DREAMING OF ARMAGEDDON, |
| This Land Is Your Land Words and Music by Woody Guthrie | This land Is My Land Words and Discord by Donny Trump |
| This land is your land, this land is my land From California to the New York island, From the redwood forest to the Gulf Stream waters; This land was made for you and me. | This land is not your land, this land is my land. From Venezuela to the Greenland island, From the Cuban cane fields to the Gulf America waters; This land was made not for you, but for me. |
| As I was walking that ribbon of highway I saw above me that endless skyway; I saw below me that golden valley; This land was made for you and me. | As I was walking that East Wing demolition, I saw above me that endless ballroom I saw below me that golden Oval Office, I'm remaking this house just for me. |
| I've roamed and rambled and I followed my footsteps To the sparkling sands of her diamond deserts; And all around me a voice was sounding; This land was made for you and me. | I’ve raved and rambled and I dispatched my jackboots to the snowy streets of Minneapolis; And all around Renee Good, gunshots were sounding; This land was made for me, not for her. |
| When the sun came shining, and I was strolling, And the wheat fields waving and the dust clouds rolling, As the fog was lifting a voice was chanting: This land was made for you and me. | When the sun came shining, and I was golfing, And the Canadian wheat fields were waving As Miller’s voice was chanting, Every land was made for the U.S.A. and me. |
| As I went walking I saw a sign there, And on the sign it said "No Trespassing." But on the other side it didn't say nothing. That side was made for you and me. | As I went walking I saw a sign there, And on the sign it said “No Trespassing.” But on the other side it said: “Trump excepted.” That side was made not for you, but for me. |
| In the shadow of the steeple I saw my people, By the relief office I seen my people; As they stood there hungry, I stood there asking Is this land made for you and me? | In the shadow of the steeple I saw my people, By the relief office I seen my people; As they stood there hungry, I stood there knowing This land was made just for me! |
| Nobody living can ever stop me, As I go walking that freedom highway; Nobody living can ever make me turn back This land was made for you and me. | Nobody living can ever stop me, As I go walking that autocratic highway; Nobody living can ever make me turn back, Until we all declare: “This land was made for you and me and not just one man.” |
PRESIDENT TRUMP IS A RACIST. THE REST OF US HAVE A CHOICE
PRESIDENT TRUMP Photo credit: Official portrait.
DONALD TRUMP IS A RACIST, which makes him the most dangerous president in our history.
It also is one of the most promising aspects of the Trump catastrophe, because it’s up to us, individually and as a nation, whether we will act out his bigotry.
Indeed, as a I look at the many terrible things Trump is doing to our country, racism is one of those instances where each one of us has personal control.
We can’t, as individuals, restart the USAID programs that were saving thousands of lives throughout the world before Trump killed them. We can’t stop our armed forces from murdering people in South American speed boats. We can’t stop Trump pulling the rug out from under Ukraine’s inspired resistance to Russia’s invasion. We can’t halt the roundup of immigrants on our streets and their detention at inhumane centers. We can’t end Robert Kennedy’s war on vaccines and science-based medicine. Can’t walk into a Harvard boardroom and make the people who run the world’s greatest university stand up to Trump’s bullying. We can’t restore the East Wing, take Trump’s name off the Kennedy Center. We can’t prevent the collapse of the world’s climate.
Yes, we can want justice in all of those areas and in scores of others that define Trump’s sociopath’s campaign to destroy America. We can vote, persuade, protest, crusade, donate and try as hard as we can collectively to preserve American democracy.
But racism and its antidote is personal, individual and doable.
AFTER ALL OF THESE YEARS, it’s hard, at least for me, to believe that Donald Trump is actually a bigot.
For so long, Trump was a clown, a citizen of the New York City tabloids. Just a cheat, a business failure, a liar, a TV personality, who seemed to have no important beliefs, and therefore need not be taken seriously.
His racism, however, periodically surfaces, bursting his comic mask, and it’s as if he might as well be dressed in Klan robes and hood, on his way to a cross burning or a lynching.
Still, it’s always starling.
After all, he is the president, and presidents are supposed to be better than the rest of us. It may be an American myth, but many of presidents have had character, or at least acted if they had character.
But Trump is different.
