Category: Politics

The Low Road

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The Low Road

The Low Road

Editor: A poem for our time. ‘The Low Road’ by Marge Piercy illustrates the necessity for each individual to take a stand against injustice. This post was suggested by Karen Tate, author and podcaster. Get inspired, we need all the soldiers in this war that we can recruit. Remember the June 17, 2025 rally and come out and give the Trump administration the big middle finger to their dangerous and undemocratic policies.

‘The Low Road’

by Marge Piercy

What can they do
to you? Whatever they want.
They can set you up, they can
bust you, they can break
your fingers, they can
burn your brain with electricity,
blur you with drugs till you
can’t walk, can’t remember, they can
take your child, wall up
your lover. They can do anything
you can’t stop them
from doing. How can you stop
them? Alone, you can fight,
you can refuse, you can
take what revenge you can
but they roll over you.

But two people fighting
back to back can cut through
a mob, a snake-dancing file
can break a cordon, an army
can meet an army.

Two people can keep each other
sane, can give support, conviction,
love, massage, hope, sex.
Three people are a delegation,
a committee, a wedge. With four
you can play bridge and start
an organization. With six
you can rent a whole house,
eat pie for dinner with no
seconds, and hold a fund raising party.
A dozen make a demonstration.
A hundred fill a hall.
A thousand have solidarity and your own newsletter;
ten thousand, power and your own paper;
a hundred thousand, your own media;
ten million, your own country.

It goes on one at a time,
it starts when you care
to act, it starts when you do
it again and they said no,
it starts when you say We
and know who you mean,
and each day you mean one more.

 

Most Dangerous Group in Human History

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OPINION:

The Most Dangerous Group in Human History

OPINION:

The Most Dangerous Group in Human History

By Karen Tate

Not Since Eisenhower Has There Been an Ethical Republican President

I’ve often written in my published books and essays that knowledge is power.  Of course, I didn’t know that growing up in the South where our public school books barely scratched the surface on the evils of the Civil War, patriarchy, sexism, racism, or social justice.  Neither were we encouraged to be good citizens with a firm handle on civics and how the government worked.  Men and religious institutions were in charge and vital subjects like sex, power, religion and money were not talked about.  Taking a back seat and having babies was a woman’s role in life.  I had to move to California to begin to get an education and discover how stunted so many of our educations actually are depending on where we grow up and what our socio-economic  background might be.  Then I had to care enough to educate myself and leave my racist culture behind and become a feminist, or I think the more accurate word today is a womanist.

I’m reminded of all that in these last few years as I rub shoulders with those who would rather not know anything, critically think or choose instead to be apolitical and take a back seat and let someone else do their thinking for them.  I have to remember we don’t know what we don’t know.  Had I not left the South I doubt I’d ever have discovered the eminent scholar Noam Chomsky nor would I have taken the rare opportunity to interview him on my podcast.  I wouldn’t have known he considered the Republican Party the most dangerous organization in human history and though he was primarily talking about climate change at the time, he also said, “Has there ever been an organization in human history that is dedicated, with such commitment, to the destruction of organized human life on Earth?” And he had not yet experienced Donald Trump’s presidency, nor was Project 2025 fully fleshed out as we understand it today.

I believe Prof. Chomsky assessed the GOP as he does for more than their position on climate change by reminding readers we have not had a lawful and ethical Republican president since Dwight D. Eisenhower.  Knowledge is power and it’s important to be armed with truthful information.  How many of us don’t know or were never taught the following facts about past Republican presidents and their administrations?   As my historical account below will attest, Republican Presidents have been guilty of war crimes, election interference, committing treason, sometimes  by conspiring with foreign governments, and much more, to acquire or hold power  for decades since Eisenhower.  Yes, there have been Republican traitors in the White House before Donald Trump even if you didn’t learn about it in school, discover it buried in the news or followed the headlines.

