Monthly Archives: January 2021

Point of View Columns

The End of an Error

End of an Error

With the end of the Trump presidency it would seem that the entire nation, indeed the entire world, breathed a sigh of relief with the hope that the Trump Pandemic would be gone. There is now no doubt that Trump was the worst president in the history of the United States vanquishing Richard Nixon, Franklin Pierce, Millard Fillmore and Andrew Johnson in a race to the bottom. But there is also no doubt that it is at least possible that Trump has made it possible that there will be a president worse than him sooner than later.

By shattering all presidential norms, treating governmental institutions like his personal property and treating the American people as his subjects he has certainly cleared the way for another, even more malign version of himself. After all, over 74 million presumably conscious and functionally intelligent Americans voted for Trump – warts and all.

The end of the Trump presidency actually began with the inauguration of Joe Biden. President Biden delivered what was arguably one of the best inaugural speeches in presidential history. Lifting the stain of Trump from the fabric of American politics will take a long time, but President Biden spoke to this issue with the very clear statement – “Don’t tell me things can’t change”. It does remain to be seen how long it will take for things to change.

It is noteworthy that President Biden became the first president in history to declare war on white supremacy and the nihilist domestic terrorists who espouse this vile philosophy. Of course, it is also noteworthy that it was not until the year 2021 that an American president declared war on white supremacy.

And as much of the nation struggled to wrench the memories of the January 6th Insurrection from our collective memory, a true ray of hope and possible dreams made itself known. For following President Biden’s inaugural speech, and Lady Gaga had sung the national anthem and Jennifer Lopez had sung America the Beautiful, a glorious National Poet Laureate appeared. Amanda Gorman is a 22-year-old Black woman who embodies genius and spectacular vision.

She delivered a poem which was written for the moment, just as Amanda Gorman was born for this day. There would be no way to recount all of the content of that poem, but let it suffice to say that she brought tears of joy and hope and remembered pain to the face of America. It is almost a travesty to quote her poem because the entire masterpiece deserves to be quoted and remembered and memorized. The pearls that she offered to the world included:

  • Too often Just Is is not Justice
  • There’s always light if only we are brave enough to see it

And so very much more. Her words belong to all who made that day possible – indeed her word belongs to the ages already.

The celebrations of the rest of the day were amazing and uplifting and inspiring. But it remains to be seen what happens when the real work of repairing the spirit of a nation and its people begins.

And, as we witness The End of the Error, it is so important to make sure that America does not make the mistake of not taking fascist and authoritarian rhetoric and those who utter such words seriously. It is true that no one could imagine that Trump could be as bad as he turned out to be. Clearly we suffered from a failure of imagination.

America dodged a nuclear powered laser beam of tyranny and destruction……this time.

As a nation we cannot afford to ever fail this way again.

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Point of View Columns

MLK Day – What America Really Thinks

As the annual celebration of the birth of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. progressed yesterday, several thoughts come to mind. First, Trump demonstrated that he has not run out of verbal sewage after five years of flooding America with his wrongful, hurtful and absolutely racist rhetoric.

For reasons that might somehow be found in the secret canyons of his damaged mind, Trump chose yesterday to attack schools where the truth about slavery is being taught as somehow being Un-American. And then he pivoted to advocate that something called Patriotic Education be a part of the curriculum in all American schools.

As with most things Trump there are few details about exactly what Patriotic Education looks like, but it sounds like White Supremacy 101 would probably be the title of a master course in this curriculum and a course in White Privilege would probably qualify as a graduate course. Not mentioning the genocide committed against the indigenous people of the North American content is certainly a likely topic.

Painting the institution of slavery and its systemic descendants – systemic racism and institutional inequity are guaranteed to be a part of Patriotic Education. And, of course, the confederacy and the treasonous civil war would certainly be components of this white supremacist lesson plan.

That the President of the United States would publicly support such an odious agenda is bad enough. Issuing such rhetorical garbage on the national holiday celebrating the life of Dr. King is an act of racism worthy of a Klan leader or Woodrow Wilson.

But the fact that the overwhelming majority of the 74 million people who voted for him would have no problem with Patriotic Education makes matters worse. And it is not a stretch to surmise that the Patriotic Education speech being made on the King holiday would not disqualify Trump from receiving their vote any and every time.

Which raises the question as to what a significant part of white America really thinks about Dr. King and racial inequity here in the 21st century, in focusing on this concern it is important to note that in 1967, the year before he died, Dr. King was one of the most hated men in many parts of America. In that year Dr. King also stated his concern that at some point in the future historians would state that American civilization died because it failed to make justice a reality.

While Dr. King is rightly remembered from his aspirational rhetoric and continued faith in possibility and probability of equal justice for all, there should be no doubt that during his entire public career he was a fierce critic of American racism, American cruelty and American injustice. And there should be no doubt that his every critique criticism shortened his life.