Take what he did at the end of his Dec. 2 cabinet meeting, where he again revealed his deeply racist self. He embarked on a bigoted rant, almost incoherent, this one about Somalians, using Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota as his starting point.
It also is one of the most promising aspects of the Trump catastrophe, because it’s up to us, individually and as a nation, whether we will act out his bigotry.
Indeed, as a I look at the many terrible things Trump is doing to our country, racism is one of those instances where each one of us has personal control.
We can’t, as individuals, restart the USAID programs that were saving thousands of lives throughout the world before Trump killed them. We can’t stop our armed forces from murdering people in South American speed boats. We can’t stop Trump pulling the rug out from under Ukraine’s inspired resistance to Russia’s invasion. We can’t halt the roundup of immigrants on our streets and their detention at inhumane centers. We can’t end Robert Kennedy’s war on vaccines and science-based medicine. Can’t walk into a Harvard boardroom and make the people who run the world’s greatest university stand up to Trump’s bullying. We can’t restore the East Wing, take Trump’s name off the Kennedy Center. We can’t prevent the collapse of the world’s climate.
Yes, we can want justice in all of those areas and in scores of others that define Trump’s sociopath’s campaign to destroy America. We can vote, persuade, protest, crusade, donate and try as hard as we can collectively to preserve American democracy.
But racism and its antidote is personal, individual and doable.
AFTER ALL OF THESE YEARS, it’s hard, at least for me, to believe that Donald Trump is actually a bigot.
For so long, Trump was a clown, a citizen of the New York City tabloids. Just a cheat, a business failure, a liar, a TV personality, who seemed to have no important beliefs, and therefore need not be taken seriously.
His racism, however, periodically surfaces, bursting his comic mask, and it’s as if he might as well be dressed in Klan robes and hood, on his way to a cross burning or a lynching.
Still, it’s always starling.
After all, he is the president, and presidents are supposed to be better than the rest of us. It may be an American myth, but many of presidents have had character, or at least acted if they had character.
But Trump is different.
Take what he did at the end of his Dec. 2 cabinet meeting, where he again revealed his deeply racist self. He embarked on a bigoted rant, almost incoherent, this one about Somalians, using Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota as his starting point.
| I think that Walz is a grossly incompetent man. There's something wrong with him. Okay? There's something wrong with him. And when you look at what he's done with Somalia, with Somalia, which is barely a country, they have no anything. They just run around killing each other. There's no structure. And when I see somebody like Ilhan Omar, who I don't know at all, but I always watch her for years. I've watched her complain about our Constitution, how she's being treated badly. Our Constitution, the United States of America is a bad place. Hates everybody, hates Jewish people, hates everybody. And I think she's an incompetent person. She's a real terrible person. But when I watch what is happening in Minnesota, the land of a thousand lakes or however many lakes they have, they got a lot of lakes. But this beautiful place, and I see these people ripping it off. And now I'm understanding, and you're going to look into this… I hear they ripped off… Somalians ripped off that state for billions of dollars, billions. Every year, billions of dollars. And they contribute nothing. The welfare is like 88%. They contribute nothing. I don't want them in our country, I'll be honest with you. Okay? Somebody would say, "Oh, that's not politically correct." I don't care. I don't want them in our country. Their country is no good for a reason. Their country stinks and we don't want them in our country. I could say that about other countries, too. I can say it about other countries, too. We don't want them the hell. We have to rebuild our country. Our country's at a tipping point. We could go bad. We're at a tipping point. I don't know if people mind me saying that, but I'm saying it. We could go one way or the other. And we're going to go the wrong way if we keep taking in garbage into our country. Ilhan Omar is garbage. She's garbage. Her friends are garbage. These aren't people that work. These aren't people that say, "Let's go. Come on. Let's make this place great." These are people that do nothing but complain. They complain. And from where they came from, they got nothing. They came from paradise and they said, "This isn't paradise." But when they come from hell and they complain and do nothing but bitch, we don't want them in our country. Let them go back to where they came from and fix it. Thank you very much, everybody. Thank you, everyone. |
Omar, of course, is a congresswoman from Minnesota, who became a U.S. citizen 25 years ago after coming from Somalia as a refugee.