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Progress Report: The Women’s Collective

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Progress Report:

“Give Me Your Tired, Your Poor, Your Huddled Masses Yearning To Breathe Free…”

 

Lady Liberty and the 2025 Fourth of July

By Vajra Ma

July 4, 2025, for me was a day of both mourning and celebration. I mourn the accelerating firestorm of Project 2025 (do your research). I celebrate that I spent the day with people who share my view, but also with some who support the acceleration (although I tend to think if they recognized the earmarks of the authoritarian playbook, they wouldn’t). Why do I celebrate that? Because the hope of this nation, indeed the world, is that we came together as human beings across the divide that would conquer us. We shared company, conversation, food, music and laughter across the divide. WE celebrated our common humanity.

But what about the rest of humanity…?

To that end I share this uniting view in “The Women’s Collective”, a pamphlet written in 2017 by my late husband Wolfgang Nebmaier. [excerpt from “The Women’s Collective” by Wolfgang Nebmaier with Vajra Ma, © Shakti Moon Publishing, 2017]

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OPINION: Little Pink Houses

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OPINION: Little Pink Houses

 

OPINION: Little Pink Houses

Editor: Millions of people attended No King protests nationwide, and some experts believe that it may have been the largest single-day protest in U.S. history. Reports indicate that more than 5 million people attended the anti-Trump demonstrations in 2100 towns and cities nationwide.

By John Curran

In our little Mayberry sort of town we have protests too-against this idiot and all his corruption. And an outsider might be surprised because Josephine County, Oregon as well as adjacent counties in this part of the state are, and have been been for years very strongly Republican. The majority vote in the 2024 presidential election was a Trump landslide. At the time of the actual election and preceding it, you would see a lot of pro-Trump signs and endorsements in all its various, and at least here, peaceful forms. The killings ain’t got here, yet. But it is getting a little more tense.

We had our fourth major protest on Saturday; the day when the nation as a whole was saying,  Everywhere is protest. Everywhere is outrage. Everywhere the same desire, get the cancer out before it just destroys everything. And of course, easier said than done.

By legal, institutional means, the political system has been manipulated to enable this huge dysfunction to have achieved the position where it can begin to consume the host and that’s pretty galling if ya ask me. The fact that this monster has been created from within; is us, or at least a good portion of us, the worst of us, sickens me. The resulting power mad soulless Babylon becomes unsustainable for the majority where the ‘survival of the fittest’ mentality just leaves the sick, the disabled, and the less than perfect to die. And with that, it’s obvious they don’t care.

So, ok, and with that, our little town on Saturday June 14th, 2025, had its fourth big protest. What was so cool was that it was bigger, louder, and even more jubilant than ever; like minded people coming together, working for a common cause. A friendly smile, a big hug, we are all getting to know each other just a little bit through these protests. In a way, these protests are more like mass unstructured community outings, mostly people of like feelings, but also, just anybody who knows how to act somewhat normal is welcome. So far so good.

And of course it wouldn’t be a proper protest without a few anti-protesters, to keep it interesting. Before a few was all it had been but this time, it was more like Custer’s last stand with Custer telling the dozen or so assembled, “Get out there boys. Damn they’re back again talking all that stuff about rights, and No Kings and all the while criticizing our fearless and duly elected leader. So get your big trucks and your big boots and let’s make some noise.”

“But sir ….theys so few of us it seems, and theys so many of them.”

And damned if he didn’t hear that and think an actual thought….”Yeah, right, I hadn’t thought of that.”

Despite being outnumbered a few of them actually began walking amongst the crowd, but most were content to just drive by in their pickup trucks and blow black smoke and yell, “Fuck you” a lot. The ones walking through the crowd had put themselves out there,  however,  they mostly walked around smirking and saying cruel and demeaning things to people in wheelchairs, slow elderly people with their walkers, or just anybody, who wanted to question their motives. Motherfucker.

