A conversation about what's going on in the world at any given point in time…and what I think about it. Occasionally, guest bloggers may appear. Viewer comments are welcome. Peace! Alpha Heel
This post appeared originally in this space on August 31, 2011. It was re-purposed and presented again September 3, 2014, September 7, 2016, September 6, 2017, September 5, 2018, September 4, 2019, September 9, 2020, and once again today, September 7, 2022).
As you know, Monday was Labor Day. As with most holidays, I knock it down a few notches so readers can enjoy their time off, and ease into a vintage post, if they so choose. At its core, according to the U.S. Department of Labor, Labor Day in the United States was designed to commemorate the creation of the labor movement; dedicated to the social and economic achievements of American workers. The holiday focuses on contributions workers have made to the strength, prosperity, and well-being of our country.
First observed in September 1882, the event has always been observed on the first Monday of the month of September. Initiated by the Central Labor Union of New York, the celebration became a federal holiday in 1894.
In addition to its formal structure and purpose, Labor Day has several symbolic associations. It is considered:
The unofficial “End of Summer”
The last 3-Day warm weather weekend for vacationers
By High Society standards, the last day for which it is appropriate for women to wear white
The conventional kick-off of the hard-core political campaign season
Back–to-School shopping
Labor Day also validates and recognizes an often-controversial mechanism that frequently divides American opinion: labor unions.
Scorned by many who fancy themselves as Free EnterpriseCapitalists, unions and their members have not only been actively involved historically, in debates that framed public policy for American workers, they have won or forced hard-earned concessions that in the shimmering glow of reflective perspective, must be considered to have fundamentally altered the playing field (known as the workplace), including:
Pensions
Health Care Benefits
Paid Vacations
Equal Pay to women
The Development of Child Labor Laws
The 5-Day Work Week
The 40-Hour Work Week
The8-Hour Workday
Worker’s Compensation benefits
Female Flight Attendants permitted to marry
These and many other important cherished and beneficial employee rights are attributable to the efforts of the American Labor Movement. However, this post is not an ode to Labor Unions. For all their well-deserved accolades, unions also have downside effects. They can create or contribute to:
The potential for strikes
Additional costs to all employees (membership dues; whether a member or not)
Loss of individuality (ability to represent oneself in a grievance)
Burdensome salary demands (relative to the market)
Loss of profits (and/or pay) due to strike
Inefficient & ineffective contracts
Increased unemployment due to failure to reach agreement w/management
The first Labor Day celebration was led by a Labor Union. The history of the Day has been linked, inextricably, with Labor organizations, ever since. But it is the American Worker the Day was intended to commemorate.
Meanwhile, contemplate, “Labor Day: It’s All About The Workers Redux ’22!” While we’ve got plenty of issues to temper our enthusiasm, we should still celebrate America’s Labor Movement, and the phenomenal workers it represents.
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On Sunday night, South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham claimed there would be, “riots in the street” if Donald Trump were to be prosecuted for improperly handling classified documents, an imbroglio which has already led to an FBI search of his Mar-a-Lago estate. Graham joined what has become a cacophony of prominent GOP voices defending the former President, despite mounting evidence to support investigating Trump and his associates.
The search, which numerous outlets have referred to as a raid, was preceded, not only by a duly authorized warrant, approved by a Trump appointed Judge, but also carried out by the FBI, an agency still led by a Trump appointee, and executed under the watchful eyes of Trump’s very own Secret Service detail. In other words, it was far from a raid. The agents did not, as has been frequently alleged, arrive at 6:30 in the morning, or knock down the door. They arrived at 9 or 10 a.m., were escorted through the property, and left an itemized list of the materials they retrieved while searching the property.
The trending theory of the case, proffered by Trump supporters is, this is all just another highly politicized effort to take down their beloved icon…who never did anything but sacrifice himself and no small portion of his inestimable (if you ask him) fortune, to MAGA. Interestingly this most recent drama was led by the FBI.
A word about the FBI:
First, let’s put that into context. FBI is synonymous with GOP. It was created in 1924. In the 98 years of its existence, every director, every single on, bar none, which means including the current holder of the Title, has been a Republican. That this agency is even purported to be the tip of the spear for some premeditated take down of the former Republican President, is the height of a cynical flight of fancy. Pure poppycock!
Second and alternately, what it does sound and feel like is, an all hands on deck effort to save a sinking ship; ironically, a ship that sailed, nearly two years ago. Trump and a few of his most loyal supporters have been attempting to re-run the 2020 Election, and to orchestrate a different outcome. An outcome in which, of course, he wins.
Few things are sadder to watch than a former elected official, who refuses to give it up, after he has clearly lost it. Trump lost the 2020 Election in the People’s Court (aka the voting booth), and in the law of the land’s courts. He lost elections in the battleground states of Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. To add injury to insult, he lost court battles in, or had cases denied, dismissed, dropped, or rejected in all those states, plus in ruby red Texas. The decision wasn’t close. He lost, or had cases denied, dismissed, dropped, or rejected in more instances than there are states. His team prevailed in only twice out of more than 60 cases.