Trump's cabinet fusillade featured his loathsome vice president, JD Vance, banging his fist on the table in approval, according to the New York Times.
The Times, which is notoriously forgiving in it’s voluminous coverage of the president, in this instance called Trump’s tirade for what it was.
“Even for Mr. Trump — who has a long history of insulting Black people, particularly those from African countries — his outburst was shocking in its unapologetic bigotry,” the Times wrote.
Garbage.
Their country stinks.
Their country is no good for a reason.
There are other instances in which Trump’s racism has surfaced. Here are three:
The message is as old as it is insidious. White good; black bad. White better; black worse. White smart; black stupid.
TERRIBLE THINGS happen when bigotry is ascendant.
In America, slavery is the country’s original sin. The Founding Fathers were slaveholders. The early American economy depended on slavery, and it touched every area, North and South.
Slavery was at the heart of the Civil War, followed not by emancipation, but by legalized segregation in the South, an apartheid system to which the prejudiced North was indifferent, and lasted until the disruptions of World War II and the civil rights crusades of the 1960s.
Every time the country seems to move forward on racial equality, a backlash follows.
The election of Barack Obama, a man of color, seemed to have lifted the country to a new level of tolerance, but it was followed by the retreat to prejudice with the election of Donald Trump.
I believe the reason that bigotry is so resilient is that every one of us is born into prejudice. It is impossible to escape the suspicion, whether unconscious or overt, that people who are different from you and me are dangerous and threatening.
That ever-inherent bigotry is always available to leaders to attain and hold power, the most horrific example being the extermination of 6 million Jews by Hitler and his German contemporaries.
Trump’s war on immigration, demonizing “illegal” entrants to the U.S., is the latest opportunity to turn people against one another. In just a year’s time, we are witnessing a huge, rogue police force chasing down immigrants in the streets, in their homes and at their businesses, with administration plans for a national system of “warehouse” detention centers, holding 80,000 souls to be expelled from our country.
Is a re-segregation of America underway?
It’s possible, but not inevitable.
In 2026, will we stand passive or even join with a racist president as he denigrates Blacks and all people who seem different from us by a lot or a little, and as he, mocks the promise of the Declaration of Independence?
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.
As individuals, we may not be able to escape the prejudices of our history and culture and even our genes. But we don’t have to follow Donald Trump into his decent into the cesspool.
We can refuse to talk like racists, promote racism, tell racist jokes, laugh at racist jokes. We can stop pretending that we don’t see it, hear it, feel it. We don’t have to accept it, promote it, advance it.
We are in control.
* * *
Here are some of the sources used in this piece:
Trump's cabinet fusillade featured his loathsome vice president, JD Vance, banging his fist on the table in approval, according to the New York Times.
The Times, which is notoriously forgiving in it’s voluminous coverage of the president, in this instance called Trump’s tirade for what it was.
“Even for Mr. Trump — who has a long history of insulting Black people, particularly those from African countries — his outburst was shocking in its unapologetic bigotry,” the Times wrote.
Garbage.
Their country stinks.
Their country is no good for a reason.
There are other instances in which Trump’s racism has surfaced. Here are three:
- During his first term, in 2018, Trump wondered why the U.S. would allow people from “shithole” countries in Africa to immigrate. Instead, he suggested, the country should be encouraging people (white) from countries like Norway.
- Trump followed up with the whites-are-favored idea this year, as the administration revamped its refugee programs. He has given preference to white Afrikaners from South Africa, claiming they have been persecuted by majority Blacks. (The historical irony is breathtaking, considering how brutally Whites in apartheid South Africa oppressed Blacks).
- Earlier this month, the National Park Service eliminated two days in which entrance fees had been dropped at national parks: Martin Luther King Jr. day, the holiday honoring the Black civil rights icon, and Juneteenth, commemorating the end of slavery. But parks’ admission would be waived on a new date – June 14, Donald Trump’s birthday, which also is national Flag Day. (There are nine other free entrance days in 2026).
The message is as old as it is insidious. White good; black bad. White better; black worse. White smart; black stupid.
TERRIBLE THINGS happen when bigotry is ascendant.
In America, slavery is the country’s original sin. The Founding Fathers were slaveholders. The early American economy depended on slavery, and it touched every area, North and South.