But they don’t really deserve any credit for mingling with the crowd. They weren’t really brave as they wanted us to think; ’cause they could pretty well figure that, even though greatly outnumbered they were not gonna be actually threatened or hurt in any way. They would have to be the ones to start it, cause that’s not who we are. Neither are we poor and pathetic, we’re more like powerful now, and getting more powerful everyday. Do you have to wonder why?

 

Street View, NO Kings Protest

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Street View, NO Kings Protest

Street View, NO Kings Protest

By David L. Shadrick

Darlene, John, Vajra, and I arrived at the NO Kings protest at 9:55 for the 10 o’clock start. There was already a huge crowd of loud and noisy citizens. John was pushing my wheelchair, while Darlene, Vajra, and I, carried our signs, musical instruments and water.

The Josephine County Courthouse, just happens to be directly across 6th Street from the Republican Party headquarters. During the three previous protests, the Trumpers could only marshal 3 or 4 pro Trumpers to yell insults in our direction. Today, however, the Trump supporters, numbered as many as a dozen, carrying American flags and Trump Won Signs.

There wasn’t an inch of sidewalk space to be had on either side of the street due to NO Kings protesters crowding even the area in front of the Republican Headquarters. As we thought through  our options Darlene noticed a shady spot with an unoccupied bench a block down 6th Street on the Republican side of the street, not exactly in the middle of the action but the location made us a visible commodity, quite visible in fact.

I grabbed my trusty 8647 sign, my goat horn, and then rolled out onto the sidewalk where my sign could be easily seen by the slow moving and horn honking traffic. I could hear John and Vajra drumming while  Darlene rang her cow bell. We were basically a block down the street from the biggest part of the crowd when a dour looking Trumper made his way through the densest part of the crowd, heading in my direction. When he got close he said with a sneer, “Your sign is disgusting.”

I replied, “What’s disgusting are cuts to Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, and Veteran’s benefits.”

After several minutes of harassing a disabled veteran  in a wheelchair he bent down close to my face and repeated, “your sign is still disgusting,” before retreating south toward the Wunder Bar.

The next Trumpers came in a gang of three, walking through the same crowd of protesters, without saying a word, making a bee line straight for me, apparently my 8647 sign really ticked them off. The first man, suggested quite irritably, that I “should go back to (my) pathetic life.” Before I could answer, I was interrupted by the second Trumper in the group, who was seemingly a decent person. He asked me why I was protesting and I told him that the cuts to all the safety net programs were going to force me to sleep in the street or on his couch. “Ok, well, I can understand that might be a problem,” he said, before he walked on. The third person in the group was a nicely dressed woman who suggested she liked “ice in (her) soda,” to Darlene who was waving a sign that said, “I.C.E. is best C-R-U-S-H-E-D.  After their interaction with us, the three simply got in a car and drove away.

While I was eagerly blowing my goat horn, another Trumper ran up in front of me and whipped out a megaphone from behind his back, and began chanting, “GO TRUMP, GO TRUMP, GO TRUMP” to which I yelled, “and you go with him.” From behind me I heard a chorus of voices, led by Darlene, chanting, “8647, 8647, 8647.” The volume of the chant grew and the increasing furor sent the megaphone master retreating back to the safety of the six remaining Trumpers securing the Republican headquarters.

An old white guy, in a battered pickup slowed down to yell “fuck you,” as he passed.

“Is that the only word you know?” I demanded at the top of my lungs.

He again repeated the “fuck you” insult.

And I repeated, “is that the only word you know?”

The third time he said, “fuck you,” I again repeated my question, “is that the only word you know?”

The frustrated old fart, gunned his truck engine, and headed down the street, after tossing, “asshole,” in my direction; at last proving, even Trumpers know more than two words.

Another Trump friendly driver, waved his two middle fingers in my direction before causing his rig to belch a huge cloud of black diesel smoke, leading protestors close by to cough, sputter, and spit. I ignored him.

