacist groups.
We call out racism, anti-Semitism and hate whenever we experience it in our daily lives. We don’t let fear and intimidation keep us silent. Apathy equals acceptance. Hate increases when the reaction to it is silence.
We show up when white supremacists hold rallies in our community and we shout them down, marginalize them, and let them know they are not welcome.
We show solidarity and support for the victims of racism, anti-Semitism, and domestic terrorism.
We pressure the news media to call racism for what it is. It’s not “racially insensitive.” It’s racist.
We pressure the government to admit that domestic terrorism is our biggest threat and to keep us safe from it.
We pressure the government to end mass incarceration of immigrants and citizens of color by fighting for criminal justice reform.
We pressure the government and law enforcement to ensure that hate crimes are prosecuted and the perpetrators punished with appropriate jail sentences.
We work with our community law enforcement agencies to fund more training for police.
We condemn religious leaders who embrace racism and anti-Semitism. If our own church supports such ideologies, we find another church.
We support voter registration efforts in our community.
We help make the government look like our citizenry by voting for qualified candidates of color.
We contribute to groups like the ACLU that fight racist government actions and laws in court and that file lawsuits against white supremacists to imprison and bankrupt them.
We work to remove all Confederate monuments and make Juneteenth a national holiday.
Last Men Lying
Some tried, but in the end were not able to fulfill Trump’s demands.
Michael Flynn, Peter Smith, and Barbara Ledeen were not able to deliver on Trump’s repeated demands top obtain Hillary Clinton’s private emails.
Matthew Whitaker was unable to take charge of the Mueller investigation prior to its completion.
Some stood up to Trump.
James Comey refused when Trump asked him to drop the Flynn investigation.
Jeff Sessions refused when Trump ordered him to “unrecuse” himself from the Mueller investigation and when Trump demanded that he resign.
Don McGahn refused when Trump ordered him to fire Mueller and demanded that he not share his recollection of the event.
Corey Lewandowski and Rick Dearborn refused when Trump asked him to tell Jeff Sessions to limit Mueller’s investigation to future election interference only.
KT McFarland refused when Trump ordered here to write an email saying, untruthfully, that Trump did not ask Flynn to talk to the Russian ambassador about sanctions.
And then, in his darkest day, at the eleventh hour, when all had failed him, Trump found William Barr and Rod Rosenstein.
Will the Release of the Mueller Report Make Impeachment More Likely?
The occupant of the White House hopes that tomorrow’s Easter-week release of the Mueller report will complete his immaculate resurrection after two years as a target, but the day will more likely be remembered instead as the start of impeachment hearings.
But for who?
The Mueller report may force the House to begin impeachment hearings against Trump for obstruction of justice. It’s being reported tonight that Mueller could not reach a conclusion on this charge because he couldn’t determine Trump’s motive. (Which is, without an explanation from Mueller, infuriating, given that Mueller never even tried to compel Trump to testify.) The motive piece is important for a prosecutor like Mueller whose sole context is a legal one, but not for Congress in the middle of the decidedly political milieu of impeachment. The biggest question about the obstruction of justice impasse is who Mueller considered as the audience for his report—Barr or Congress. If it is revealed that, like previous prosecutors, Mueller thought that his job was to lay out a case for Congress, not Barr, to decide and the report makes a strong non-legal case for obstruction, then Nadler and the House Judiciary Committee will feel compelled to start impeachment hearings against Trump. “What else are we here for?”, they would justifiably ask.
I’ve always felt that impeachment hearings against Trump would be a colossal mistake. Such hearings would not change the minds of many voters. (Trump’s poll have been insanely consistent because nearly everyone has already made up their minds about him, one way or the other.) They would be a huge and potentially fatal distraction for the Democratic Party, which will have to focus relentlessly and totally on the 2020 campaign in order to beat Trump. Impeachment hearings would fire up Trump’s base to vote and to contribute money to his campaign. Most important of all, Trump will never be convicted and removed by the current Republican Senate. And that’s how it should be. We need to beat Trump at the polls in 2016, not ask the politicians to remove him for us.
But if it turns out that Mueller was making a case that he wanted Congress and not Barr to decide, then the Democrats would have a solid rationale for impeaching the Attorney General.
They could argue that Barr’s appointment was illegal, given his behavior before and since his confirmation. Barr blatantly auditioned for the Attorney General job ten months before he got was nominated by sending an unsolicited letter to the Department of Justice and Trump’s lawyers championing the notion that a sitting President could not be indicted. It’s entirely possible that an arrangement was made. Barr has certainly done everything he could since his confirmation to live up to the promises he made in his tryout.
They could charge Barr with lying to Congress if he releases a heavily redacted version of Mueller’s report, given that he told the Judiciary Committee that he would publish as much of the report as possible. They may have more evidence of this after Barr and Mueller both testify before Congress.
If Mueller’s report makes a strong case for obstruction, Congress could charge Barr himself with obstruction of justice for clearing Trump of that charge before Congress could see the evidence, giving Trump’s lawyers advance briefings on the Mueller report to help them prepare a rebuttal, coordinating with the White House on the timing and process behind the report’s release, and claiming that the Department of Justice spied on the Trump campaign in 2016 without providing any evidence.
Another potential impeachable offense by Barr would be the withholding of critical information from Congress and, by extension, the public. Barr provided his own four-page summary of the Mueller report and then, unlike previous prosecutors, withheld the release of the report for several weeks. He is not allowing Mueller or his team to participate in his press conference tomorrow, thus depriving Congress or the press the ability to question the special prosecutor.
In addition, Barr took an oath to uphold the Constitution by ensuring a non-partisan Department of Justice. Instead he preemptively cleared Trump of collusion and obstruction, briefed the White House on the report before its release, and interfered with Congressional oversight of Trump. Barr is the most partisan Attorney General since John Mitchell. (Barr might want to remind himself of Mitchell’s fate—nineteen months in prison.) Using the Department of Justice to favor one political party would be an impeachable offense.
Barr also swore to uphold the law. Instead he has put his Department of Justice on the side of repealing a lawful act of Congress—the Affordable Care Act—and just this week announced his department’s decision to hold asylum seekers at the border in indefinite detention, which is illegal according to both U.S. and international laws.
There is no chance that William Barr would be convicted and removed by the current Republican Senate, but after tomorrow there will probably be a strong case for Barr’s impeachment, and Congressional Democrats could pursue it without the considerable risks and downsides associated with an attempt to impeach his boss and master.
A Complete Chronology of the Incredible Democratic Witch Hunt
Fox News and Congressional Republicans have made an aggressive case for nearly two years that the special prosecutor’s investigation into the Trump campaign and Russian interference in the election was a completely biased witch hunt launched and run by the Democrats.
I was initially skeptical of this claim, but now that the Mueller investigation had ended, it’s perfectly obvious that his probe was nothing but a carefully orchestrated Democratic smear campaign. Don’t believe me? Just look at the following facts and timeline, going back to the start:
The Republican head of a special House committee spends 28 straight months conducting multiple investigations into Hillary Clinton’s actions in the Benghazi incident. No charges are filed.
The Republican head of the FBI leads an investigation into claims that Clinton improperly stored and transmitted information on a personal email server and decides that no charges are warranted.
The Republican head of the FBI launches an investigation into whether Russian operatives colluded with the Republican presidential campaign to influence the upcoming election after receiving a tip that a Republican foreign policy advisor of the Republican Presidential candidate had bragged about such a partnership.
The Republican former director of intelligence, who is secretly meeting with Russians, appears at the Republican national convention and leads the Republican delegates in chants of “lock her up, lock her up.”
The Republican head of the FBI announces just days before the election that the Clinton email investigation is being reopened. No charges are filed, but the news throws the Clinton campaign on the defensive and helps swing the election to the Republican candidate.
The newly elected Republican President appoints the Republican former director of intelligence as national security advisor, a Republican former member of his transition team as attorney general, and another Republican as deputy attorney general.
The Republican national security advisor meets secretly with the Russians and discusses the lifting of sanctions and lies to the FBI about those meetings.
The new Republican White House counsel is informed by the Justice Department that the Republican national security advisor has lied to the FBI about his contacts with Russians.
Weeks later, news reports appear detailing meetings between the Republican national security advisor and the Russians.
The Republican President fires the Republican national security advisor, saying that he did so because the Republican national security advisor had lied to the Republican Vice President.
The Republican attorney general testifies before Congress that he had no contacts with Russians during the campaign. When that statement is proven to be inaccurate, the Republican attorney general amends his testimony and recuses himself from any Russian investigations. This means that the Republican deputy attorney general will direct such investigations going forward.
In testimony to Congress, the Republican head of the FBI reveals that his agency has been investigating Russian interference with the election and possible collusion with the Republican presidential campaign.
The Republican President meets with the Republican director of the FBI and asks the Republican director whether the Republican President was a target of the investigation and requests that the Republican director end the FBI’s investigation of the Republican national security advisor.
The Republican President lets the Republican attorney general and the Republican deputy attorney general know that he is going to fire the Republican head of the FBI and asks them to prepare a written justification for that firing.
The Republican President fires the Republican director of the FBI, using a letter from the Republican attorney general and the Republican deputy attorney general as justification.
The Republican President goes on national television and states that he had decided to fire the Republican director of the FBI before hearing from the Republican attorney general and the Republican deputy attorney general and that the Russian investigation was a factor in that decision.
The Republican President meets with the Russian ambassador and discusses the firing of the Republican director of the FBI, calling him “a nut job” and noting that “I faced great pressure because of Russia. That’s taken off.”
A week after the Republican President fires the Republican director of the FBI, the Republican deputy attorney general announces the appointment of a prominent, lifeliong Republican as a special prosecutor to look into Russian interference with the election and possible collusion with the Trump campaign. Several Congressional Republicans state publicly that the Republican special prosecutor is an ideal choice for the role.
The Republican special prosecutor moves quickly, and within five months files charges against the Republican former chairman of the campaign of the Republican President, the Republican former deputy of the Republican former campaign chairman, the Republican former national security advisor, and the Republican foreign policy advisor to the campaign of the Republican President.