Slavery was at the heart of the Civil War, followed not by emancipation, but by legalized segregation in the South, an apartheid system to which the prejudiced North was indifferent, and lasted until the disruptions of World War II and the civil rights crusades of the 1960s.
Every time the country seems to move forward on racial equality, a backlash follows.
The election of Barack Obama, a man of color, seemed to have lifted the country to a new level of tolerance, but it was followed by the retreat to prejudice with the election of Donald Trump.
I believe the reason that bigotry is so resilient is that every one of us is born into prejudice. It is impossible to escape the suspicion, whether unconscious or overt, that people who are different from you and me are dangerous and threatening.
That ever-inherent bigotry is always available to leaders to attain and hold power, the most horrific example being the extermination of 6 million Jews by Hitler and his German contemporaries.
Trump’s war on immigration, demonizing “illegal” entrants to the U.S., is the latest opportunity to turn people against one another. In just a year’s time, we are witnessing a huge, rogue police force chasing down immigrants in the streets, in their homes and at their businesses, with administration plans for a national system of “warehouse” detention centers, holding 80,000 souls to be expelled from our country.
Is a re-segregation of America underway?
It’s possible, but not inevitable.
In 2026, will we stand passive or even join with a racist president as he denigrates Blacks and all people who seem different from us by a lot or a little, and as he, mocks the promise of the Declaration of Independence?
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.
As individuals, we may not be able to escape the prejudices of our history and culture and even our genes. But we don’t have to follow Donald Trump into his decent into the cesspool.
We can refuse to talk like racists, promote racism, tell racist jokes, laugh at racist jokes. We can stop pretending that we don’t see it, hear it, feel it. We don’t have to accept it, promote it, advance it.
We are in control.
* * *
Here are some of the sources used in this piece:
- https://www.rev.com/transcripts/presidential-cabinet-meeting-12-02-25
- https://www.nytimes.com/2025/12/02/us/politics/trump-somalia.html
- https://apnews.com/article/immigration-north-america-donald-trump-ap-top-news-international-news-fdda2ff0b877416c8ae1c1a77a3cc425
- https://www.nytimes.com/2025/10/15/us/politics/trump-refugee-white-people.html
- https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2025/10/21/trump-refugees-afrikaners-south-africa/
- https://www.nytimes.com/2025/12/08/travel/trump-birthday-mlk-juneteenth-free-national-park.html
- https://www.nps.gov/planyourvisit/passes.htm#changes-in-2026
- https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2025/12/24/ice-immigrants-detention-warehouses-deportation-trump/
THERE ARE TWO VILLAINS IN THE D.C. SHOOTINGS:
THE GUNMAN, WHO PULLED THE TRIGGER; AND A PRESIDENT, WHO TURNED SOLDIERS INTO TARGETS
TRUMP, at a Mar-a-Lago press conference on Thanksgiving Day, at which he called a reporter a "stupid person" for questioning his version of the D.C. shootings. PHOTO CREDIT: Screenshot of PBS NewsHour video
DONALD TRUMP DID NOT KILL SARAH BECKSTROM, the West Virginia National Guard specialist who died on Thanksgiving Day.
Nor did Trump shoot Andrew Wolfe, the Air Force staff sergeant, who as of this writing, was in critical condition with his wounds.
The man who allegedly pulled the trigger on Nov. 26 was Rahmanullah Lakanwal, an Afghan refugee who helped the Central Intelligence Agency during the Afghanistan war,
But President Donald John Trump, the commander-in-chief, put Beckstrom and Wolfe in harm’s way when he brought 2,000 National Guard troops into Washington, D.C. last August.
What’s more, military commanders knew that Trump was placing the Guard’s men and women in peril.
The Guard, which was supposed to boost crime-fighting in the capitol, would be “a target of opportunity” for terrorists and others, the experts said
And it was no secret. Military officials had outlined their worries in memos that surfaced in a court case against the D.C. deployment of the Guard.
Trump, of course, is taking no responsibility for any of this.
Quite the opposite.
He’s exploiting the tragedy, spreading the blame to lots of other people, while stirring hatred and fear throughout the country.