I have no idea whether the Senior Senator from South Carolina was correct in his assessment. No matter, he made the call. At this point, all that remains to be seen is whether Trump is above the law, or…”In These Streets: Riots!”
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Before launching into the post, it’s certainly appropriate to contextualize my original blog within the parameters of our contemporary timeframe. To do that, I note that post was about a young lion, Barack Obama, coming into what would become his era. Two years ago, the Democratic Party, via virtual Convention, officially installed Joe Biden as its nominee. Whereas Obama was one of the youngest to ever carry the banner, Biden is the oldest. That bit of history/trivia was augmented by his selection of Kamala Harris as his running mate. She was the fourth woman to be part of a Presidential Ticket, the third as a VP Candidate, and the first woman of color. Biden had two previous unsuccessful runs. His 2020 effort determined that he was able to register the third time as the charm, while Senator Harris broke the proverbial glass ceiling for women on a ticket.
By contrast, the GOP conducted its Convention, part virtual, part in person, part in Charlotte, and part at the White House. The virtual aspects of the Conventions were necessitated due to COVID-19. Donald Trump, of course, was the Party’s nominee, as expected (at least by me) he retained Mike Pence, his first term VP, as his running mate. I mention it in passing, because there was speculation in some corners that Trump would replace Pence, perhaps with a woman. While Trump and his loyalists like to brand him as an anti-establishmentarian, the thought that he’d engage in such a high risk, low reward gambit struck me as unlikely. If there were any present-day pol that was unlikely to elevate a woman to his second-in-command, the name Donald Trump leapt out at me. Maybe next time. Enough about the conventions.
Tempus fugit (Time Flies)! Saturday marked a significant milestone in the life and development of “Break It Down!” I initiated this blog August 20, 2007, on a lark…almost a dare. That was fifteen years (and 782 editions) ago. Having related the story several times over the past several years, I will not repeat the complete details today.
I will note, however, that on that summer’s eve, I contemplated and discussed, in five paragraphs, the experience, or in reality the lack thereof, of then Senator Barack Obama, as he navigated the early stages of his historic Presidential Campaign.
So, this was the message in Post #1; five brisk paragraphs and a sign-off:
In an apparent calculated act of derring-do, Obama declares the virtue of inexperience. Gotta love it!
Personal footnote of recollection: I recall Jimmy Carter running the classic “anti-Washington” (i.e., lack of Capitol Hill experience) campaign in ’75-76. You know what, it worked.
The problem was, once JC sent all the reigning bureaucrats & policy wonks home, he was left with an assembly of newbies who didn’t understand how to get things done in DC. The result was that a very smart guy, genuine humanitarian, and erstwhile successful leader presided over what was widely perceived as a disastrous presidency. President Carter’s solitary term was fraught with innumerable policy failures (see the Shah of Iran, double-digit inflation, runaway gas prices, & the outrageous Interest/Mortgage rate morass) and public relations gaffes (remember the killer rabbit, and the failed helicopter gambit).
Fortunately for him he was able to live long enough and subsequently do enough good deeds to distance himself from most of an unremarkable tenure as a one-term president, followed by a resounding defeat by that cowboy actor Teflon guy.
Of course, none of that has anything to do with Obama…except in the unlikely event he prevails. If he does, let’s hope he doesn’t take that inexperience thing too far. As W constantly reminds us, getting to the White House is one thing (after all, he’s done it twice), providing prudent and effective leadership once there is quite another.
’06!
Posted on Mon, Aug. 20, 2007
As I wrap this up in 2022, it is with a completely different appreciation for what an inexperienced Barack Obama brought to his job, vis-à-vis what an even more politically inexperienced Donald Trump brought to the job for eight years later. Mr. Obama inherited a fragile country with a downward spiraling economy, a nearly double-digit employment rate, and a foreboding 700,000+ job losses per month. By the time he left 8 years later, the unemployment rate had been halved, to less than 5%, the country enjoyed the longest period of consecutive job gains, 75 months, in history, over 11 million jobs had been added, including 1.2 million in his last 6 months in office, while the Dow Jones rose from a slumping 7,949 when he took office to 19, 887 when he exited. No President controls every single lever that triggers all that happens during his (it has been all men so far) tenure. When things go south, POTUS occupies the space where the proverbial buck stops. Conversely, when things trend rosy, the occupant at 1600 PA Ave. gets a fair amount of the accrued shine.
In that light, Mr. Trump entered office in a much different environment, benefiting from what can rightfully be called the Obama Recovery. Let’s be clear. There remains work to be done. But anyone who suggests that Obama didn’t bequeath more and better than he inherited is full of bovine excrement. Full stop!
With that said, in the salad days of the Trump Administration, he surely delighted his base. At least the ones with whom I have spoken believe he’s the cat’s meow, and they say (whether they believe it or not) he did exactly what they hoped for when they voted for him. I would suggest that anyone who didn’t vote for, or support him, or who is undecided about supporting him, should let that sink in for a moment or two, or twenty.