The Republican former national security advisor, the Republican foreign policy advisor, and the Republican former assistant manager of the campaign of the Republican President all plead guilty to knowingly lying to the FBI and agree to cooperate with the Republican special prosecutor by telling what they know about the activities of other Republicans.
The Republican President repeatedly insists that no one in his election team or administration had any contacts with the Russians.
It is revealed that the following members of the Republican President’s team had meetings with the Russians before or after the election: the Republican President himself, the Republican son of the Republican President, the Republican Secretary of State, the Republican Secretary of Commerce, the Republican campaign manager, the Republican deputy of the Republican campaign manager, the Republican attorney general, three Republican foreign policy advisors, a Republican campaign advisor, the Republican President’s Republican lawyer, the Republican real estate advisor to the Republican President, and the Republican brother of the Republican Secretary of Education.
The Republican assistant attorney general and the Republican special counsel approve a raid of the home, motel room, and office of the Republican President’s personal attorney.
The Republican former manager of the campaign of the Republican President is found guilty on eight counts of fraud.
The Republican former manager of the campaign of the Republican President pleads guilty to all charges brought by the Republican special prosecutor and agrees to cooperate with the Republican special prosecutor.
A Republican former attorney general submits an unsolicited memo to the Republican-controlled Department of Justice and the Republican lawyers of the Republican President that calls any investigation of the Republican President for obstruction of justice “fatally misconceived” if no collusion is proved, because then there would be no criminal motive for obstructing justice.
The personal attorney of the Republican President pleads guilty to tax fraud and campaign finance charges and agrees to cooperate with the Republican special prosecutor who is investigating the Republican President.
The Republican Attorney General, after months of withering complaints from the Republican President, resigns at the request of the Republican President.
The Republican President appoints a Republican as acting attorney general.
The Republican lawyers for the Republican President submit written answers to questions from the Republican special counsel.
The Republican President appoints the Republican former attorney general who wrote the memo saying that an obstruction of justice charge against the President would be “fatally misconceived” to serve as attorney general.
The Republican former attorney general is approved to serve as attorney general by the Republican-controlled Senate Judiciary Committee.
The personal attorney of the Republican President pleads guilty to lying to Congress and tells the court that the Republican President directed him to violate campaign finance laws and that the Republican President lied about not having any business dealings in Russia.
A Republican former advisor to the campaign of the Republican President who communicated with Russian hackers and Wikileaks is indicted by the Republican special prosecutor on seven counts, including one count of obstruction of an official proceeding, five counts of false statements, and one count of witness tampering.
The Republican attorney general receives the final report from the Republican special prosecutor. The Republican special prosecutor does not find that anyone in the campaign of the Republican President conspired with Russians. The Republican special prosecutor does not reach a conclusion on the obstruction charge.
The Republican attorney general and the Republican assistant attorney general decide that there is not enough evidence to charge the Republican President with obstruction of justice, claiming, just as the Republican attorney general noted in his unsolicited memo from ten months earlier, that there can be no criminal motive for obstruction if it was decided that there was no case for collusion.
After reviewing the report by the Republican special prosecutor and making his decision on the obstruction charge, the Republican attorney general does not release the Republican special prosecutor’s report to Congress or the public. instead, the Republican attorney general releases a four-page summary that states that while the Republican special prosecutor did not reach a conclusion on obstruction, the Republican special prosecutor “did not exonerate” the Republican President
The Republican attorney general officially closes the investigation of the Republican special prosecutor.
Which brings us to the critical juncture that we have reached today, when the Republican attorney general’s report on the Republican special counsel’s report makes it clear completely to the entire world that there was zero substance to the Russian investigation, that the investigation did not accomplish a damn thing, that there was absolutely no contact between the Republican President’s campaign and the Russians, that the Republican President has been completely exonerated, and that this whole mess was just another plot by the lamestream media and the traitorous Democrats to ensure that America never becomes great again.
It's easy, people: It’s not a witch hunt if the Republicans are running it!
You're an old, white, male, inarticulate, corporate Democrat. How the hell do you run for President as a young, eloquent, progressive black woman?
This would never actually happen in real life, but let's say for the sake of argument that you're a 76-year-old white guy who has been around since the beginning of time. You held elected office for 46 years. You ran two spectacularly disastrous campaigns for President made notable by their brevity and startlingly incoherent babbling on the stump. You're identified with the Democratic Party run by large corporate donors. And you've got some dark things in your past. You spent weeks on national television abusing an African-American woman who dared to accuse a Supreme Court nominee of harassment. You supported forced school integration in the South but opposed it in the north. And you championed policies that led to the mass incarceration of black males.
You decide to run for President in a year when a new breed of progressives who refuse corporate donations has brought new energy to your party and when women and people of color are achieving unprecedented success in politics. You're facing a multitude of talented opponents. Most of them are aggressive progressives. Nearly all are decades younger. Several are women. Many are people of color.
What to do to make headway against this kind of tough current?
The situation calls for something bold and different. What about the classic Trojan horse ploy? It worked for Odysseus, your best pal back in prep school. Cast yourself in an altered form in order to slip through the 2020 gates. The killer move, obviously, would be to recruit a human shield in the form of a young, dynamic, brilliant, progressive, eloquent, African-American woman!
You only have to get past one little problem in order to pull off this brilliant con: convincing such a person that this would be the smart move for her.
Nancy Pelosi makes the smart call on impeachment
Nancy Pelosi’s comments yesterday on impeachment were exactly right.
First, here is what she said:
"I'm not for impeachment. This is news. I'm going to give you some news right now because I haven't said this to any press person before. But since you asked, and I've been thinking about this: Impeachment is so divisive to the country that unless there's something so compelling and overwhelming and bipartisan, I don't think we should go down that path, because it divides the country. And he's just not worth it."
My key assumption that the goal is to remove Trump from office as quickly as possible. What is the fastest way to get from Point (where we are today) to Point B (a world in which Trump is no longer President)?
Trump has already committed—in public—the impeachable act of obstructing an investigation of him and his campaign.
Members of the House and Senate took an oath to uphold the Constitution, which says that a President who has committed “high crimes and misdemeanors” can be impeached by a simple majority vote of the House and removed from office by a 2/3 majority vote in the Senate. Many Democratic members of Congress feel, understandably, that no American is above the law and that they would not be upholding their oath of office if they did not file impeachment charges against a President who is clearly a criminal.
Impeachment and removal from office is not a legal process, despite the fact that the final stage in the Senate is called “a trial.” It is a political process. It has nothing to do with criminal charges. If the 2/3 of the Senate votes to convict the President, he or she is removed from office. Whether the President is indicted later on criminal charges is up to the justice system.
The Democratic-controlled House has the justification and the votes today to draw up articles of impeachment, approve them, and send Trump to the Senate for trial.
Given what we know today about Trump’s many crimes, would the filing of impeachment charges in the House and a trial in the Senate get us to our goal—to Point B?
The answer is, absolutely, “no.”
Anyone who thinks that two thirds of the GOP-controlled Senate would convict Trump based on the current, considerable evidence of his crimes has been living on some other planet. TWENTY Republican Senators would have to vote to convict Trump. The GOP senators will only turn against Trump if their base voters in their home state turn against Trump, because they have to survive a Republican primary in order to get reelected. Over 85 percent of Republicans currently support Trump. Conviction in the Senate will not happen.
Given that an impeachment undertaken based on current knowledge will not succeed, what would such an effort accomplish?
• Impeachment would formalize the struggle between Trump partisans and the anti-Trump into an all-out war.
• Impeachment would completely overwhelm the Democratic agenda in Congress. Even though there is no chance of Democratic bills being signed into law during Trump’s term, passing a series a bills in the House is vitally important to retaining Democratic control of that chamber in 2020 because Republicans will be forced to defend their votes during the campaign.
• Democrats in Congress would be able to say that they fulfilled their Constitutional duty.
• Impeachment would be viewed by many in the anti-Trump resistance as a positive move.
• Impeachment would ignite the Trump base, who will feel that the Democrats are trying to overturn the results if the 2016 election.
• Impeachment without conviction would be the ultimate proof that Congress is utterly partisan and irretrievably broken.
• Impeachment without conviction will enable Trump to claim a huge victory against the partisan Democrats and against the investigations into him just before the 2020 election.
• Impeachment without conviction will increase GOP fundraising and voter turnout in the 2020 election, increasing the chances that Trump will be reelected to a second term.
Which brings us to Pelosi’s important caveat—that impeachment would be inevitable if the majority of Americans and Republicans turn against the President. People forget that Nixon was only impeached because he was caught on tape, and the America of 1973 was not as divided on partisan lines as the America of today. I don’t believe that the GOP will ever support Trump’s removal, no matter what he has done or how many guns are smoking.
Pelosi is being very deliberate and smart about her announcement. She made it clear that the door to impeachment is not totally closed. She made her comments prior to the release of the Mueller report to make her preferences clear beforehand. She is right that impeachment without the support if the majority of Americans will hurt the Democratic Party in the 2020 elections. She is taking responsibility as the leader of her caucus for not supporting impeachment at this time in part to allow individual Democratic members of Congress to endorse impeachment if they want to do so. She has the support of Adam Schiff and Gerry Nadler, the Democratic chairmen of the Intelligence and Judiciary committees, who are in the process of uncovering the truth about the Trump family crime organization between now and the election.
The best way to remove Trump is to beat him at the polls next year. An attempt to impeach him would only make him a martyr to his supporters and give a new lease on life to his fascist movement. The hard truth—and it’s a very hard truth indeed—is not only that impeachment is doomed in this Congress, it could help to utterly destroy the American experiment by giving another four-year term to a racist, fascist, anti-American President. The 2020 election is the only way to way to get to Point B, and we won’t be successful in that journey if we try to focus on both that contest and impeachment.
The Democratic Party Caves to the pro-Israeli Lobby
Democrats hate it when being pro-choice is equated with condoning murder.
Democrats hate it when being critical of Trump is equated with being unpatriotic.
Democrats hate it when a more equitable distribution of income in America is equated with promoting class warfare.
Democrats hate it when government-run health care is equated with communism.
Democrats hate it when fighting climate change is equated with being against coal miners.