There’s his favorite scapegoat, former President Joe Biden, whom he charges with allowing Lakanwal and other Afghans, who helped the U.S. war efforts, into the U.S.; there’s a reporter who questioned Trump’s version of events, calling her a “stupid person;” and there’s the thousands of immigrants Trump is branding as security threats to the U.S.
It gets more alarming and absurd.
Trump has ordered 500 more Guard troops into Washington, so now there will be even more "targets of opportunity."
And, according to the Washington Post, apparently the National Guard forces will be “paired” with Washington, D.C. law enforcement personnel – in other words, the local cops will be protecting the Guard, instead of the other way around.
LIKE LOTS OF OTHERS, I was expecting trouble when Trump sent the National Guard to Washington, Los Angeles and other cities. But I figured it would come from missteps by the Guard itself, along the lines of the long-ago Kent State University shootings.
That was in 1970, when four students were shot to death and nine others wounded as the Ohio National Guard turned its guns on innocent people during a Vietnam War protest.
But according to the New York Times and other news sources, the military this time was worried – correctly – that Trump’s deployments would make the Guard’s men and women targets.
Commanders warned that the soldiers were now in a “heightened threat environment.” The Times reported a memo that said that “nefarious threat actors engaging in grievance based violence and those inspired by foreign terrorist organizations” might see the National Guard as “a target of opportunity.”
The memo showed up in a lawsuit against the deployment by Brian Schwalb, the District of Columbia attorney general. The Times said that second memo warned that Guard’s presence “presents an opportunity for criminals, violent extremists, issue motivated groups and lone actors to advance their interests.”
We don’t know what category Lakanwal fits into, if, as seems likely, he turns out to be the shooter.
He is reported by the Times and others to have been part of a “Zero Unit” which worked with the CIA in Afghanistan, protecting American interests. Human rights groups say such units used extreme and illegal tactics, which the CIA has denied.
The units helped the U.S.’s chaotic withdrawal in 2001, and Lakanwal and thousands of others were brought to the U.S. during the Biden years, and he was granted asylum by the Trump administration in April. News reports say Lakanwal was vetted several times.
AT HIS MAR-A-LAGO ESTATE, Trump was at his most vicious and disingenuous on Thanksgiving Day as he met the media, including Nancy Cordes of CBS News, whose questions inflamed the president.
This transcript is from a video posted on YouTube by the PBS NewsHour:
REPORTER: A question about this tragic shooting in Washington, DC. U.S. officials say that the suspect worked very closely with the CIA in Afghanistan for years, that he was vetted and the vetting came up clean.
TRUMP: He went cuckoo; I mean he went nuts, and that happens, too. That happens too often with these people. You see them, but look, this is how they come in. This is how they're, they're standing on top of each other and that's an airplane. (Trump holds up a photo of the interior of an overcrowded airplane)
There was no vetting or anything. They came in unvetted, and we have a lot of others in this country. We're going to get them out. But they go cuckoo. Something happens to them.
REPORTER: Your DOJ (Department of Justice) IG (inspector general) just reported this year that there was thorough vetting by DHS (Department of Homeland Security) and by the FBI of these Afghans, who were brought into the U.S. So why do you think that the Biden administration (is to blame)?
TRUMP: Because they let him in. Are you stupid? Are you a stupid person? Because they came in to, on a plane, along with thousands of other people that shouldn't be here, and you're just asking questions because you're a stupid person.
And we, there's a law passed that it's almost impossible not to, to get them out. You can't get them out once they come in. And they came in, and they were unvetted, they were unchecked, there were many of them and they came on our big planes. And it was disgraceful. And if you look, you'll see there was a law passed that makes it almost impossible not to let them in, not to certify them, so to speak, once they come in. And they came in and they shouldn't have come in.
And frankly, the whole thing was a mess. The whole Afghanistan situation was a mess. We shouldn't, it should have never have taken place.
WHAT SHOULDN’T HAVE TAKEN PLACE was the shooting of the two members of the National Guard.
The soldiers shouldn’t have been in Washington at all.
The shootings were monstrous, and the gunman deserves the full punishment of the law.
But just as culpable is the president of the United States, who turned soldiers into targets and now is exploiting their fate in order to bring more chaos and shame to the country.
Nor did Trump shoot Andrew Wolfe, the Air Force staff sergeant, who as of this writing, was in critical condition with his wounds.