Team Trump contended Democrats, liberals, the Main-Stream Media, and some nebulous ill-defined entity referred to as the deep state, were solely responsible for all that stymied or delayed even potential successes by the Trump Administration. So, healthcare, travel ban (or whatever appellation one cares to affix to it), Transgender Military Policy, Charlottesville Messaging, the Obama wiretapping claim, the Flynn firing, the Comey firing, the Spicer firing, the Priebus firing, the Scaramucci firing, the Bannon firing, and oh by the way dare I say, his tweets…Can we really blame all that on the Party that held a minority in both Houses for two years, and that held only one House of Congress for the latter two years, or on a media that has no votes, and presumably no say in who Trump hires in the first place, or fires for that matter, or on the deep state, wherever the Sam Hill that is located?
It took four years, two impeachments, the country’s most successful election (by the numbers), and an attempted coup, but Joseph Robinette Biden unseated Donald John Trump. He inherited a global pandemic, a crippled economy, a near 20-year war, and a country more polarized than it’s been in decades. The transition has created a space to exhale, even though the Big Lie still echoes in many corners of our country. Freedom won on November 3, 2020. In fact, I would be remiss if I didn’t at least mention the on-going national catastrophe that began January 6, 2020, and still ravages our national psyche. As we continue to see the fruits of a continuously unfurling fact pattern, Trump supporters are increasingly forced to resort to evermore creative renditions of what happened that day. As I like to say, “slowly, surely, inexorably, it’s coming into focus. I don’t know whether it will matter…but we will come to know the fine details of what happened; and why.
Meanwhile, with an evenly divided Senate, if one charitably views Senators Manchin and Sinema as Democrats, and a slim advantage in the people’s House, President Biden’s first two years netted low unemployment, high job numbers support for Ukraine, SCOTUS’s first Black female Justice, the American Rescue Plan, a new gun law, the Inflation Reduction Act, an infrastructure law, renewed support for NATO, a veterans act, 70+ days in a row of falling gas prices (and yes, they were too high to begin with, but that is a global phenomenon), and the elimination of Al Qaeda leader, Ayman al-Zawahiri. It’s not perfect, but two months ago, there was probably not a Democrat or Republican operative who’d have believed you, were you to assert that Biden and the Dems would be able to check off that litany of items before the midterms.
With that I mind, I am inclined to look back on the first time I wrote, “Obama Plays the Experience Card,” and conclude that we (who should be a grateful nation) were very well served by that guy from Honolulu. So today, my emphasis is…“Obama Plays the Inexperience Card Redux ’22!
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In seems like it was just yesterday when every conservative, and every rightwing outlet was at once mocking the left, and disparaging anyone connected with, and certainly anyone who ever uttered the phrase, “Defund the police.” No matter how nuanced the explanation, and no matter how well-researched and thoughtfully articulated the distinction between the words and the actual meaning of the phrase, Democrats of all stripes were affixed with the neck anchor of leaving streets all over America bereft of those designated to protect and serve; the men (and women) in blue. America’s finest, if you will.
Well, glory be, the worm has turned. Over the last 10 days the right appears to have lost its ever-loving mind. From right wing news outlets to the Halls of Congress, the conservative community, at least those tethered to Donald Trump have taken to pretty much any available forum and are calling not only for defunding the FBI, but for the assassination of the Attorney General, and any FBI Agent associated with the August 8, search of Mar-a-Lago, also known as Donald Trump’s, very fine home.
It’s almost as if Mr. Trump’s coterie of supporters and sycophants have elevated him above the law and the land. When Kathy Griffin joked about decapitating Trump (imagine a comedian making a joke, even one in poor taste), his supporters moved apace to obliterate her career. She’s barely been heard from since. Yet, when Trump’s handpicked FBI Director dared execute a legal warrant, complete with probable cause (try to envision the burden of proof necessary to obtain a warrant to search the premises of a dude who used to be POTUS), the virtual mob wanted him, and anyone carrying out the search, killed. I can almost see the Mike Pence’s head nodding in recognition of the fix in which Attorney General Merrick Garland and FBI Director Christopher Wray, find themselves. Thinking about it in retrospect, the outlandish and chaotic events of January 6 do seem aligned with the murderous civil war that so many Trump acolytes are openly calling for, giving voice and lending support.
And lest anyone be inclined to take lightly this call to arms, just three days after the search, on Thursday, an armed man tried to breach the FBI’s Cincinnati field office. The suspect, Ricky Shiffer, had an AR-15, a nail gun, and was clad in body armor. A social media account, bearing his name referenced an attempt to storm an FBI office that day, and also called for violence against the agency. After a standoff that lasted hours, Shiffer was shot and killed.
I’m not going to detail a running list of Shiffer’s social media commentary, some of which ran concurrent to his episodic adventure with the FBI. I will, however, cite one example.