The middle finger salutes, the cursing, the belching trucks, the negativity, the insults, all came from the MAGA crowd. Not one person on the No Kings protestors side was rude or insulting to anyone, certainly not to the first wheelchair bound person they could find.

 

Silly Games

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Silly Games

 

Silly Games

 

D. S. Mitchell

No, Not Today

It’s another cloudy day in Grants Pass, Oregon. The morning news sounds just like last night’s news. Does this mean we are entering an overly long season of re-runs coming out of the Trump White House? It looks like the Orange One has given me enough time to play a game; maybe more than one. If you’re thinking the woman is sounding a bit crazy, you could be right. I need a break from the freaking asshole taking up space in the people’s house. I’m not in the mood to be serious today. I was going to write an in-depth, thought-provoking, political post on Trump’s “emotional” response to the actions of his buddy, Vladimir Putin., instead, I am going to play a game my mother taught me close to 60 years ago.

Rules Of The Game

Here are the rules of today’s game. I will open a dictionary at some random place and I will, from the two open pages, keeping the words in sequential order, write a story. Today’s story will center on a well-known politician and his daughter.  I challenge you to do it. It is harder than it sounds.

So, here we go. The dictionary I will be using is the one I keep on the shelf next to my desk in my alcove office. Everyday America English Dictionary, Edited by Ricard A. Spears, et al.  NTC (National Textbook Company) 1987.  Pages 130-131.

Daddy Thinks he Knows Best

Donald Trump dropped his  fountain pen on the desk, and asked, “What’s for dinner tonight?”

“Some form of fowl that Donald Jr, bagged when he was on safari in Texas,” Ivanka snickered.

“You are a fox,” Big Daddy Trump gushed, leering suggestively.

“Stop it, Daddy.”

“Do you know what fraction of the federal budget is being spent on Jr.’s security detail?  Some woman reporter asked me today, and I had no idea.  Do you know?”

“Oh, Daddy, don’t worry about such stuff.  Just say that information is TOP SECRET,  and if that ‘fake news’ lady asks again, you just tell her it’s, classified.”

“Of course, of course. You’re right, sweetie.  I have more power in my Truth Social finger than ANYONE else in the world!  Especially some ‘fake news’ reporter.”

“We should have that finger insured.  What if there’s a fracture?  It would be a disaster,” she said, bobbing her head up and down in self confirmation.

“Careful, Daddy, that bowl is very old and very fragile.  Michelle Obama called it historic. She said something about Dolly Madison.”

“Historic?” Trump repeated, simultaneously tossing the object skyward and catching it with his left hand.

“Daddy, please, stop juggling it. Stop it.”

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Trump Puts Kibosh to Needed Projects

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Trump Puts Kibosh to Needed Projects  

Trump Puts Kibosh to Needed Projects   

Editor: James Carville, Democratic strategist, claims “all politics are local.” Grants Pass, Oregon has a population of approximately 36,456 people. Many are retired living on fixed incomes. Well, I live in Grants Pass, Oregon and here’s what’s happening here, in deep red MAGA country.

 

By D.S. Mitchell

Chainsaw Politics

Elon Musk’s chainsaw approach to government has squashed 100’s of needed projects across the country. The DOGE search for fraud and abuse must have gotten misdirected, because there is nothing phony or fraudulent about the need for a new water sanitation plant in Grants Pass, Oregon.

Gut Punch

To put it in perspective; Grants Pass has not voted for a Democratic presidential candidate in over 100 years. Southern Oregon is as Red as it gets. Yet, the Orange One has just given the people of Grants Pass,  his most vocal supporters,  a punch to the gut.  The loss of this funding along with the funding loss for a significant project in neighboring Jackson county has slammed these two local communities. The two defunded projects would have brought over $85,000,000 to the area.

Old Stuff, Getting Older

The City of Grants Pass, Oregon has been using water from the Rogue River since 1888. In 1931 the city purchased the water system with its water treatment plant from Grants Pass Water, Light, and Power Co. Over the years,  as the city’s population has grown many upgrades had to be made, starting in the 1950’s all the way through the 1980’s.