The man who allegedly pulled the trigger on Nov. 26 was Rahmanullah Lakanwal, an Afghan refugee who helped the Central Intelligence Agency during the Afghanistan war,
But President Donald John Trump, the commander-in-chief, put Beckstrom and Wolfe in harm’s way when he brought 2,000 National Guard troops into Washington, D.C. last August.
What’s more, military commanders knew that Trump was placing the Guard’s men and women in peril.
The Guard, which was supposed to boost crime-fighting in the capitol, would be “a target of opportunity” for terrorists and others, the experts said
And it was no secret. Military officials had outlined their worries in memos that surfaced in a court case against the D.C. deployment of the Guard.
Trump, of course, is taking no responsibility for any of this.
Quite the opposite.
He’s exploiting the tragedy, spreading the blame to lots of other people, while stirring hatred and fear throughout the country.
There’s his favorite scapegoat, former President Joe Biden, whom he charges with allowing Lakanwal and other Afghans, who helped the U.S. war efforts, into the U.S.; there’s a reporter who questioned Trump’s version of events, calling her a “stupid person;” and there’s the thousands of immigrants Trump is branding as security threats to the U.S.
It gets more alarming and absurd.
Trump has ordered 500 more Guard troops into Washington, so now there will be even more "targets of opportunity."
And, according to the Washington Post, apparently the National Guard forces will be “paired” with Washington, D.C. law enforcement personnel – in other words, the local cops will be protecting the Guard, instead of the other way around.
LIKE LOTS OF OTHERS, I was expecting trouble when Trump sent the National Guard to Washington, Los Angeles and other cities. But I figured it would come from missteps by the Guard itself, along the lines of the long-ago Kent State University shootings.
That was in 1970, when four students were shot to death and nine others wounded as the Ohio National Guard turned its guns on innocent people during a Vietnam War protest.
But according to the New York Times and other news sources, the military this time was worried – correctly – that Trump’s deployments would make the Guard’s men and women targets.
Commanders warned that the soldiers were now in a “heightened threat environment.” The Times reported a memo that said that “nefarious threat actors engaging in grievance based violence and those inspired by foreign terrorist organizations” might see the National Guard as “a target of opportunity.”
The memo showed up in a lawsuit against the deployment by Brian Schwalb, the District of Columbia attorney general. The Times said that second memo warned that Guard’s presence “presents an opportunity for criminals, violent extremists, issue motivated groups and lone actors to advance their interests.”
We don’t know what category Lakanwal fits into, if, as seems likely, he turns out to be the shooter.
He is reported by the Times and others to have been part of a “Zero Unit” which worked with the CIA in Afghanistan, protecting American interests. Human rights groups say such units used extreme and illegal tactics, which the CIA has denied.
The units helped the U.S.’s chaotic withdrawal in 2001, and Lakanwal and thousands of others were brought to the U.S. during the Biden years, and he was granted asylum by the Trump administration in April. News reports say Lakanwal was vetted several times.
AT HIS MAR-A-LAGO ESTATE, Trump was at his most vicious and disingenuous on Thanksgiving Day as he met the media, including Nancy Cordes of CBS News, whose questions inflamed the president.
This transcript is from a video posted on YouTube by the PBS NewsHour:
REPORTER: A question about this tragic shooting in Washington, DC. U.S. officials say that the suspect worked very closely with the CIA in Afghanistan for years, that he was vetted and the vetting came up clean.
TRUMP: He went cuckoo; I mean he went nuts, and that happens, too. That happens too often with these people. You see them, but look, this is how they come in. This is how they're, they're standing on top of each other and that's an airplane. (Trump holds up a photo of the interior of an overcrowded airplane)
There was no vetting or anything. They came in unvetted, and we have a lot of others in this country. We're going to get them out. But they go cuckoo. Something happens to them.
REPORTER: Your DOJ (Department of Justice) IG (inspector general) just reported this year that there was thorough vetting by DHS (Department of Homeland Security) and by the FBI of these Afghans, who were brought into the U.S. So why do you think that the Biden administration (is to blame)?
TRUMP: Because they let him in. Are you stupid? Are you a stupid person? Because they came in to, on a plane, along with thousands of other people that shouldn't be here, and you're just asking questions because you're a stupid person.