The only reason that Dr. King is celebrated is that the sanitized version of a saintly, nonviolent Black man who advocated patient and peaceful protest. The real Dr. King, the man who challenged racism and racists at every turn, the real Dr. King who was fearless and clear that the malignant America must change and the real Dr. King saw nonviolence as a tactic and not a reflection of a passive spirit.

There should be no wonder that racists like Trump would still fear and hate Dr. King over a half century after his assassination. And it should be no wonder that the children and grandchildren of the men and women who hated Dr. King when he lived would now support a president who still hates Dr. King.

Of course, for Dr. King, who is a place where Trump will never be, knowing that Trump still hates him would verify that he was the one doing the right thing.

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Point of View Columns

The Day That Donald Trump Declared War on America

As the new year began there was the faint flicker of hope that 2021 would be a better year because at least it would not be 2020. But the fact that Trump was still president meant that his capacity for creating chaos would remain.

There are a number of dates in American history that are remembered with dismay and pain.

  • April 15, 1865 – the day that Abraham Lincoln was assassinated. The first time that an American president had ever been killed while in office.
  • December 7, 1941 – the day that the Empire of Japan attacked the United States without a prior declaration of war. Thousands of Americans died in the attack and America entered World War II.
  • November 22, 1963 – the day that John F. Kennedy was assassinated, the first time that an American president had been assassinated since 1901.
  • April 4, 1968 – the day that Dr. Martin Luther King was assassinated.
  • September 11, 2001 – the day of the 9/11 terrorist attacks that resulted in the death of over 3,000 Americans
  • January 6, 2021 – the day that Donald Trump declared war on America

That last bullet might sound extreme except that it is true. If any foreign power or individual invited a huge mob of disaffected, well-armed true believers to come to Washington and then incited and invited that mob to attack the United States Capitol it would be considered an act of war. An individual would be charged with capital crimes including sedition, inciting to riot and treason.

Trump took these actions with the clear goal of derailing the certification of the presidential election results so that he, Trump, could remain in power. This is a clear and present case of treason and sedition. These are certainly impeachable offenses with which no American president has ever been charged. But if there were ever a time, now is the time.

An historical note – Andrew Jackson was arguably the most disruptive president in American history pre-Trump. Upon his inauguration he invited hundreds of his drunken supporters into the White House who virtually trashed the place as they celebrated. Very bad taste indeed – but not treasonous.

Now Trump comes along – with a portrait of Andrew Jackson in his office – and directs his supporters to attack the Capitol and the members of Congress to keep himself in office. And they actually go ahead and do it – Trump calls them patriots and beautiful people and as of this writing remains absolutely remorseless. And lack of remorse is just one more indication of how damaged a human being Trump is.

It should also be noted that the Trump mob was virtually all white. This all white mob virtually waltzed passed the Capitol police who were happy to take selfies with these invading rioters. The all white mob terrorized the members of Congress who were forced to cower and hide. The all white mob destroyed property, defaced the Capitol and generally acted like the deranged fools that they clearly are.

And their grievances are hard to discern at first? There were no poor people in the crowd. Most were reasonably well dressed and it is doubtful that there were many homeless or jobless white men and women in the mob. Their grievance was that their sense of White Privilege was being eroded by the progress of Black people, LatinX people, Muslims, LGBTQ communities and any “other” group that offended them.

And then, the DC polic4e allowed this mob to exit with few arrests failing only to give them souvenir gifts commemorating their visit to the nation’s Capitol. Four mobsters died under circumstances that are not yet clear. But there was no wholesale violence or brutality suffered by this all white mob.

Now change the narrative of the past two paragraphs from all white to all Black and think about how different the outcome would have been. After all, peaceful Black Lives Matter protestors have been shot, killed, maimed and arrested en masse without attacking any governmental buildings or committing acts that could be called treasonous or seditious in any way.

Think what the body count would be if thousands of Black Lives Matter protestors had invaded the Capitol and harassed and threatened the members of Congress while trashing and defacing the building in the process. The body count would not be complete as of the writing of this column.

Two things are clear from yesterday’s staged debacle. First, White Privilege is real. The overwhelmingly white men and women who made up the mob felt that they had a right to act in an illegal and violent fashion because they didn’t like the election results. Such is the perspective from the ivory tower of White Privilege. Such behavior would have been suicidal for Black Americans.

Second, Donald J. Trump did indeed promote a civil insurrection against the United States government and should be held accountable. There may be only thirteen days left in his Reign of Terror but his actions on January 6, 2021 should not be without consequence.

He was already going to be ranked as the worst president in the history of the United States. He should now be the first president ever convicted of treason.

After all, Trump did declare war on the America.

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