Biden Said, “It’s a Go” 

After all these years of periodic updates the current plant has been determined to be earthquake and flood vulnerable and plans for a new relocated plant have been the works for the last 20 years. It’s not just the plant’s dangerous location but the plant is cobbled together with parts from various decades and has become increasingly hard to maintain. With a projected cost of $127,000,000 to replace the precarious and fragile water sanitation system the city went looking for financial help in the amount of $50 million dollars from the federal government. The Biden administration, in the summer of 2023, promised a $50,000,000 FEMA Grant to rebuild the system at a new site. Yippee-Ki-Yay.
Thumbs Down
Hold on. There’s no more Yippee-Ki-Yay. The Bloated One had been in office less than a 100 days when his administration announced that they were canceling the already promised funds. From the sound of things, it sounds like we’ll have to wait for a Democrat to get elected president before such a frivolous project will be funded.
Flood the Streets
Don’t sit on the side lines. Join the New Resistance. Protest and keep protesting. Turn out; flood the streets; let them know we won’t stand for cuts to vital services. There are more of us than them. Grants Pass, like many communities around the good ol USA is finding out that military parades for a wanna be dictator and tax cuts for the oligarchs is more important than funding real projects that help real people.

Part 3-Trump Racism is Bad for America

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Part 3-Trump Racism is Bad for America

Part 3-Trump Racism is Bad for America

 

By T.K. McNeil 

I ended Part 2 of Trump Racism Is Bad For America worried that immigrants were being transferred from the United States to foreign prisons without due process. I worried aloud about death squads, concentration camps, and gas ovens. Trump racism is obvious for anyone with eyes, ears, or an X account. We are rocked out of our beds daily by angry and racially inflammatory 2 a.m. Tweets. Trump uses a practiced, coded language of dog whistles and red meat taunts that he pitches regularly to his MAGA hatted support base. The intent, an obviously planned effort to keep them frothing at the mouth, agitated, and ready for action.

Protests and resistance.  I can hear the audible gasps and protests. I say, better to think it a possibility than to refuse to face the possibility. Trump’s racism has already led to the separation of children from their parents at the Mexican border. He is now sending immigrants to foreign prisons without due process. He has stated flatly soldiers will have his permission to shoot asylum seekers that might potentially hurl rocks at the soldiers. I’m just going to let that percolate amidst your neuron receptors for a couple of minutes.

History must be studied.  There is this tendency to fall in love with the past and wish for life as it once was. For those of you who are not old enough to have reached that stage of your life let me assure you, beware, nostalgia is a load of crap. If in 40 years time there are Americans wishing for the good old days when Donald Trump was in power, let me warn you, you are in a world of trouble. Chances are, there will no longer be a United States if people are longing for a president who resembles Fat Bastard more than he does the leader of the free world.

The emergence of Barack Obama:  When Barack Obama came into office there was a hope from many sides, particularly moderates that there would finally be that emergence of a color blind America. Unfortunately there was an angry element of the population that was not ready or willing to accept such an outrage. My God in Heaven, there is a black family living in the ‘nation’s house.’ “We” must “do something.” A backlash of white vs all those “uppity” POC quickly coalesced on the alt-right. It quickly became their central purpose to undermine and dismember a hoped for mending of our national division.

Dehumanizing the target is goal one. “Birtherism” bubbled up through the conspiracy theorists. The theory postulated that 50 or so years ago, an all-knowing “group” of Democrats probably funded by George Soros met to bestow false citizenship on a mixed race kid in Kenya who would eventually be smuggled into Hawaii and who would go on to become president of the United States.  Such crazy over the top nonsense was fully embraced and pushed with ceaseless passion for more than 8 years by Donald J. Trump. The endless campaign driven by Trump and other alt-righters had the desired results of casting doubt on President Obama’s legitimacy to rule the country. Effectively undermining our first black president was accomplished. Sadly, a repeated lie often becomes a malignancy on the perceived character of the target.