Democrats hate it when challenging sexism is equated with being against men.
Democrats hate it when a humane immigration policy is equated with “open borders.”
Democrats hate it when fighting for voting rights is equated with voter fraud.
But Democrats love it when opposing the Israeli government is equated with anti-Semitism. Today it is literally impossible for an elected Democratic official to criticize the Israeli government without being tarred as someone who despises the Jewish people. This is not only un-American and nauseating but illustrates the Democrat Party’s utter hypocrisy when it links opposition to Israeli government policies with anti-Semitism but sees no relationship between attacking Trump’s racism and corruption and being un-American.
It’s not anti-Semitic to challenge why the rights and perspective of the Palestinians is not given equal weight to the rights and perspective of Israelis by our government and our media.
It’s not anti-Semitic to acknowledge that the Israeli government’s 11-year blockade of Gaza has subjected its two million inhabitants to collective punishment and a growing humanitarian crisis.
It’s not anti-Semitic to ask why Israeli snipers in Gaza have targeted people clearly identifiable as children, health workers and journalists.
It’s not anti-Semitic to claim that Israel’s policy of expanding its West Bank settlements and infrastructure is illegal and makes a peaceful settlement impossible.
It’s not anti-Semitic to point out that the Israeli lobby has a major influence on American politics.
It’s not anti-Semitic to say that the Israeli government is corrupt and racist. Prime Minister Netanyahu was just indicted on corruption charges. Israeli police had previously recommended that he be indicted on three other occasions for bribery and fraud. Just ten days ago, Netanyahu announced a political alliance with the openly racist Jewish Power and Jewish Home parties—the first time odious racist extremists in Israel have been invited to be close to the center of power in that country.
In a recent tweet about the GOP attacking critics of Israel, Minnesota Representtive Ilhan Omar responded with “It’s about the Benjamins, baby.”
U.S. politicians were outraged—outraged!—at the inference that they are pro-Israel because they get paid to be so, but Omar was in fact pointing out that the Israeli lobby pays American politicians who are pro-Israel. This is not a slur. This is a fact—for both Democrats and Republicans. Nevertheless, the Democratic Party demanded that Ilhan apologize for publicly acknowledging this obvious truth.
Then a 2012 tweet from Omar surfaced in which she stated “Israel has hypnotized the world, may Allah awaken the people and help them see the evil doing of Israel.” Critics insisted, preposterously, that Omar was regurgitating an old anti-Semitic trope about Jews possessing secret, dark powers and that “the evil doings of Israel” meant that Jews were evil, when in fact Omar had specifically focused in her tweet on the actions of Israel and not on Jews in general. Once again, the Democratic Party forced Omar to apologize or be ostracized.
Now Omar is being vilified again, this time for saying this at a recent event: “I want to talk about the political influence in this country that says it is okay for people to push for allegiance to a foreign country.” Attackers are claiming that this statement accuses American Jews of possessing dual loyalties—to this country and to Israel—when in fact she is making the point that stifling any and all criticism of Israel rises to the level of a pledge of allegiance to that country.
The Democratic Party’s response to this latest completely legitimate statement of Omar’s is to introduce a Congressional resolution condemning anti-Semitism. It’s a brave party that tries to muzzle one of its own members by passing a resolution to protect its funding by the pro-Israel lobby that completely mischaracterizes that member’s legitimate criticism of that very lobby.
Let’s get real here. Omar is one of the first two Muslim women elected to Congress. Her references to Allah disturb many Americans. She is also a vocal supporter of boycotts, sanctions, and divestments against Israel, which are perfectly legitimate—if unpopular—responses to the actions of the racist Israeli government. While she has apologized for the impact of some of her tweets, she continues to insist on exercising her right to criticize the Israeli government.
“I should not be expected to have allegiance/pledge support to a foreign country in order to serve my country in Congress or serve on committee,” she said recently. “I have not mischaracterized our relationship with Israel. I have questioned it and that has been clear from my end.”
Republicans, predictably, are now calling for her resignation and linking her with 9/11, a slaughter that was committed by citizens of another country sheltered from legitimate criticism by a very strong American lobby—Saudi Arabia. The Democrats are punishing Ilhan Omar as demanded by the pro-Israel lobby. If the Democratic Party is anything like the party it claims to be, it would be focused not on silencing its members but on condemning and countering the disastrous and racist Trump/Netanyahu partnership.
Mueller Speaks
The reports of an imminent end to the Mueller investigation seem more substantial than the rumors we’ve heard every day for a year and a half. It will be an experience to live without the mystery and anticipation surrounding it.
None of us know what Mueller will tell us. We don’t even know whether he will be allowed to tell us anything.
It is possible that Mueller’s report will document treason and obstruction of justice by the President of the United States and that it will be accompanied by one or several additional indictments that had been previously sealed.
It is also possible that Mueller will find no evidence linking Trump directly to either the Russians or obstruction of justice and that Roger Stone will turn out to be Mueller’s last indictment.
It was never smart to think that we could outsource our responsibility to fix our monstrous 2016 mistake to Mueller or to bet that he would provide the ironclad case for impeachment that we’ve dreamed about. It’s more likely that nightmare elections can only be cured by another election, and that Mueller’s findings will not be the end of Trump.
We have three things to be thankful for—the 2016 midterms, the arrival of Bill Barr, and Robert Mueller.
If the Democrats hadn’t won by a sizeable margin last year, the Republicans would have had a relatively easy time burying or lying about Mueller’s report in advance of the 2020 election. But things are different with Sheriff Pelosi in town. If Barr quashes or selectively edits the report, the Democrats can subpoena it and/or have Mueller testify about it public. If the report turns out to be too narrow, the Democrats can launch their own investigations. If the report lays out a strong case for impeachment, that process starts with Pelosi and Nadler..
If Matt Whitaker were still acting Attorney General, we would soon learn exactly what he meant when he told friends that his job description was to “jump on a hand grenade” for Donald Trump. We know from Whitaker’s recent performance on the Hill that he is dumb enough and partisan enough to attempt to completely quash Mueller’s report. Barr is definitely partisan, but he is not stupid enough to put himself in legal jeopardy, and with him in as Attorney General we at least have a chance of seeing most of Mueller’s report. Many Democrats in D.C. vouch for Barr’s integrity, he is not an enemy of the DOJ or the FBI, and he’s known Robert Mueller fir decades. Hopefully we will find that Trump has woefully misjudged Barr. It may be that Mueller waited to release his report until Barr was in place.
It’s hard to imagine a better person for the impossible role of special prosecutor than Robert Mueller, and he has certainly lived up to his reviews when it comes to running this investigation. Nearly two years without a leak from his team. That’s unreal. Just imagine the legions of aggressive, brilliant reporters who have trued to crack that cone of silence. Mueller is also a patriot who cares deeply about the rule of law, the FBI and the DOJ. If Mueller thinks that Trump is a traitor or has obstructed justice, Trump is in big trouble.
There is a contradiction built into Mueller’s investigation that will be key to how this all plays out.
Mueller is a prosecutor conducting a legal investigation and bringing indictments when justified. He is a Department of Justice employee and a known stickler for following the rules and precedents. He will likely follow the DOJ guidelines that hold that a sitting President cannot be indicted. Another standard DOJ practice is to not report on evidence gathered during an investigation that does not lead to a criminal indictment, which makes sense from a strictly legal perspective. If Mueller follows that standard, his report will not include evidence that could be damaging politically but doesn’t meet the threshold of indictment. Mueller and Barr will probably follow the legal requirement to not share information that comes from secret grand jury proceedings, that compromises national security, or that might compromise future prosecutions. Adhering to these standards would narrow Mueller’s report substantially.
But Mueller’s investigation is also political. If Trump can’t be indicted while President and Mueller’s report contains evidence that Trump broke the law, the audience for the report is not just the Attorney General but Congress and the American people. We don’t know if Mueller will name Trump as an unindicted co-conspirator, like Leon Jaworski did with Richard Nixon, or let him off completely. Mueller understands that there is a political dimension to his investgation. How he decides to handle it will impact the history of this country.
We may be disappointed by Mueller’s findings on a criminal conspiracy (remember that collusion is not a crime and that Mueller is a prosecutor) between Trump and the Russians to influence the 2016 elections, in the sense that the trail will not lead to Trump himself. Mueller did not break Paul Manafort, who is clearly risking the rest if his life in prison to angle for a pardon, and Manafort is the one who can tie Trump directly to an election conspiracy involving the Russians. Mueller will show that many of Trump’s people worked with the Russians, but he may not be able to prove that Trump had personal role in those dirty tricks
I’m more hopeful about the obstruction of justice case, given Mueller’s background and the fact that Trump has obstructed justice on many occasions right out in the open and has no doubt made other attempts behind the scenes that Mueller knows about. I cannot imagine how someone like Robert Mueller could not find that Trump has obstructed justice.
Obstruction of justice, specially by a President who technically runs most of the government, is all about proving intent. Why, then, didn’t Mueller subpoena Trump and force him to testify? Without that testimony, how does Mueller prove intent?
People tend to forget that Nixon would never have faced the prospect of impeachment had it not been for the tapes. Without them, it was Nixon’s word against John Dean’s, and we know who would have won that fight. Does Mueller have the luxury of not asking for Trump’s testimony to prove intent because he has tapes or phone taps of Trump?
In the end I think we will learn that this was all about a real estate developer and media star whose biggest dream was not to be President but to have his name on an apartment tower in Moscow that would net him $500 million. He starts pursuing this goal in the 1990s, around the time he begins borrowing millions from Russian banks. He runs for President in 2015 after his television show is cancelled, not to actually win—even he doesn’t believe that will happen—but to reenergize his brand. He continues to pursue the Trump Tower Moscow deal because he doesn’t think he will win. But he DOES win, and he continues to pursue the deal because that’s still what’s most important to him. He first step as President is to make sure that the Trump business cashes in on him being President. He makes it clear even before the inauguration that the entire U.S. government is for sale. He licks Putin’s boots because he needs Putin to get his stupid tower built in Moscow and because, like most weak bullies, he has a thing for real tyrants. The Russians get their patsy in the White House. The government gets sold off. Trump makes war on the press, the FBI, the CIA, and the DOJ because he fears that they have the goods on him, and forty percent of Americans support him in this. The Republican Party’s transformation into a white supremacist party is completed during the first year of Trump’s term. America, seemingly, hits rock bottom.