Ricky Shiffer
@rickyshifferjr
“Well, I thought I had a way through bullet proof glass, and I didn’t. If you don’t hear from me, it is true I tried attacking the F.B.I., and it’ll mean either I was taken off the internet, the F.B.I. got me, or they sent the regular cops while”
Aug 11, 2022, 06:29
The message trailed off. It’s likely Mr. Shiffer became otherwise occupied.
To conclude my citation of the social media screed, these three posts appeared on a Pro-Trump Forum:
“Lock and load.”
“Kill all feds.”
“I’m just going to say it. Garland needs to be assassinated. Simple as that.”
It appears, this is where we are. Trump partisans have self-righteously drawn a line in the sand. “Back The Blue…Defund the FBI!”
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I am impelled to write about this. There are no citations, no source materials, just my opinion. It’s straight forward; there is really, not a lot to say.
Over the past 48 hours, much discourse has ensued regarding Monday’s FBI search of Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate. I have noticed numerous outlets, especially those that tilt conservative, characterize the encounter using terms such as raid, or siege. These terms carry a negative connotation, and are rightfully, understandably, received as trigger words.
Some non-conservative outlets have also used the term raid in connection with the FBI’s search. From my vantage point, there is one simple, but huge problem with that characterization. Let’s begin by defining raid.
Raid (Merriam-Webster)
(Noun):
A hostile or predatory incursion
A surprise attack by a small force
A brief foray outside one’s usual sphere
A sudden invasion by officers of the law
A daring operation against a competitor
The recruiting of personnel from competing organizations
The act of mulcting public money
An attempt by professional operators to depress stock prices by concerted selling
(Verb)
To conduct or take part in a raid
To make a raid on
When Trump, who was the first to share the news of the FBI’s visit and search, announced it, he engaged in rhetorical escalation, claiming his estate was under siege, when he declared, “My beautiful home, Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Florida, is currently under siege, raided and occupied by a large group of FBI agents.” He added, for effect, I’m sure, “They even broke into my safe.”
For further elucidation, let’s also define siege.
Siege (Oxford Languages)
(Noun):
“A military operation in which enemy forces surround a town or building, cutting off essential supplies, with the aim of compelling the surrender of those inside.”
“An operation in which police or other forces surround a building and cut off supplies, with the aim of forcing an armed person to surrender.”
“A prolonged period of misfortune.”
What it was. The FBI obtained a search warrant authorizing it to secure presidential records and or any classified material. In January, the National Archives and Records Administration retrieved 15 boxes documents and other items that Archives officials said should have been turned over when Trump left the White House. While archivists continued to seek additional records, his advisers indicated Trump resisted relinquishing the materials for months.
One person who spoke to reporters on the condition of anonymity, said agents were conducting a court-authorized search as part of a long-running investigation of whether documents — some of them top-secret – were taken to Mar-a-Lago. That could be a violation of the Presidential Records Act, which requires the preservation of memos, letters, notes, emails, faxes, and other written communications related to a president’s official duties.
By all accounts, the visit did not entail, as one conservative commentator maintained, “kicking the doors in.” The agents knocked, were admitted into the estate, and upon the authority granted them by the warrant, performed their investigation. The encounter was said to last roughly from mid-morning to mid-afternoon. There were no reports, unlike January 6, of anyone being gored, shot, or killed, or of the premises having been ransacked. “Definition Of A Raid/Siege: This Was Not That!”
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Much of the on-going focus on January 6 has revolved around the hearings. Depending upon which side of the (political) aisle one resides, the view of the results of the hearings has been, either, an extended yawn fest (right wing Trump-fawning election deniers…most of whom claim they really haven’t watched) or riveting must-see TV (left leaning Biden-voting Citadel of democracy defenders, many of whom have been left with out-sized expectations). I write these descriptions without passing judgment. I think folks on each side of the divide would recognize themselves, and challenge others to explain, “What’s wrong with that?” If anything, they’d be more likely to challenge the adjectives ascribed to those on the other side. At least those on the right would…in my opinion.
We are beginning to see another category of interested parties emerge. Early on, most of the people tried and convicted for the roles they played in the insurrection/coup attempt were given minimal sentences. There was a sense that a mere slap on the wrist was the order of the day. When all is said and done, there may still be more of those, than sentences of real consequence. However, one thing has become clear. Even if cupcake sentences are the rule, there will be exceptions to the norm.
Guy Reffitt was sentenced on Monday for five felony counts, including obstructing an official proceeding of Congress; trespassing at the Capitol while carrying a holstered semiautomatic handgun; interfering with police in a riot; and witness tampering. Guy’s wife Nicole insisted repeatedly that Guy was, “Just all talk, and wouldn’t hurt anyone.” Maybe so, but on Monday, Guy officially joined the ranks of the, “About These Streets,” as Judge Dabney Friedrich sentenced him to seven years and three months, or, to put it in the parlance of the United States House Select Committee on the January 6 Attack, 87 months.