Other factors.  Despite the constant attack from the right Barack Obama left office as one of the most popular presidents in American history. A fact that enrages Donald Trump. The fact that the first black man elected president of the United States was to be followed in succession by the most openly racist president in American history is sad and deeply troubling.

Plenty of blame.  The 2016 election became a disaster of Godzilla proportions. It would have taken a series of monumental political catastrophes to elect Trump. Unfortunately for the United States that’s exactly what happened. Russian interference, Wikileaks email drops, walking pneumonia, Weiner porn texts, a rogue FBI Director, the first woman candidate of a major American political party, a reality TV has-been all converged together to make the 2016 campaign and election results both  extraordinary and  unprecedented.

Political infighting.  In the final analysis, I blame the Democrats for Trump’s two election victories. The DNC decided to rig their primary process long before the Russians or Comey got involved. The party bypassed a forward thinking man like Bernie Sanders who connected with the future voters of America for a political wife, turned candidate who the GOP had convinced half the country she was the devil incarnate. Bill and Hillary called in a lot of IOU’s to make this outrage happen. HRC was a flawed candidate from the start. As a result of the DNC betrayal, we as a nation have been burdened with Agent Orange and his team of rich and corrupt bullies. The 2016 election of Trump led to a rapidly accelerating  radicalization of American politics. Trump’s 2024 win was in many ways a repeat of the DNC betrayal of the primary process. This time, the anointing of Kamala Harris, by Joe Biden. This kind of crap needs to stop. Let the process run its course. Maybe he or she will lose, but at least that person was the choice of the majority of Democrats.

Moving where? Today, May of 2025, we are moving backwards at a neck breaking speed; on more levels than there is room to cover in this space. In 2016, Trump was on a steroid driven attack on the legacy of his predecessor. I see this as vindictive but also as racially motivated. As Trump has gone to great lengths to undo the forward progressive thinking of the Obama administration what has been the positive result?  In all areas of policy from abortion, to gay rights, to environmental protections, to civil rights protections are being rolled back. Do you think the LGBTQ community embraces Trump? Women? Minorities? The poor? The sick? The Non-Evangelicals? I don’t think I need to give the answer, because it is an obvious and resounding, no.

Lots of show and theatrical ballyhoo. Despite what he wants us to believe, Donald Trump connects with about 35% of our populace. Yet, because of many voters disillusioned by the rhetoric and high prices decided to stay home and not participate in 2024. And because enough Americans had been convinced the caravans of immigrants would soon overwhelm our southern border Trump won again. And because we were not careful, we are once again suffering under his rule. Using the power of the Executive Order Trump is with each day sweeping away protections for more and more citizens, while attempting to erase DEI and other beneficial programs.

Executive Orders. Trump & choir are ramping up the rhetoric to eliminate the 14th Amendment. He claims he can Executive Order it right out of existence. The question then becomes, if the Supreme Court supports his power to eliminate amendments does that mean he can begin writing new constitutional amendments? Sounds crazy but that’s how dictatorships are born. It’s time to wake up America you are watching the actions of a classic racist demagogue.

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Part 2-Trump Racism is Bad for America

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Part 2-Trump Racism is Bad for America

Part 2-Trump Racism is Bad for America

 

By T.K. McNeil

Trump Racism is Bad for America. I ended Part I of Trump Racism Is Bad For America by wondering aloud if we were about to return to the dark days of death squads, concentration camps, and gas ovens. Trump racism is obvious for anyone with eyes, ears, or an X account. We are rocked out of our beds daily by angry and racially inflammatory 2 a.m. Tweets. Trump uses a practiced, coded language of dog whistles and red meat taunts that he pitches regularity to his MAGA hatted support base. The intent, an obviously planned effort to keep them agitated and ready for action. If nothing else, Trump’s base seems willfully ignorant and obsessed by fear. If Trump senses any ebbing in support he orders an extra rally, or maybe two; re-news attacks on the press; berates everyone from Rachel Maddow to Zelinskyy; but most notably, he intensifies attacks against immigrants, NFL players, entertainers like Taylor Swift and Bruce Springsteen, threatening “major investigations.” That’s how Trump works.