It could actually get worse. If Mueller makes a case for Trump conspiring with the Russians or obstructing justice, or both, the Democratic House will vote to approve articles of impeachment and Trump will be tried in the Senate. That could lead to a truly rock-bottom, we-can’t-sink-any-lower-as-a-country moment in which the Republicans in the Senate officially vote to acquit a treasonous and criminal President.
Is Trump a Fascist? Is That Even Important?
What is Trumpism?
We’re obsessed with Donald Trump, and for good reason. He is a clear and present danger who must be removed from power as soon as possible.
Trump’s cult of personality is so overpowering and relentless that we forget that there is such a thing as Trumpism.
Trumpism is the bigger and longer-term danger to America, and it will survive, in some form, Trump’s removal from the Oval Office.
Defeating Trumpism is the challenge of our generation, just as destroying fascism was the challenge for Americans in the 1930s and ‘40s. To defeat Trumpism, we need to understand what it is, what it isn’t, and how it is distinct from Donald Trump the man.
Is Trumpism a particularly virulent form of conservatism? Garden-variety authoritarianism? A religious movement? A harbinger of a military dictatorship? Full-blown fascism?
Trumpism is not classic conservatism. Core conservative principles—a small federal government, fear of deficits, free trade, respect for the social hierarchy and social institutions—are not the driving forces behind Trumpism.
Trumpism is not classic authoritarianism. Authoritarian regimes (e.g., Franco’s Spain) have historically accepted that much of society is controlled by semi-independent social entities like economic cartels, the military, the family, and the church. Trumpism does not. And authoritarian regimes want a passive, muted population, whereas Trumpism wants to constantly engage with and excite the public.
Trumpism is not at its core an evangelical Christian movement. Despite its high level of support among white Christians, Trumpism doesn’t worship Jesus Christ or Christian teachings. It reveres the myth of a once-great, white America.
Trumpism is not the early stage of a military dictatorship. The military is not calling the shots in Trumpworld.
Which leads us to fascism, a subject I’ve been steeping myself in recently.
What Is Fascism, Exactly?
I grew up in the late 1950s and the ‘60s, when the “communist” epithet was being used recklessly and cluelessly by the right wing. I’ve publicly called Trump a “fascist,” but do I really understand what fascism is? How do I know that I am not acting like a McCarthyite when I throw that term around?
I used many sources in boning up on fascism, but the most important were Robert O. Paxton’s “The Anatomy of Fascism” (an authoritative but accessible primer that was written in 2004, before the Trump era), which helped me understand what fascism is (and is not) and its history, and Occupy founder Mark Bray’s “Antifa: The Anti-Fascist Handbook,” which taught me about contemporary anti-fascist movements around the globe and how successful or unsuccessful they have been.
Fascism first appeared in Europe after the World War I and was a response to that conflict, an armistice that was viewed by the losers as extremely punitive, the failures of capitalism, the rise of Russian Bolshevism, and a new era of mass politics.
Mussolini’s original Fascists took over Italy in 1922, and Hitler led a fascist takeover of Germany a decade later. The success of Mussolini and Hitler inspired fascist movements in Great Britain (Oswald Mosley’s British Union of Fascists) and the United States (the Black Legion and the pro-Hitler German American Bund).
It only took seventeen years from Mussolini’s ascent to power for the fascist regimes in Italy and Germany to precipitate World War II. The declaration of war against Germany by Great Britain and the entry of the United States into World War II effectively ended the fascist movements in those countries. The fascist governments in Italy and Germany were dismantled by the Allies in 1945.
There are two fundamental aspects of fascism:
Fascism has only one core precept: that there is a chosen race that is locked in a Darwinian struggle for existence.
Fascism is a sensual experience, not a political program. Fascists can bask in the reflective warmth that comes with being a member of a special race with an historic destiny—being part of something big and historic that is based on a noble past. Fascism offers the thrill of being dominant.
Fascism’s extreme emotionalism liberates the fascist from the frustrations of bourgeois standards. Fascism rejects—violently—social norms, dogma, and the very concept of “truth.” As one fascist leader put it, “We don’t think ideology is a problem that is resolved in such a way that truth is seated on a throne.” In his first public address as chancellor, Hitler ridiculed those who say “show us the details of your program. I have refused ever to step before the people and make cheap promises.”
For fascists, the “truth” is whatever helps fulfill those special people to fulfill their natural destiny. In 1933 Thomas Mann saw the rise of fascism in supposedly bourgeois Germany as revolution “without underlying ideas, against ideas, against everything nobler, better, decent, against freedom, truth and justice.” Mann felt that the “common scum” had taken power.
(The Stalinist definition of fascism—”Facisim is the open, terroristic dictatorship of the most reactionary, most chauvinist, and most imperialist elements of finance capital”—was orthodoxy for the left for fifty years. This definition, however, misses the mark in overlooking its most important and binding ingredient: an intensely emotional brand of nationalism.)
Paxton defines fascism as “a form of political behavior marked by obsessive preoccupation with community decline, humiliation, or victimhood and by compensatory cults of unity, energy, and purity, in which a mass-based party of committed nationalist militants, working in uneasy but effective collaboration with traditional elites, abandons democratic liberties and pursues with redemptive violence and without legal or ethical restraints goals of internal cleansing and external expansion.”
According to Paxton, these are the key aspects of fascism:
A sense of overwhelming crisis beyond the reach of any traditional solutions.
The primacy of the group, toward which one has duties superior to every right, whether individual or universal, and the subordination of the individual to it.
The belief that one’s group is a victim, a sentiment that justifies any action, without legal or moral limits, against its enemies, both internal and external.
Dread of the group’s decline under the corrosive effects of individualistic liberalism, class conflict, and alien influences.
The need for closer integration of a purer community, by consent if possible, or by exclusionary violence if necessary.
The need for authority by natural chiefs (always male), culminating in a national chieftain who alone is capable of incarnating the group’s historical destiny.
The superiority of the leader’s instincts over abstract and universal reason.
The beauty of violence and the efficacy of will, when they are devoted to the group’s success.
The right of the chosen people to dominate others without restraint from any kind of human or divine law, right being decided by the sole criterion of the group’s prowess within a Darwinian struggle.
Every single one of these attributes is shared by Trumpism. Trumpism is, without a doubt, a Yankee-Doodle brand of fascism and its chosen people are white Americans.
Understanding Fascism Is the Key to Fighting Trumpism
Millions of Americans don’t understand the threat that Trump poses or how to counter that threat, because—like Thomas Mann—we viewed him as a politician.
When Trump announced his candidacy, we felt that professional politician Jeb Bush would make short work of him.
When Trump won the nomination, we were confident that his lies, his behavior, and his racist message would eventually bring him down.
When Trump was elected, we hoped that the realities of the office and our system of government would quickly change him.
Even now, having seen that Trump is immune to the threats faced by politicians, we continue to focus our fight on Trump personally. We spend enormous time and resources on fact-checking the endless torrent of blatant lies (the Washington Post employs people who painstakingly document a running total of Trump’s falsehoods), contradictory statements, disgraceful behavior, corruption, and collusion. We marvel at the infuriating ignorance of Trump’s followers, and look to Robert Mueller to bring Trump to justice. Most delusional of all, we console ourselves with the notion that the national nightmare will end once Trump is out of office.
The all-powerful dictator is the image of fascism (Mussolini liked to declare that he himself was the definition of fascism), and this has also helped to create the false impression that we can understand Trumpism by focusing on Donald Trump, and that we can destroy it by destroying him. Our relentless focus on his bizarre personality and actions diverts our attention from the actions of the persons, groups, and institutions who have helped him, who work for him, and who will survive him.
Trumpism is much more than Trump. It is the American fascist genie that has been unleashed from its bottle and that won’t easily be put back inside it.
Only two generations after 400,000 Americans died to kill fascism overseas, fascist Trumpists occupy the White House. They run the Departments of Justice, State, Treasury. Commerce, Interior, Homeland Security, Energy, Education, Labor, Transportation, Veterans Affairs, and Health and Human Services. They direct the Environmental Protection Agency. They have made the Republican Party and its apparatus completely subservient to them.
Because the basis of their fascist movement is emotional and because the truth is so problematic for their narrative, the Trumpists are bent on demolishing our most fundamental truisms by:
Systematically destroying longstanding data-collection and analytical practices within all government agencies in order to make it impossible to even determine what impact their fascist policies are having compared to historical efforts.
Rendering the 16 U.S. intelligence agencies, which we fund to the tune of $60 billion a year, utterly powerless in terms of helping shape our identification of, and response to, real threats. The intelligence community is constantly ridiculed. Intelligence briefings have become rare and their content is ignored—which the people who mean to do us harm understand all too well.
Systematically destroying the American system of justice by completely politicizing the Department of Justice, the FBI, and the courts.
Declaring war on the media by explicitly branding them “the enemy of the people,” insisting that critical reporting is “fake,” encouraging violence against reporters, and partnering with Fox News to complete its transformation into a fascist propaganda network.
Adopting an isolationist, nationalist view of the role of the United States in the world and claiming that longstanding, successful alliances (e.g., NATO) are no longer relevant.
The fascist evil that our grandparents fought and died to keep from our shores is no longer outside. He’s watching television for six hours a day in the White House residence. He’s running the show. He has enormous powers. He may be our first fascist President, but our challenge is to make him our last one, and to do that we need to understand the non-rational core of Trumpist fascism.
The most important—and the most terrifying—lesson we must take from a study of history is the one pointed to by the German philosopher Walter Benjamin in 1936, even before the calamities unleased by Mussolini and Hitler. The ultimate fascist aesthetic experience, the place where fascist Trumpism will take us unless it is stopped, is war.
In a later post I'll look at whether the study of the history of fascism and of recent anti-fascist movements can point to successful models for resistance that we can apply to the fascist movement that is currently in control of our country.