Reffitt’s involvement in the events of January 6, and his subsequent trial, conviction, and sentencing provide not only keen insight into the general mind set of Trump supporters who came to Washington on J6, but also levels a specific object lesson for people who like Reffitt, opted or who will opt to reject a plea deal and instead push their case to the courts. The keen insight revealed that Trumpers wanted to be there, and they believed Trump wanted them to come to Washington to help him…”Stop the (alleged) Steal.” The specific object lesson disclosed that there is ample, in fact, preponderant) evidence, in video, audio, and digital formats, for the government to prove its case, and unless one wants to be a martyr, or one is content to wait for Trump’s “re-election” to be pardoned, it behooves one to cooperate, and take the deal. In Reffitt’s case in particular, the volume of evidence of this bragging – detailed in texts, videos, and audio – convinced jurors of his guilt, in a unanimous verdict on all counts, in March, after less than four hours of deliberations.
That brings me to the next point. How did we get here? Jackson, the son of Guy Reffitt, the first US Capitol riot defendant to go to trial rather than take a plea agreement, said his father “absolutely” deserves the 87-month prison sentence that was handed down Monday. Reffitt, who was sentenced Monday, had been convicted by a DC jury in March of five felonies — wanting to obstruct the congressional certification of the 2020 presidential election, transporting guns into DC, carrying a handgun onto Capitol grounds, interfering with Capitol Police protecting the Upper West Terrace and obstructing justice by threatening his daughter and son, who had turned him into the FBI.
Prosecutors played the audio in court from one of the videos Reffitt taped on January 6 at the Capitol. In the recording, Guy Reffitt talked about the Speaker of the US House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi, referring to her in abusive language while speaking of a vague plan for “dragging” her out of the Capitol.
During the trial, Capitol Police officers testified about battling Guy Reffitt outside the Capitol on January 6, 2021, and prosecutors called him a leader of the crowd. He also recorded a video on January 6 in which he made threatening comments about House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell.
Weeks before Guy Reffitt drove from his hometown of Wylie, Texas, to Washington DC to storm the US Capitol, his son Jackson, 18 at the time, had already tipped-off the FBI.
It was a string of messages from his father on Christmas Eve to the family text chain that alarmed Jackson. In them, the older Reffitt announced his intention to go to the nation’s capital “to rise up the way the Constitution was written”.
During his testimony, Jackson said that he reported his father to the FBI because he was worried about his plans.
“We took the United States Capitol,” he texted his family after the siege. “We are the Republic of the People.”
When he returned home to Texas, Guy Reffitt spoke with his son and other members of his family about his experiences. He bragged about his role in the Capitol assault, said Jackson in his testimony.
“I started the fire,” Guy Reffitt told his family. He did not know that his son was secretly recording him on his mobile phone.
He threatened his son, warning him not to tell the authorities.
“If you turn me in, you’re a traitor,” his father told Jackson. “And traitors get shot.”
After the verdict, Nicole claimed her husband was used as an example to make all the one-sixers (6 January defendants) take a plea. “Do not take a plea one-sixers,” she urged, “we got this.”
Nathan Reffitt, Guy’s brother, a 50-year-old electrician, called Jackson a “snowflake” and overly sensitive.
“My nephew turned against his father. It’s sad that our country has come to this.”
Jackson, meanwhile, tweeted that it was “impossible to be happy” about the verdict. “My father could have possibly been home by now getting mental help if he took a plea deal.”
Peyton and Sarah Reffitt, Guy’s daughters, took to Twitter and assailed Donald Trump. Sarah lamented her father’s treatment, observing that Trump might be elected again. Meanwhile, Peyton asserted that if their father got that long a sentence, Trump, whom she had previously noted was whose “name was on the flags,” deserves a life sentence. “Chickens Coming Home To Roost: Slowly, Surely, Inexorably!”
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Minutes after Guy Reffitt was sentenced to 7 years in Capitol riot case… his daughter calls for "life in prison" for Donald Trump pic.twitter.com/01pw2uBsP8
On Tuesday of last week, the New York Times (NYT) published a David Leonhardt opinion asserting that the Anti-Democracy Movement is bigger than Donald Trump. Indeed, he points out that on February 24, 2016, someone registered the website http://www.stopthesteal.org. Mr. Leonhardt suggests it may have been Roger Stone, who in 2016 was advising Trump’s campaign, and appears to have coined the now infamous phrase, “Stop the Steal.” Indeed, the time frame was during Trump’s primary campaign, and four years before Trump would get around to accusing Joe Biden of election fraud.
As it were, when the phrase was concocted, it wasn’t aimed at a Democrat at all. Rather, the target individual was Ted Cruz, who, at the time, happened to be Trump’s closest competitor for the Republican nomination. After Cruz defeated the field, winning the Colorado caucuses in April 2016, hundreds of Trump supporters gathered in Denver, at the State Capitol and chanted, “Stop the Steal.” Contemporaneously, the website posted baseless allegations claiming fraud in other states.
This quick history note is lifted from Charles Homans’s latest revelatory story, recently published by the Times Magazine. It focuses on the anti-democracy movement within the Republican Party, and makes as a central point, that the movement to create doubt about elections is both older than many people realize, and larger than Donald Trump.