Trump racism dressed as law and order. Have people forgotten Trump opened his 2016 campaign with an unprecedented tirade against Mexican “criminal, drug mules and rapists?” Trump has revived nativist themes that have not been heard aloud since George H.W. Bush. In 1988 HW supporters used the image of a black killer/rapist Willie Horton to effectively sabotage his opponent Michael Dukakis. Until now, that ad campaign was considered a true low point in political racist tactics.

Jump to today. In a similar tact Trump is replacing the face of black man Willie Horton with the brown face of an illegal immigrant, and convicted cop killer, Luis Bracamontes. Hammering the anti-immigrant theme Trump claims that Democrats will open the country to criminals. Trump’s vitriol is toxic, but Trump is convinced that it was just such rhetoric that secured him the presidency the first time. Instinctively, he keeps pushing the limits of what passes for barely acceptable political discourse toward an ever-darkening place.

More evidence of Trump racism keeps emerging.  Michael Cohen, Trump’s former personal attorney for over a decade and a convict for three years, opens up about Trump racism. On Friday 11-2-2018 Vanity Fair published a damning portrait of the president. According to Cohen, Trump made frequent racist comments, most particularly against blacks. Cohen claimed that Trump frequently used the N word and other demeaning statements made about black people, their intellect, their abilities, their communities and even their countries. Cohen confirmed to Vanity Fair writer Emily Jane Fox that language reported by Omarosa Manigault Newman in her book, “Unhinged An Insider’s Account of the Trump White House” was typically Trump. So, Trump doesn’t limit his hate; he hates everybody that isn’t orange.

Keeping the fire hot.  Trump has never stopped his campaigning. He has never become president of all the people. He is president of a core base and his goal is to keep them frightened and angry. He wants them fired up ready to attack whenever and wherever he points his accusatory finger. Trump racism is emerging more clearly as time progresses. Trump’s inflammatory language, reckless “otherism” and dehumanizing xenophobic attacks are clearly designed to divide the country.

Fear and Loathing is part of the performance.  It’s no surprise that we as a country have a scrubbed and shiny public face and a secret horrific Dorian Grey face.  That hidden-self, locked in the basement of our national identity is trying to come out of its imprisonment. All the while Trump, our Mad Hatter conductor, has had us on a head spinning ride of public debauchery, corruption and criminality. Trump careens from truth to delusion, to conspiracy theory, and back to racism all in blink of an eye.

Social Fears Are At The Root Of Trump’s Methodology.  That said, we all know that there is a portion of the American psyche that hates and fears immigration, that hates and fears the blacks, that hates and fears Jews, that hates and fears POC, that hates and fears the changing demographics of America, that hates and fears tomorrow, that hates and fears the unknown. Those societal fears are what Trump racism feeds on.

The foes of inclusiveness. The ability to whip the mentally susceptible and the White Supremacist extremist fringe into a frenzy of violence is easy to imagine. The increased racial and ethnic violence will become a growing problem as he continues to demonize the “others” in our society. This man has the biggest bully pulpit in the country and he is using it to inflame the worst elements of our society. He is using his position to promote fear and racial tensions as he divides the country with his Trump racist white supremacist agenda.

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Cynicism and Corruption in Politics

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Cynicism and Corruption in Politics

 

Cynicism and Corruption in Politics

by Vajra Ma ©

I’ve been dialoguing with Trump supporters recently trying to understand their perspective. One individual made a statement that stopped me in my tracks. He said, quite firmly, “All politicians are corrupt. You have to be corrupt to be a politician. There’s nothing I can do about that. I like Trump because he’s a businessman, not a politician.” [author’s emphasis] I’ve understood all along MAGAs see governmental corruption and want it stopped. I too, see corruption and want it stopped. So, what is the difference between the MAGAs and me?