The Show Trial of Ilham Omar
I am a registered Democrat. One reason for that is that I want to be associated with a political party that supposedly has no tolerance when it comes to racism, religious bigotry, xenophobia, and misogyny. So I am glad that the Democrats in Virginia are calling for the resignations of their own who cross those lines—that’s the kind of political party with which I want to be associated. That other party is the home of racists, religious bigots, false patriotism, and miserable patriarchy.
That said, I have issues with standard Democratic Party ideology, and the one that simultaneously depresses and infuriates me the most, not surprisingly, is the topic on which the Democrats and the Republicans are virtually indistinguishable: Israel.
For centuries anti-Semites have stereotyped Jews in terms of their relationship to money, promoting a vicious caricature of them as scheming misers and unethical money lenders, and spreading insane conspiracy theories that claim that Jewish money is financing most if not all of the evil in this world. No moral or thinking person would hold or promote such beliefs.
The corrupting influence of money on politics is, however, a very real thing and, in my view, the root of quite a bit of the depravity in American politics.
Since the wave of Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe that begin in the 1880s, American Jews been associated with liberal politics, the labor movement, and civil rights. The majority of Jewish Americans have voted Democratic since 1916. FDR got 90% of the Jewish vote in 1940 and 1944. More than 75% of Jewish voters voted Democratic in the 2018. Jews represent 2% of the American electorate, but they are responsible for 50% of all financial contributions to the Democratic Party. With the skyrocketing cost of political campaigns and the legalization of dark money, the influence of Jewish donors has increased, as have the efforts of the GOP to use support of Israel as a wedge to divide the Democrats and to start redirecting Jewish donations in its direction. Jewish businessman and donor Sheldon Adelson, who contributed $150 million to the GOP in 2012 and $100 million to the Trump campaign, is one of the most powerful people in the Republican Party.
The corrupting influence of money American politics due to money is fundamental to the progressive movement in the Democratic Party that was ignited by Bernie Sanders in 2016 and that saw some notable successes in the 2018 midterms. It is literally impossible to discuss this issue without touching upon the sizeable political contributions by American Jews. That is not an endorsement of age-old anti-Semitic stereotypes.
The country of Israel is overwhelming Jewish. But the actions of its government are not synonymous with the Jewish faith or the Jewish people, any more than Donald Trump’s GOP is synonymous with Americans and American values. No country in the history of humankind has ever been beyond reproach, and that includes Israel and the United States. Many of Israel’s actions in the West Bank have been criminal and racist. Americans who criticize the actions of their government are not un-American, and Americans who criticize the actions of Israel are not by definition anti-Semites.
The Republicans are running with this anti-Israel con just like they used to accuse Democrats of being soft on crime and weak on terrorism. And the Democrats are falling for it.
Ilhan Omar, one of the first two Muslim women elected to Congress in November, suggested in a Tweet that some politicians in Washington have been influenced by campaign donations from Jewish lobbyist groups.
This is just true—just as it is undeniably true that politicians are influenced by donations from the NRA, labor unions, billionaires, Wall Street, the banks, manufacturers, the pharmaceutical industry, insurance companies, casino owners, movie producers, tech companies, and on and on and on.
The Democratic leadership, which claims to be fighting to the influence of money on politics, responded to Omar’s truth telling by frog marching her out in front of her colleagues and the media to apologize for her “insensitivity.” In her apology, Omar thanked her “Jewish allies and colleagues who are educating me on the painful history of anti-Semitic tropes.”
Omar never used such a trope. Her “crime” was that she didn’t exclude pro-Israeli-government lobbyists from her absolutely justified condemnation of the system of legalized bribery that is American politics today. The Democratic Party still has a long way to go.
Beware of Billionaires Bearing Bipartisanship
The American electorate is deeply divided. Bipartisanship and compromise are essential to bringing the country together, but the dramatic leftward shift of the Democratic Party is making this more difficult. Voters are anxious to vote for an independent moderate who occupies the political space between the two parties.
Horseshit.
Yes, the actions of our government should reflect the desires of the majority of our citizens. And you can make the case that much of the progress the United States has made has been the result of 250 years of middle-ground compromises between conservative and liberal constituencies.
Today, however, those constituencies and the parties that have historically represented them are no longer roughly equal in size or representative of traditional conservatism and liberalism. Most Americans don’t hold political beliefs that occupy a space halfway between the policies of the GOP and the Democratic parties.
We only have to look at the recent examples of Howard Schultz and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortes to understand this.
Howard Schultz, a billionaire businessman, steams his imperial yacht into Presidential waters on behalf of the 40 percent of American voters who self-identify as independents, who he claims are desperately looking for a national savior in the form of a billionaire coffee executive and failed sports-team owner who opposes the “extremes” of both parties.
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a Congressional rookie, has proposed to tax the rich at a 70-percent rate after their first $10 million—an idea that has been greeted by Republicans as a “leftist fantasy program.”
If Schultz is to be believed, these developments serve as good examples of the difference between the moderate “silent majority” and the “extreme” wing of the Democratic Party.
How have American received these proposals from a classic moderate and an “extreme” democratic socialist?
Polls show a scant 7.7% of voters supporting Howard Schultz’s Presidential aspirations. The only major political figure who applauded Schultz’s flirtation with throwing his hat in the ring was Donald Trump—polls show that Schultz would draw most of his scant support from Democrats. A “major policy speech” by Schultz at Purdue University this week drew a tiny crowd and on online audience that peaked at 200.
A Hill/HarrisX poll taken last month, on the other hand, shows AOC’s “tax the rich” proposal supported by 59% of Americans—in fact, by the majority of women and men in all regions of the country. Even 45% of Republicans say they like the idea.
This should not be surprising, given that polls taken over the past year show that the majority of Americans also support:
Medicare for all (70%)
Free public college (63%)
Stricter gun control laws (68%)
Legal abortion (57%)
Taking action to reduce global warming (66%)
Overturning Citzens United (87% of Democrats, 82% of independents, and 60% of Republicans)
Recent polls also make clear what the majority of Americans are AGAINST:
Building a wall on our southern border (60% oppose)
Donald Trump (56% oppose)
Partisan gerrymandering of legislative districts (71% oppose)
The deportation of illegal immigrants (84% oppose)
Polls are not scientific or infallable, but these large majorities clearly show that the politicians who best represent the majority of Americans are not Howard Schultz or Donald Trump but AOC, Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders.
Obviously, the balance of power in Washington does not reflect the desires of the majority of Americans. There are three primary reasons for this—the extreme rightward shift of the GOP, the Republicans’ success in establishing a tyranny of the minority, and the corrupting influence of money on every level of politics and in both parties.
Donald Trump’s GOP is not the party of conservatism. The traditional conservative principles of conservatism—a small federal government, fear of deficits, support for free trade, and respect for the social hierarchy and social institutions—have no place in Trump’s GOP, which is a proudly fascist, white-supremacist party that has openly declared war on the rule of law in America.
The Republican Party has brilliantly managed their core problem—that their voter base represents a minority of Americans and is shrinking every year. Rather than respond to this reality by increasing the party’s appeal, the GOP has worked tirelessly—and successfully—to establish a tyranny of the minority for by suppressing voting, taking over governorships and state legislatures to gerrymander as many safe Republican districts as possible across the country, leveraging the undemocratic institutions in our Constitutional framework (e.g., the Senate and the Electoral College), and attempting an end-around against future populist legislation by packing the federal judiciary and stealing a seat on the Supreme Court. And the GOP has cunningly used racism and wedge issues like abortion to convince Americans vote against their own economic best interest.
Money has completely corrupted our political system. It is an existential threat to our politics equivalent to the threat of global warming to our planet. AOC did a brilliant job of explaining of demonstrating this during a recent Congressional hearing. Both the Democrats and the Republicans have participated in the disastrous reduction of the corporate tax rate from 90% in the 1950s to the 21% rate we have today.
Howard Schultz and Michael Bloomberg are classic examples of the rich, socially liberal donors who have typically supported the Democratic Party—until that organization starts talking about helping unions, making the ultra-rich shoulder a fair tax burden, providing universal health care or offering free higher education.
When Democratic-leaning billionaires like Schultz and Bloomberg accept their tax windfalls and then explain that we have to focus on the deficit and that we can’t afford anything for the middle class, they reveal themselves not as moderates but as rich people who are just as disinterested in the success of the majority of Americans as anyone in the Flying Monkeys Party.
Bipartisan “compromises” between the Democratic progressivism represented by AOC, Warren, and Sanders on the one hand and the fascist GOP would not reduce political polarization by moving this country to the political center. AOC, Warren, and Sanders ARE that center, or at least very close to it. Bipartisanship today is just another con by the Trumpists who want to move the country to the right and by rich Democrats who want to protect their wealth. The tension and polarization in this country is the result of the failure of both parties up til now to stand for the 99% of Americans.
Don’t be confused by the GOP’s constantly moving the political goal posts as it becomes more extreme and more criminal, by the false notion that Creature From the Past Lagoon Joe Biden is the only candidate who can beat Trump, or the claim by Howard Schultz that he represents the “silent majority.”
We can all take heart that the only fan of Schultz’s weak brew is Donald Trump, that the Democratic Party has universally condemned him, and that AOC and Warren and Sanders and the voters who have been inspired by them are guiding that party not to an “extreme leftward shift” but to the real political center of this country.
Howard Schultz
It wasn't enough for you to destroy the Supersonics? Now you want to help re-elect Trump? What did this country ever do to deserve you?
You're no doubt aware that you have decided to come to the aid of your country at a time when a dangerous, racist, lunatic President is headed into a reelection campaign. You have obviously come to the decision to run as an independent after determining that you are not a capable enough or attractive enough candidate to win the Democratic Party nomination. You're a businessman, so you've run the numbers on the historically pathetic track history of independent Presidential candidates and understand that they can only be spoilers. These two decision points, then, represent a clear window into a truly leprous soul. This not a decision that a patriotic American would make.
Howard, you've just placed a nationwide order for a three-quarter-foam, no-substance, dullce, ultra-skimpy, extra-cold, grande gagiato with an extra shot of egomania and bullshit sprinkles.
I'll pass. Headed to Democratic Donuts.