Mr. Homans writes, “What is striking about the movement around the supposed theft of the 2020 election, is how much of it — the ideas, and rhetoric, even the people involved in it — predate Trump’s presidency, and in some cases, even his candidacy.” Moreover, as the movement continues today, it is based less on the narrow goal of restoring Trump to power, although there is still an element of that, and more on a missionary zeal to put rightwing candidates in office. This, of course, is accompanied by the ancillary benefit of install right wing judges and associated political operatives.
GOP candidates running campaigns this year, including the Republican nominee for governor in Pennsylvania and the nominees for secretary of state (the job overseeing elections) in several other states, do not talk about Trump so often. Conversely, they cast themselves as part of a larger crusade to preserve traditional American, Christian, and conservative values. As Humans expounds, they “see themselves as an American people distinct from the American population — a people whose particular loyalties, identities, and values designated them as the true inheritors of the nation, regardless of what the ballots might have said.
On White Nationalism
Mr. Homans and Mr. Leonhardt spent some time discussing why this anti-democratic movement has become such a dominant force within the Republican Party now. Conspiracy theories have a long and significant history in American politics. But they have traditionally remained on the fringes, of both the right and the left. For example, the John Birch Society of the mid-20th century spread some of the same/similar ideas as today’s right-wing conspiracists. yet few Birchers won statewide or federal office.
What has changed? While there is no single answer, there are a few plausible explanations.
One is that many conservatives — especially White conservatives — feel more threatened than in past decades. They worry they are part of a fading minority. Mr. Homans documents the Stop the Steal movement has strong roots in the Tea Party movement, which began early in Barack Obama’s presidency, and frequently portrayed him as illegitimate and un-American.
President Obama, becoming the first Black president, was a clear sign that the country had become more racially diverse, and seemed destined to become even more so. It also happened as the country was questioning traditional ideas gender and sexuality, and becoming more secular, with religious observance declining.
Mr. Homans interviewed a supporter of Doug Mastriano, the GOP nominee for governor in Pennsylvania, after a rally and asked her what she expected if Mastriano won. “I see him stepping in and going back to the Constitution — putting God back in things. He’s about bringing everything back. Everything back.”
Still, this racial and cultural reactionary response is almost certainly not the full story. After all, the U.S. has experienced more intense periods of debate over racial and gender issues — like in the 1960’s — without giving rise to a large anti-democracy movement. Today, several other factors also seem to be in play.
Four more reasons
One is the underlying level of frustration among Americans after decades of slow-growing living standards for most people. A financial crisis, which began shortly before Obama’s election, and the slow recovery from it exacerbated the dissatisfaction.
The pandemic, undoubtedly, is a mother factor. COVID-19 disrupted daily life and caused a further deterioration in many measures of physical and mental health, fostering a sense that society is coming apart.
A tertiary factor is contemporary media. Falsehoods can spread more quickly and be repeated more frequently, via the internet, than for example, the Birchers’ claim that Dwight Eisenhower was a secret communist. Simultaneously, Fox News broadcasts conspiracies to millions of viewers.
Finally, even though Trump’s role may be exaggerated, it is often central. In the past, national leaders tended to reject the conspiracies; in 2008, John McCain famously corrected on of his own supporters who called Obama an Arab. Trump, by contrast, not only pushed the birther conspiracy during Obama’s presidency, but he also declined to push back against his supporters employing it, even though he was forced to make an admission in the 11th hour of his 2016 campaign, that President Obama was American. Furthermore, Mr. Trump proved lies as no other modern U.S. politician has, making them acceptable to people who otherwise might have rejected them. After he ascended to the presidency, using the tactic, many other GOP politicians opted to echo his strategy, or at the very least, refused to denounce him.
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Those Who Read My Blog Already Know…I’m a PK, a Christian, a pro-Black advocate, a center-left Democrat, a daily exerciser, a Kinston native, a Charlotte transplant, a Bronco, a Tar Heel, a Hornets’ fan, a Panthers’ fan (home team forever), a Lakers’ fan, a Dodgers’ fan, a devotee of whatever basketball team on which Andrew Wiggins plays, an HBCU supporter, an adherent of annual physicals, a believer in science & the efficacy of vaccines, a proponent of diversity and inclusion, a weekly blogger, and…an Alpha!
It is as a proud member of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Inc., that I join General President, Dr. Willis L. Lonzer, III, the Beta Nu Lambda and Charlotte area Chapters, and Alpha men everywhere, in extending a cordial welcome to Charlotte, to the men of Omega Psi Phi Fraternity, Inc., and their guests, who are about to visit Charlotte to conduct the business of their 83rd Grand Conclave.
For the uninitiated, pun intended, Alpha Phi Alpha and Omega Psi Phi are historically African American fraternities. Both are members of a collaborative umbrella entity known as the National Pan-Hellenic Council (NPHC), composed of seven other organizations, three fraternities, and four sororities, also of African American historical lineage. For anyone who may not know, Omegas are often familiarly called Q’s, as an homage to the letter Q, because of the similarity between the Greek Letter Omega (Ω) and the English Alphabet Q. Together, the nine organizations are collectively, informally, called the “Divine Nine (D9). Eight of the organizations were established during the first quarter of the 20th century; the final current member was founded in 1963. To see the names of the entire D9, and the order/year of their founding, including the NPHC, see the links below.