A fantasy monologue to my friend led me down a line of thought into a surprising answer.

The man I studied acting with for seventeen years, Tad Danielewski, said two things I’ll never forget. The first: “Despair is not an option.” This, coming from a man who experienced the worst of humanity. During WWII he fought in the Polish underground, was captured by the Nazis and thrown into one of their death camps. Eventually, at 95 pounds, he was lifted by a British soldier into a rescue truck.

Tad studied at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts, moved to the U.S., won an Emmy for directing the documentary Africa and became head of talent at NBC in New York where he trained such notable actors as Martin Sheen, Sigourney Weaver, James Earl Jones, Cicely Tyson and Mercedes Ruehl.

Why do I tell you all this? Because in 1976, after all this survival and accomplishment, he accepted an invitation from Brigham Young University to head the Department of Theatre and Film (where I met him). Why did he accept this position in deep Mormon country? This is the second thing I’ll never forget, his answer: “Because I was on the edge of becoming cynical.” [end of fantasy]

What does this tell me about cynicism? Tad was drawn to the Mormons because they are not cynical. I myself was a sincere Mormon convert in my twenties. With hindsight, I see a deep rot and corruption in that church, yet at the same time—and here is my point—at the same time, I see good, sincere people aiming to do the right thing. Life is not black and white. It is a mixed bag. To fail to see this is to fail to see reality.

My friend views politics through the lens of cynicism: “The belief that people are only interested in themselves and are not sincere.” (Cambridge Dictionary online) He views all politicians with “an attitude of scornful or jaded negativity, especially a general distrust of the integrity or the professed motives of others.” (The Free Dictionary online) As if a “businessman” in the White House could or would not be corrupt.

I see the corruption in politicians, but I see it in varying degrees which are not always discernable as to how much and what over. In this mixed bag I also see the sincerity of a number of politicians aiming to serve The People’s “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” But my friend, blinded by cynicism, sees only the corruption. One broad brushstroke for all. Cynicism blocks discernment of the mixed bag reality. If we fail to see reality, we are part of the problem we point at. In other words, we are part of the corruption.

Cynicism itself is corruption.

Cynicism is a simplistic, perhaps lazy, escape from responsibility—the ability to respond—to corruption. “There’s nothing I can do about that.” If we refuse to deal with the complexities of that troublesome mixed bag, cynicism will use a chainsaw instead of the scalpel that discernment requires.

Dictators criticize democracy as cumbersome and slow-moving. Elon’s gleeful chainsaw jig on the CPAC (Conservative Political Action Conference) stage gave us a visible performance of the cynicism that “justifies” slashing the livelihood and family stability of workers in the cumbersome  “deep state”. Russell Vought, main architect of Project 2025 and Donald’s current Director of the Office of Management and Budget, said in a leaked video over a year ago: “We will traumatize the federal workers.” This pre-meditated plot to execute trauma on human beings is the corruption of cynicism in full force.

Underpinning cynicism is the terror of being duped, of being “taken in,” of being “fooled” by a goodness the cynic very much fears is not actually there for him. And in caving to that fear, in an attempt to never be “taken in,” the cynic unwittingly opens the door to the very decline into corruption he criticizes.

The Authoritarian trades in black and white. “They are black, I am white. I can fixt it. ”MAGAs seek safety from fear with black and white answers. A keep it simple, stupid, mentality.  “The politicians are corrupt. Businessman Donald is not.” So they elect the White One to Fix It. “He will drain the swamp!” And before you can say “a hundred days,” he’s stocked it with agency eating alligators.

 

Author’s note: Thanks to Ava Park of Irvine, CA for her input into this article.