Sliced, Peeled, and Delivered
It only took one orbit of the moon for Nancy Pelosi to bring Donald Trump’s massive con to a tweeting halt.
In the six short hours between dawn and noon today we watched as FBI agents (working for free during the Trump shutdown, no less) hauled the genius behind Trump’s wall off to jail and then stared at the grim but intensely satisfying spectacle of a stupefied Trump voluntarily stripping himself naked in the Rose Garden and listlessly committing hari-kari with a dull blade supplied by Stephen Miller.
Trump’s not cooked yet. He won’t go quickly, quietly, or without a lot of ugly agony and last-minute arson. His legacy—Trumpism—will be much harder to destroy, given his daily effort to breathe new life into everything that is ugly in America and in Americans. But his orange blood—lots of it—is billowing in the water now, the great blue sharks and the Federal Barracudas of Investigation are moving in for the kill, and the confounding, secret power he possessed that enabled him to sidestep countless self-inflicted missile strikes that would have destroyed anyone else seems to have finally melted away.
After viciously assaulting, for three years now, every institution designed to keep this country from devolving into a vicious, collective cage match refereed by flying monkeys, Trump turns out to be not a brilliant businessman, political genius, or supreme global strategist but, instead, a thoroughly mediocre schoolyard bully whose specialty was the oldest nastiness in the world—spinning up racial hatred.
Nancy Pelosi has certainly benefited from Trump’s cosmic stupidity and incompetence and from the power granted her by the voters and her party in November. But it was Pelosi, the mother of five children, who knew without a doubt that if you knuckled the Terror of Trumpland square in the face, the walking national nightmare would be quickly transformed into a meek puddle of urine-scented weakness with a red tie floating in the middle of it.
Nancy Pelosi had already made history. She was the first woman Speaker of the House. She passed the Affordable Care Act, the Dodd-Frank Wall Street and Consumer Protection Act, the appeal of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, and the economic stimulus bills that saved the U.S. economy from cratering after Obama took over. But these notable achievements will be eclipsed by the history she will make over the next two years. She doesn’t want to be President. She has the job she wants and for which she is uniquely qualified—chief architect of Donald Trump’s political destruction—and she has already delivered in ways that would have seemed impossible only a month ago.
There was quite a bit of talk in the media and in progressive political circles after the midterms about what a mistake it would be if Pelosi were again elected Speaker. She was daughter of an old-school political boss, a creature from the Clintonian past, a thirty-two year Congressional barnacle, a filthy-rich corporate Democrat—the antithesis, or at least the enemy, of the bright progressive future for the Democratic Party that Bernie Sanders launched in 2016.
This was both a gross distortion of Nancy Pelosi’s record and a smug dismissal of her considerable talents and her lifelong commitment to an activist government. Not surprisingly, there was no revolt in the House Democratic ranks after the midterms. Pelosi negotiated with the freshmen progressives about committee assignments and promised a changing of the leadership in two to four years, and in the end no one even dared enter the ring against her for the Speakership. Pelosi understands that real political power flows not from wall metaphors or racist fearmongering but from consistency, aggressiveness, relentlessness, and staying true to a position once you’ve staked it out. Not since the days of Roosevelt has the Democratic Party—it’s her party until the 2020 candidate is chosen—so uniformly reflected its leader’s image and positions. With each passing day in which Trump is President and Pelosi is Speaker, the contrast between cluelessness, stupidity, lack of core beliefs, mendacity, and cruelty on the one hand and true leadership on the other will become more stark, to the point where that profound dichotomy will be the defining aspect of this period in American history.
Trump’s relentless and nauseating public misogyny was the match that torched off the #MeToo movement and the Year of the Woman in politics, so it’s doubly sweet that the burdizzo used in Trump’s neutering today was wielded by a strong, smart woman. Nancy Pelosi is the ideal opposition party leader in these dark days. Thanks to her, today we saw the first glimpse of light at the end of what has too often seemed to be an endless Trumpian tunnel.
Impeachment: The End of Trump or the Best Thing That Could Happen to Him?
Robert Mueller’s investigation will no doubt conclude before the 2020 election. Many anti-Trumpers assume that Mueller’s report will be the end of Trump, but regardless of its contents we need to be prepared for the likely possibility that its impact on Trump’s future and the 2020 election will not be clear cut or conclusive.
Consider the following possible scenario:
Mueller submits his summary report to Attorney General Barr in the late spring, and Barr releases it to the public. (It’s not at all certain that he will in fact release such a report, but for the purposes of this scenario, let’s assume that he does.) Meuller’s report focuses on collusion between the Trump campaign and the Russians, and the effort to obstruct justice and interfere with Mueller’s investigation.
In the report, Mueller follows Justice Department policy and does not make the case that Trump should be indicted. Neither does he name Trump as an unindicted co-conspirator (as Jaworski did with Nixon). Importantly, Meuller does not map Trump’s actions against the impeachment bar of “high crimes or misdemeanors” in his report, believing that the Constitution clearly gives this task to Congress.
Mueller’s report does, however, include compelling evidence that Trump allowed Russians to launder money by investing in Trump properties prior to the election, that Trump was personally aware of the partnership between his campaign and the Russians to influence the election, that Trump violated campaign-finance and fraud laws in directing that payments be made to former lovers in return for their silence, and that Trump personally took several actions that amounted to obstruction of justice in regards to the Mueller investigation.
In the days following the release of the report, the vast majority of Republicans in Congress, including nearly all the Republicans in the Senate, make it clear that, in their view, the evidence of treason and obstruction of justice is not compelling enough to warrant impeachment. They continue to insist that Mueller’s investigation was tainted by anti-Trump bias in the FBI, that there is no proof that Russian interference actually had an impact on the 2016 election, and that the Democrats are using this contaminated, one-sided investigation to engineer a coup designed to undo the will of the voters as expressed in that election.
The Trump administration, Republican Party leadership, Congressional Republicans, and Fox News—who have already convinced their base that the Mueller investigation is a partisan witch hunt and that news reports about it are fake—successfully whips the GOP base into a frenzy over the prospect of Trump’s possible impeachment by the Democrats. They use this fury to raise enormous sums of money for Trump’s reelection, and support for Trump among Republican voters soars once again.
Within weeks the Democrats face an unprecedented decision.
Given the details of Trump’s crimes in the Mueller report, it is inconceivable to the Democrats that they would not draft a bill of impeachment, pass it, and send it on to the Senate for a trial. To not impeach Trump would be an unconscionable dereliction of their duty and would make a mockery of the Constitution.
Given the reaction of the Senate Republicans, however, the Democrats understand that, if they impeach Trump, he will certainly be acquitted in the Senate.
And given the reaction of Republican voters, the Democrats also understand that if they impeach Trump in the House and he is acquitted in the Senate, that Trump will use his victory in the Senate as a powerful message in his reelection campaign.
“I told you,” he will tell voters, “that it was a total witch hunt cooked up by the deep state and the Democrats. I won fair and square in 2016 and I proved all the experts wrong. They came after me anyway and fought for two years and spent millions of dollars to undo the 2016 election, but once again I have proven the elitist Democrats and the experts wrong. Not only that, I have been found completely innocent, just as I always said I would be. And believe you me, I will prove them wrong A THIRD TIME in 2020.”
So the Democrats also understand that if they do their sworn duty and impeach Trump, they may be helping a treasonous, criminal, and mentally unstable President be reelected in 2020.
This hypothetical scenario is not impossible. Don’t argue with me about the details as I’ve given them. Accept them for the sake of discussion.
What should Democrats do if they found themselves in this situation?
The Bully's Pulpit
Tonight—on a day that will live in infamy—our national television networks will allow the President of the United States to use their airwaves to inject a toxic dose of purposeful misinformation into the American bloodstream.
The news media, which gave Donald Trump five billion dollars in free publicity during the 2016 campaign, will once again surrender their responsibility to accurately report the news in order to engineer another five-billion-dollar boondoggle for Trump. This time the money will be used to enable Trump to build a physical barrier on our southern border—a barrier that began life as a remedial device to remind Trump to focus on immigration during his campaign appearances, that after three years of discussion no one can describe and for which there is no plan, that no one outside of the White House has asked for, that no one believes will work, that was supposed to be paid for by Mexico, and whose only real aspect is its power as a racist symbol.
Trump’s speech will reportedly be written by Stephen Miller, a man so comfortable with deceit that he is not shy about appearing on television with fake hair sprayed onto his bald skull.
Trump will claim that we have a national emergency on the border with Mexico. He will tell us that vast hordes of illegal aliens are overwhelming our border security system. Trump will insist that many, if not most, of these illegal immigrants are terrorists and hardened criminals. He will paint a terrifying image of an America that is on the verge of being overrun by a brown plague. To do so, he will willfully spout fake data, conflate different categories and different borders, and cite nonexistent experts. He will insist that we cannot secure the border with Mexico unless we build a wall. Trump will blame the Democrats in Congress for shutting down the government. He will threaten that he has the ability—and the willingness—to bypass Congress and get his barrier built by declaring a national emergency, commandeering money allocated to other projects, and ordering the U.S. military to build it. He will remind the country that he was elected on the promise of building a border wall, and will claim that the vast majority of Americans expect him to follow through on that commitment. And Trump will introduce what for him will be a new theme—that the lack of a border barrier has created a vast humanitarian crisis.
None of this is true.
The number of people crossing the Mexican border illegally has been shrinking for decades. The vast majority of people seeking entry to this country through the southern border are refugees fleeing real physical danger in their home countries. A third of them are children. Most illegal aliens in this country are here because they overstayed their visas. Statistics show that illegal aliens are less prone to criminal behavior than native Americans, that most of the drugs that enter our country from Mexico are smuggled through official ports of entry, and that most illegal aliens use airports to enter this country.
No experts in security or immigration, including our Border Patrol professionals, believe that a barrier along the entire border is needed or will work. They have requested not a barrier but better technology and more manpower. None of the Republican leaders from the states bordering Mexico support the wall.
Trump and his spokespeople have recently made false claims that nearly 4,000 “terrorists” tried to cross the southern border this year. Government data shows that the number was six.