When the organizations convene in large meetings (National/International, Regional, or State/District), the convening organization hosts a public forum, at which members from the community, and other Pan-Hellenic Council member organizations are invited. The membership of these organizations is composed of some of the finest minds and most influential citizens in America and abroad, and they have been for more than a hundred years.
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COVID-19 developed into a genuinely serious matter circa March 2020. It was during the month of March when the NBA shut down its Regular Season, the NCAA canceled its Basketball Tournaments, and restaurants, schools & colleges, churches, and a host of other establishments either shut down, or greatly curtailed their services and accessibility. As far as we could tell, life as we knew it, forever changed. Troopers that we Americans are, we marched on, figuring out our latest new normal. But wait; roughly 10 months later, just when most Americans thought things wouldn’t or couldn’t get much worse, along came the events of January 6, 2021, for all practical purposes saying something akin to, “Hold my beer!”
So here we are, almost two and a half years after COVID grabbed us by the neck, literally choking the life out of over a million of our fellow Americans, and over a year and a half since an insurrection kicked us in democracy’s gonads, with the unfolding of a violent uprising in and around the U.S. Capitol, symbolic Citadel of our nation’s government. Perhaps the most spiritually debilitating aspect of these two impositions upon our way of life is, neither has been vanquished. Americans are still contracting cases of, and in too many instances, dying from COVID. And yes, we are also reminded daily of the lingering consequences of what many argue was a straight up coup attempt.
We continue to be confronted by new variants of COVID. The most recent strain is Omicron BA.5. Just know, COVID is still with us. Some experts say it will be like the flu, with new variations springing up in perpetuity. I do not know whether that’s true. I do know…it’s still here. Conduct yourselves accordingly.
As for the insurrection, the House January 6 Select Committee continues its work. The committee conducted its seventh day of hearings yesterday. The focus was on zeroing in on the connection between Mr. Trump and extremist groups. The committee showed that the former president and his allies interacted with these violent groups and provided evidence that some rally organizers even expressed concern about the event, and the people gathering in Washington.
The panel listened to live testimony from a former spokesperson for the Oath Keepers, and another person who participated in the riot, in addition to showing clips of the deposition of former White House counsel Pat Cipollone. The committee cannot bring charges against Mr. Trump. However, its principal mission has been to uncover the full scope of his attempt to stop the peaceful transfer of power, and to connect his actions to the violence at the Capitol. The Justice Department (JD) is the ultimate arbiter of whether to bring criminal charges.
This is where I do as I often have, and express supreme skepticism regarding whether any charges will be leveled against Mr. Trump. To be clear, not because I believe charges are not warranted, but due to the convolution and complexity involved with navigating such charges in an environment in which the prospective defendant might also be a major political party’s nominee for President, and as such, the chief political rival of the President…or whomever becomes the other major party’s nominee. In addition to skeptical I’m also cynical. I believe that is the number one reason why Mr. Trump wants to be his party’s standard bearer, and of course, President, again. It’s difficult to imagine a greater incentive than keeping his name off the police blotter, and his rear end out of the hoosegow.
Perhaps the two pending items garnering the most attention surrounding the committee’s work, now, are:
First, Vice Chair Cheney noted near the end of the hearing that the panel had forwarded information to the JD regarding a yet to appear witness whom Mr. Trump had attempted to contact, prior to providing their testimony. The individual, reportedly, did not take Mr. Trump’s call, but had their attorney contacted the committee, which in turn, referred that info to the JD.
Second, Steve Bannon, who initially spurned an invitation, and subsequently a subpoena, to testify before the committee, earning a contempt of Congress citation, and an ensuing court appearance, has recently changed his tack, and volunteered to testify…in a public hearing. Other witnesses have testified first in private hearings before their public testimony. It is certain that Bannon hopes to explode and create chaos in the process and change the focus by sidestepping the private hearing, and launching, on air, into the kind of diatribe that is his stock and trade. It remains to be seen whether the committee will put the rabbit in the briar patch. Of course, a morose Trump, utterly frustrated that no one is defending him at these hearings aided in facilitating Bannon’s changed tune by giving him a letter, ostensibly releasing him to vigorously defend himself. It takes very little insight to understand that Bannon’s main, if not only, role will be to defend Mr. Trump, loudly and passionately. It’s a good deal if they can get it. Touché! “That’s What Ails Us Now!”
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Monday was a holiday. Typically, during holiday weeks, I recycle a redux version of a previous post. Not today. Like Dré, I had something to say. Something I needed to say, and something you needed to know. Carry on.
Not every great dilemma is destined to be distilled and viewed through the prism of race. Let’s be clear, however, race, despite being merely a social construct, was literally invented to keep the Black man down. And for ages, across the world, it’s done a hellava job.