Trump himself is the sole cause of the government shutdown. His party controlled both Houses of Congress for two years, but Republicans never made building a wall a legislative priority. Trump signed a budget bill last year that did not include funding for a border wall. He turned down an offer of $25 billion for the wall from Chuck Schumer a few months later. Two weeks ago Trump told Congressional Republicans that he would sign a funding bill that included $1.6 billion for border security but no wall funding, and then, after they passed it, he reneged on that promise when Rush Limbaugh and Laura Ingraham attacked him for caving on his signature campaign promise.
It is not at all clear that Trump could legally use a national emergency to fund and build the wall. Any attempt to do so will be met by immediate legal challenges that will take months to resolve.
Polls show that the majority of Americans do not support the construction of a border wall and blame Trump for the government shutdown. Trump made immigration his focus during the 2016 midterms, and the result was a decisive repudiation by the voters and a new Democratic majority in the House of Representatives.
Trump’s anticipated announcement that there is an humanitarian crisis on the southern border as well as a security calamity may prove to be the most perverse element in his speech tonight. He’s right. There IS a humanitarian crisis at the border, and it is getting worse by the day. What Trump won’t mention is that this crisis, like the government shutdown, is entirely of his own making.
Trump is not just against illegal immigration. His goal is to halt ALL immigration to this country by people of color. His focus, therefore, is on the southern border. (Most people on the terrorist watch list who try to enter this country do so from Canada. Trump has specifically said that he would welcome more immigrants from Norway.) His strategy is to slow down the processing of asylum requests at legal ports of entry to create a human and bureaucratic log jam; to falsely brand all refugees as rapists, terrorists, and gang members; and to create a phony case for a wall.
The results of this strategy? An unprecedented population of thousands of immigrants housed indefinitely in newly built concentration camps that is growing daily, the separation of immigrant children from their parents, a growing threat of medical epidemics amongst the quarantined migrants, and the deaths of at least two children while in U.S. custody.
So here we are. Our President has responded to his first taste of divided government by shutting down the government. Tonight he will use his bully pulpit to spew a stream of blatant lies from the Oval Office in furtherance of an openly racist agenda. And the media outlets, who understand this sickening reality better than anyone, will offer up the airwaves as the vehicle for this nauseating spectacle.
Our best hope is that Trump’s speech tonight will be no more effective than his countless other stunts and statements in attracting the majority of his fellow citizens to his viciously un-American vision. It may be that Trump will take a header off his imaginary wall and that no amount of racism in this country will be able to put him back together again.
A few days ago I saw a Facebook comment posted by a German immigrant. She said that she supported Trump’s wall because she knew from personal experience how effective the Berlin wall was.
Trump’s biggest con is that his imaginary wall is designed to make America great again by keeping evil people out. The truth is that its purpose is to imprison us in a fearful, xenophobic, white-supremacist, realm—a shithole country.
The Morning After
The mixed results from yesterday’s election resist instant analysis, but some things seem pretty clear. This post will probably strike many as being too positive—the election was certainly not the blue wave that we hoped for—but today I feel that the positive news is less known and understood than the many dangers, including Trump’s possible reelection, that we still face.
Trump is less powerful today than he was yesterday. This is the most important measurement of what happened yesterday.
He lost one branch of Congress, which means he will actually have to suffer some kind of oversight. Dennis Nunes and the other fawning, ring-kissing toadies in the GOP House will be replaced in January by smart, not-overly-civilized, partisan brawlers like Nancy Pelosi, Adam Schiff, and Jerry Nadler. The Republicans in Congress will no longer be able to avoid voting on issues that most voters actually care about.
Some of the coalition that won for Trump in 2016 went back under Democratic control. The upper Midwest (big Democratic wins in Michigan, Illinois, and Iowa) and Pennsylvania, which were critical to his 2016 victory, broke away from him. Suburban women really did turn against him, as predicted, and the Democrats made real gains among independents who gambled on Trump two years ago. Two-thirds of those confounding “swing” districts (districts that voted for Obama and Trump) returned to the Democratic fold. The Democrats won the vast majority of the 37 “split” districts that voted for a different party for President than for Congress. Virginia and Nevada seem much more blue today.
Taking back the House was a big deal. Democrats had to overcome a built-in, 7% gerrymandered advantage for the GOP nationwide to pull this off. That is insanely difficult. It looks as if the Democrats will win with a comfortable margin, too, having won about 35 additional seats. The Democrats will assume leadership over all House committees and the subpoena power that comes with it.
It would have taken a miracle for the Democrats to take back the Senate. That is not a rationalization, it’s just a fact. The Democrats faced the worst Senate roadmap imaginable: they had to defend 26 seats in a single election, and ten of those were in states won by Trump in 2016. The Senate has an even worse built-in advantage for Republicans than the House because a lightly populated rural states (aka Republican strongholds) get just as many Senators as blue states like California, which includes 37 million people. (Who are, by the way, just as American as North Dakotans. The Trumpists I know talk about the people who inhabit the East and West Coast as if they were a plague of locusts instead of citizens. “Thank god the Californians don’t run this country,” they say, when what they are actually saying is “Thank god the majority of Americans don’t run this show.” The Senate continues to solidify its position as America’s single biggest roadblock to progress.) And despite some brutal, heart-breaking losses, Democrats won Senate seats in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Montana, and West Virginia, which went for Trump in 2016. (FYI, the Senate roadmap in 2020 will be almost equally as bad for the GOP, which is important.)
Yesterday was oh-so-close to being a legitimate blue wave. I agree that the only thing that really counts in politics is whether you win or not, so this is definitely a blatant rationalization, but there were a slew of excruciatingly close races in Republican-controlled states in which the Dems came up short by just a few thousand votes. Cruz beat O’Rourke in Texas by 1.7%. Scott is beating Nelson in Florida by .4%. McSally is leading Sinema in Arizona by .9%. Kemp leads Abrams in Georgia by 1.6%. Gillum lost to DeSantis in Florida by .6%. These were losses that have the potential to crush Democratic souls, if only for their impact on redistricting after the 2020 census, but you can’t deny that there is a Democratic Party in Texas (and two new Democratic House members) this morning thanks to Beto O’Rourke.
American government looks more like America today—thanks to women. Women were the primary drivers of the Democratic takeover of the House yesterday. If you think that there needs to be less testosterone in American politics, yesterday represented progress. They started working on this the day after Trump was elected, and they continue to lead the resistance, and to lead it effectively. Women ran for office at record levels yesterday—the vast majority of them Democratic—and many won. In January there will be 100 women in the House for the first time. Two Muslim Democratic women and two Native American Democratic women were elected. Kansas elected its first woman governor. Four Democratic women elected to the House in Pennsylvania. Texas elected its first two Latinas to the House. And Colorado elected its first gay governor yesterday.
The Democrats are Dems were impressively disciplined in this election cycle. Instead of taking Trump’s bait on immigration, they focused on health care, which is not only the most important issue to Americans but also the issue on which the Republicans have literally no story as well as a horrific track record.
The way forward for the Democrats is to embrace progressivism. It’s an undebatable fact that the blue wave didn’t materialize in large part because Republicans ran up HUGE majorities in rural districts that couldn’t be overcome. And it’s true that the brilliant races run by killer progressive candidates like O’Rourke and Adams failed. But their progressivism made those races close, built up progressive campaign infrastructures in red states that will pay off further up the road, improved the Democratic bench, and, most importantly, forced the Democratic Party to actually stand for something in red states instead of continuing the truly dismal strategy of trying to camouflage themselves as something they are obviously not.
A lot of the GOP bad guys on the “most-wanted list” are out of a job today. Kris Kobach, whose only talent is keeping people from voting and who would have finished the destruction of Kansas begun by Sam Brownback, is headed to Fox News. Dean Heller in Nevada wrapped himself up in Trump’s robes but gave the Dems a pickup in the Senate. Scott Walker, the biggest union buster in recent history, was finally toppled in Wisconsin. Bruce Rauner, who wrecked Illinois’ credit rating, went down in flames. Congressman Dana Rohrabacher, who Kevin McCarthy thinks is on the Russian payroll, lost in California. A real pleasant shocker was the defeat in Texas of Pete Sessions, the incredibly powerful chairman of the House Rules Committee. Virginia Congressman Dave Brat, who complained last year that women voters were getting up in his grille, lost—to a woman, of course. Jason Lewis in Minnesota, another one of those right-wing talk-radio hosts, and who once said that single women are “ignorant of the important things in life” and actually complained about not being able to call women “sluts” was ousted by a female Democrat. Claudia Tenney in New York, who claimed that most mass shooters were Democrats, went down. Kim Davis, that county clerk in Kentucky who refused to grant gays marriage licenses, is looking for new opportunities this morning.
The pollsters were pretty accurate. Most predicted the Democratic takeover of the House and the continued GOP control of the Senate and very close gubernatorial races across the country.
The “booming” economy is mythic. The exit polling showed that 74% of the voters felt good about the economy, so most analysts are interpreting the Democratic gains as showing that a robust economy may not be enough to get Trump re-elected. I think that there is truth in this, but I also think that the pundits and the press are ignoring the reality that most Americans don’t feel that they are anywhere near out of the woods economically and don’t appreciate the GOP tax cut for the ultra-rich folks.
The Democrats don’t have to attack Trump directly to beat him in 2020. No Democrat will do a better job of inspiring voters who still care about things like morality, human decency, and leadership to turn against Trump than Trump himself. He will do that job for us. Trump will go down in history as the greatest progressive organizer since FDR. Debating policy, facts, morality, the Constitution, and the law with Trump is a complete waste of time. Fact checking and counting his lies will never defeat Trump.