Gomes Eanes de Zurara, a Portuguese chronicler of the European Age of Discovery, a lesser light whom most non-historians probably never heard of, pretty much single-handedly composed the lie that effectively invented racism. He was commissioned by Alfonso V, King of Portugal to compose a glowing biography of the African adventures of his beloved uncle, Prince Henry the Navigator. Zurara completed the Chronicles of the Discovery and Conquest of Guinea in 1453, a book in which he described all the various people of the myriad countries in Africa as a distinct group, beastly and inferior. This was the first European book written about Africa. Of course, in direct contrast to Zurara’s slander, some of the most sophisticated cultures of the time resided on the African Continent. Not coincidentally, despite serious fakery, the Portuguese were contemporaneously pioneering the North Atlantic slave trade. They were the first to do it, so to speak. It became immediately convenient to have a justifying narrative to assert the inferiority of African people to the church, to other people, and notably, to themselves. With the stroke of a pen, Zurara invented both Blackness and Whiteness…because Blackness alone would have served no purpose without Whiteness. So let it be known, racism did not start based on some misunderstanding between groups, or cultures. It started based on a lie; one that has been perpetuated for over five and a half centuries.
In 1903, W. E. B. Du Bois prophetically foretold: “The problem of the twentieth century is the problem of the color line.” It is a well-known sentence that is rarely quoted completely. Du Bois goes on to describe the color line as “the question of how far differences of race . . . will hereafter be made the basis of denying to over half the world the right of sharing to their utmost ability the opportunities and privileges of modern civilization.” In The Souls of Black Folk, he says it is “the relation of the darker to the lighter races of men in Asia and Africa, in America and the islands of the sea” and says, “It was a phase of this problem that caused the Civil War.”
There is no denying Dr. Du Bois’ prescience. After all, here we are, nearly 120 years later, and the problem of the color line is still front and center. Fast forward more than 110 years after Du Bois’ pronouncement, to the summer of 2016, and the first Issue of OTHERING & BELONGING EXPANDING THE CIRCLE OF HUMAN CONCERN, in which john a. powell and Stephen Menendian wrote: “The problem of the twenty-first century is the problem of “othering.” In a world beset by seemingly intractable and overwhelming challenges, virtually every global, national, and regional conflict is wrapped within or organized around one or more dimension of group-based difference. Othering undergirds territorial disputes, sectarian violence, military conflict, the spread of disease, hunger, and food insecurity, and even climate change.
Clearly, powell and Menendian expanded the dimensions of the debate to include a host of additional variables, including people and issues. For the purposes of this post, I will continue to highlight race and the American condition. Although the enlarged conversation warrants further discourse, I’ll have to revisit that at another time.
For now, just know this. On June 27, 2022, 25-year-old Jayland Walker was involved in a traffic stop in Akron, Ohio that after his fleeing, devolved into the final encounter of his life. News accounts report that he was shot by police, as many as 60 times. On July 4, 2022, 21-year-old Robert Crimo was involved in a traffic stop in North Chicago, that after his fleeing resulted in him being detained and arrested. Some might consider it important to note that Crimo is the lone person of interest/suspect in a mass shooting that resulted in killing 7 people and wounding dozens more during an Independence Day Parade in Highland Park. Consider it noted.
Yes, Walker is Black; Crimo is White. Yes, there have been many instances with comparable circumstances, and similar results. This is America! For all its alleged greatness, there is still a lot to work on, particularly when it comes to race, and as Du Bois framed it, the problem of the color line.
Unless we, here in America, gird our proverbial loins, and commit ourselves to confronting, deconstructing, and neutering this behemoth of a problem, we are assured of staying mired in the quicksand of America’s original sin.
Anti-CRT advocates and folks who claim to adhere to constitutional originalism fail to acknowledge and appropriately address the Constitution’s odious double malady, first of ignoring Black people, then secondly, of relegating us to 3/5 status. In short, the United States was founded by men who owned slaves, and who did not extend equal rights to women. We can, and in fact, we should, stop pretending all the documents they wrote were infallible. Oh, by the way, to celebrate July 4, 1776 and simultaneously ignore January 6, 2021 is the epitome of hypocrisy. Full stop.
Slavery, like it or not, is an irreducible fact, not some throwaway guest worker clause, or involuntary relocation plan (both euphemisms that are actively applied today), and it is an indelible black, no pun intended, mark on the ego-inspired notion of “American Exceptionalism.” George (no, not Washington) Santayana said, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” Contemporary America asks all of us to take the “blue pill,” and forget how we got here. The best and most compelling counterpoint to that ill-conceived plea is that there is a cadre of Americans who are never going to permit that to happen. We are here, America is our home, and we are not going anywhere. You can forget about those go back to Africa, or Mexico, or India, or China, or Japan, or fill-in-the-blank Muslim country jeers and sneers. We are here, and what’s more important, we don’t just sing America, We Are America…Oh Say Can You See Us…now. That dear friends and family, is “July 4th In Black & White!”
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BREAK IT DOWN! 