The Democrats can use the House to define their message for 2020. I hope that Nancy Pelosi will be handing over the reins to a younger, more progressive Democrat before 2020 (supposedly there is such a deal), but the Democrats are lucky that they will have someone with her experience and negotiating savviness at the helm over the next year. The Democrats won’t get any legislation actually passed and signed off on by Trump over the next two years. I’ve heard many people today fantasizing about the amazing deals that could be made between Pelosi and Trump. This is laughingly delusional. Trump has shown repeatedly that his complete and total ignorance of both the legislative process and what is actually in any of the bills that have been debated or voted on since he became President makes him the worst dealmaker ever in the history of politics. As soon as the Republicans define their legislative goals, he attacks them on Twitter. As soon as his GOP Congressional leaders work a deal with the Democrats, he sabotages them. This will continue for the next two years. But the Democrats now have the opportunity to spend their first 100 days introducing a small number of big bills that actually outline a domestic program—for instance, shoring up the Affordable Care Act until 2020, raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour, protecting voters rights and eliminating voter suppression, and re-committing to the environment. These bills won’t get passed, but they will force Republicans to actually vote on them and to establish a voting record that can be used against them. The first priorities should be bringing those bills to the House floor for a vote and preparing—thoroughly, in order to be successful—for the investigations into the mind-boggling corruption of Trump’s family, team and cabinet. Adam Schiff and Jerry Nadler are just the right kind of committee chairman to run those investigations. (As I write this Trump is clearly moving end the Mueller investigation, so the Democrats may have to fill the huge void that will be left.)
You can see a successful Democratic coalition taking shape. That coalition (which will have enough critical mass to win in 2020 but will assuredly not be anything like insurmountable) will be made up of women, minorities, gays, young people, seniors who worry about health care, and upscale suburban whites who like tax cuts but who also support gun control and the environment. (The environment could be a much bigger issue for the Democrats, given that the South is being particularly impact by it. I thought it would be a much bigger issue in Florida.) The Democrats could keep the House, take advantage of a much better map to win the Senate, and win the White House in 2020. Yesterday didn’t make that ultimate dream less of a reality.
Trump can be reelected in 2020. People forget that Trump won because of 35,000 votes cast in five states. Several of those states went Democratic yesterday, so his reelection prospects, which are still all too real, got a little harder. But he still has a slim path to victory, and he will stop short of nothing—and I mean nothing—to win in 2020. This is a man who sent troops to fight an imaginary foe in order to win the midterms. We haven’t seen anything yet.
Losing the Senate means that the GOP will continue to pack the courts with right-wing judges. This is another real, existential threat to the country because it is how the Trumpists could continue to run the country even if they lost Congress and the Presidency, and now they will have two more years to create a judiciary that will undo any legislation passed by a Democratic Congress and Presiden.
Medicaid expansion seems irreversible and unstoppable now. This is a big win for Americans, folks. Voters in the ultra-red states of Idaho, Utah, and Nebraska approved the expansion, and the voters of Maine now have a Democratic governor who will not veto the expansion they voted for. Something like 1.6 million more Americans will get affordable health insurance. The ACA changed the dialogue around health care, and now the Democrats can fully embrace “Medicare for all” and set the stage for a single-payer program.
Racism still works, but not everywhere. Trump’s campaigning for the midterms, which was conducted only in red, predominantly rural states, was an endless sewer stream of nothing but racism, and no one can now deny that the Republican Party is an out-in-the-open white supremacist party. So the biggest shock (even though by now it is no surprise) from yesterday’s results is how many Americans still vote support openly racist politicians, starting with our President. Steve King, who is an American Nazi, won reelection in Iowa. A Republican running for Congress in California who claims that the Holocaust never happened got 43,000 votes. A former leader of the American Nazi Party got 44,000 votes for Congress in Illinois. DeSantis ran a blatantly racist campaign in Florida and won. How else do you explain that a brilliant black candidate like Andrew Gillum lost in Florida, but that an incredibly bland, white candidate like Bill Nelson won in the same state? And the polls predicting solid margins for Gillum show that voters are still not telling the truth to pollsters when it comes to minority candidates. But racism seems to have backfired with non-rural voters and in more urban/suburban states. Bill Schuette in Michigan, Scott Walker in Wisconsin, and Scott Wagner in PA all ran anti-immigrant ads and lost. Racist ads didn’t work against Antonio Delgado and Sharice David. Anti-immigration hardliners Lou Baretta in Pennsylvania, Chris Kobach in Kansas, and Virginia’s Corey Stewart all lost and lost big.
It was one step forward and one step back for voting rights. Florida voters (almost unbelievably, given that Gillum lost) voted to restore voting rights to 1.5 million ex-felons. That’s nine percent of the voting-age population in that state. This was a huge win for Democrats yesterday. Voting rights were expanded by voters in Maryland, Nevada, and Michigan, but similar measures were defeated in Arkansas and North Carolina. And the loss of the governorships in Florida, Texas and probably Georgia will mean voter suppression will continue in those critical states. Importantly, however, anti-gerrymandering initiatives that took away redistricting decisions from the state legislatures in favor of independent redistricting commissions passed in Colorado, Michigan, and Utah. And the Democrats won control of the state houses in New York, Minnesota, New Hampshire, Colorado—big wins in terms of redistricting for 2020. But the loss of the governorships in Florida, Ohio, Iowa and probably Georgia mean that the Democrats will not be able to undo gerrymandering in those key states.
Millenials and minorities didn’t give Democrats the lift that the early voting indicated they would. The phenomenal spikes in young-voter participation in early voting in the end just meant that younger people were smarter about when to vote. In the end, the percentage of yesterday’s vote represented by millennials was 13%, a modest increase over the 11% in the last midterms. As far as minority turnout goes, African American voting was up 1% over 2014 and Hispanics were up 4%. All increases, but the Democrats still need to work harder to win these groups to make their theoretical winning coalition a reality.
The Green Party may cost the Democrats the Senate seat in Arizona. I can’t even discuss this rationally or comment on it without unleashing an avalanche of profanity. But if you think willfully stupid, woefully misinformed, or astonishingly naïve voters only exist in the Republican Party, you are wrong, wrong, wrong.
But the other big takeaway and growing realization is that the ballot may not be enough to remove Trump. Trump is not just a politician, he’s the leader of a movement that represents all the worst aspects of America, and his tribe is fanatically loyal and getting only more so. If we think of Trump only as a politician, we will never be free of him.
As Trump noted the night before the election, when asked about the possibility of the Democrats winning the House: “I don’t care. They can do whatever they want and I can do whatever I want.”
And he proved this morning, with his takeover of the Justice Department, that he is committed to not only obstructing justice but obliterating it.
The Night Before
On election night 2016 I left my office on W. 26th Street in Manhattan early and headed to the Javits Center. America was about to elect its first woman President, and I wanted to call my Mom from the official Clinton victory party. After standing in line for nearly two hours I realized that I wasn’t going to get into the building, so I took the subway uptown back to my apartment. As I watched the stunned, tear-streaked faces in the Javits Center on television over the next few hours, I thanked god that I was not trapped in that vast funeral parlor.
My oldest son had decided that summer to try to become an FBI agent. He had done all the interviews, taken the exams, solicited letters of recommendation, and completed his physical. At about 1 a.m., just when I had decided that I couldn’t possibly watch the election horror show for another second, I got a text from him: “The FBI offered me a job today.”
I called him and asked him what he was going to do. “I can’t take that job,” he said. “That would be like joining Trump’s Gestapo.” I told him to sleep on it—that maybe the FBI would need men like him more than ever over the next few years. He turned them down a few days later, and I was never so proud of him. I often think of him when I consider what Trump has done to the FBI in the interim.
These past two years leading up to tomorrow’s voting have seemed like an eternity. But we haven’t sat idly by. We started demonstrating—the worldwide Women’s March, which took place on Trump’s first day in office, was the largest political protest in history. We began organizing and launched 1,500 resistance groups based on the Indivisible model all across the country. Thousands of us, mostly women, decided to run for office. We began registering people to vote. We put such constant pressure on Republicans in Congress that forty of them were convinced to retire without a fight. We won some key interim elections, including a Senate seat from Alabama (!), thanks primarily to the votes of women. We waited patiently for Robert Mueller to gather his evidence and issue his findings and his indictments while we chafed at his silence and feared for his professional life. We didn’t resort to violence.
The Trumpists, on the other hand, have moved even more quickly than we feared they would. Immigrants from specific countries—countries that had done us no harm—were banned from America. Trump called racist murderers in Charlottesville “good people.” The FBI and the Justice Department were politicized. Immigrant families were ripped apart and concentration camps were built—and quickly filled—on the southern border. Trump stood before the world and said that the word of the two-bit dictator of Russia was more credible than all the U.S. intelligence agencies. One trillion dollars was added to the deficit overnight to give the ultra-rich a massive tax reduction. Congressional districts were gerrymandered in favor of the GOP and hundreds of conservative judges were appointed to the bench—there is no mystery about how the Republicans plan on continuing their tyranny of the minority. Republican-led state governments began planning months ago to suppress voting by minorities and young people tomorrow. The GOP came within one vote of repealing the Affordable Care Act without a replacement. Foreign allies were abandoned and insulted while our government cozied up to murderers and tyrants. A man accused of sexual assault was given a lifetime appointment to the Supreme Court after a phony investigation. Trump’s closing arguments this month have been the most odious, reprehensible statements ever made by a President—pure, full-throated, hysterical, and impossibly crude stream of fear, naked racism and blatant lies. If the Democrats win, he shrieks at his rallies, “lock your windows and lock your doors.” Troops have been sent to the border to defend our country from brown women and children. “Barbed wire used properly can be a beautiful sight,” says the President of the United States of America.
Tomorrow we may get more than a glimpse of our country’s future. Will Trump go down in as the greatest progressive organizer since FDR, or will the shadow of his Yankee Doodle brand of fascism be the introduction to a deeper darkness?
It is the struggle of our generation, and the ballots that will be counted tomorrow represent the first, and the most important, test of the resistance. Most likely we will suffer some heartbreaking losses and some truly inspirational triumphs. But I believe that, despite the trauma of 2016 and thanks to the efforts of millions of Americans, Trumpism—for Trump is just the mouthpiece of a vast national madness—will be less powerful on Wednesday than it is tonight.
That will be real progress and cause for celebration, but it won’t be the end of it. Far from it, because Trumpism does not respect voting, the electoral process, the will of the people, or the resolve of its opponents. When asked today how he felt about the prospect of losing the House of Representatives, Trump was blunt:
“I don’t care. They can do whatever they want and I can do whatever I want.”
That’s not going to work.