And we, there's a law passed that it's almost impossible not to, to get them out. You can't get them out once they come in. And they came in, and they were unvetted, they were unchecked, there were many of them and they came on our big planes. And it was disgraceful. And if you look, you'll see there was a law passed that makes it almost impossible not to let them in, not to certify them, so to speak, once they come in. And they came in and they shouldn't have come in.
And frankly, the whole thing was a mess. The whole Afghanistan situation was a mess. We shouldn't, it should have never have taken place.
WHAT SHOULDN’T HAVE TAKEN PLACE was the shooting of the two members of the National Guard.
The soldiers shouldn’t have been in Washington at all.
The shootings were monstrous, and the gunman deserves the full punishment of the law.
But just as culpable is the president of the United States, who turned soldiers into targets and now is exploiting their fate in order to bring more chaos and shame to the country.
These news sources were used in preparing this post:
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C2C0pTh7x9o
- https://people.com/trump-snaps-at-cbs-nancy-cordes-are-you-stupid-person-11858607
- https://www.nytimes.com/2025/11/27/us/guard-shooting-suspect-profile.html
- https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2025/11/28/national-guard-dc-police/
- https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2025/11/national-guard-was-target/685089/
- https://www.nytimes.com/2025/11/26/us/guard-troops-officials-worried-safety.html?smid=url-share
TRUMP’S ASSAULT ON A “TERRIBLE” REPORTER: A REMINDER THAT POLITICS WORK WHEN THEY'RE PERSONAL
SAUDI CROWN PRINCE Mohammed bin Salman, left, and President Donald J. Trump at the Oval Office Nov. 18 where Trump trashed a reporter whose questions he didn't like. PHOTO CREDIT - C-Span screenshot
SITTING NEXT TO A MAN who knows a thing or two about silencing a journalist, Donald Trump unloaded a barrage of insults, slurs and threats at a White House reporter.
“You’re a terrible person and a terrible reporter,” Trump admonished Mary Bruce, chief White House correspondent for ABC News, during a Nov. 18 question and answer session in the Oval Office.
As a once-working reporter myself, although not at the White House level, the president’s attacks on Mary Bruce made me furious. It felt personal.
Granted, Trump did not, as he had a few days earlier with different woman reporter, address Bruce as “Piggy.”
But in multiple exchanges, Trump savaged Bruce professionally and personally, and threatened government action to undermine the viability of the entire ABC network.
“… I think the way you ask a question with the anger and the meanness is terrible. You ought to go back and learn how to be a reporter. No more questions from you.”
Looking on was Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, of Saudi Arabia, who allegedly knows firsthand how to ensure that a troublesome journalist asks “no more questions.”
The prince is suspected by a variety of intelligence sources of ordering the gruesome 2018 murder of Jamal Khashoggi, a Washington Post columnist, at a Saudi consulate in Turkey.
A 15-person Saudi hit squad, including members of the prince’s bodyguard detail, are believed to have subdued Khashoggi with a drug, then used a plastic bag to suffocate him. His body was sawed into pieces for easier transport out of the facility.
Now, seven years later in the Oval Office, Trump was attacking another reporter, and incidentally, exonerating the Saudi prince from his murderous history.
“You know, it’s not the question that I mind. It’s your attitude,” Trump told Bruce. “I think you are a terrible reporter. It’s the way you ask these questions. You start off with a man (the prince) who’s highly respected, asking him a horrible, insubordinate and just a terrible question.”
“You’re a terrible person and a terrible reporter,” Trump admonished Mary Bruce, chief White House correspondent for ABC News, during a Nov. 18 question and answer session in the Oval Office.
As a once-working reporter myself, although not at the White House level, the president’s attacks on Mary Bruce made me furious. It felt personal.
Granted, Trump did not, as he had a few days earlier with different woman reporter, address Bruce as “Piggy.”
But in multiple exchanges, Trump savaged Bruce professionally and personally, and threatened government action to undermine the viability of the entire ABC network.
“… I think the way you ask a question with the anger and the meanness is terrible. You ought to go back and learn how to be a reporter. No more questions from you.”
Looking on was Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, of Saudi Arabia, who allegedly knows firsthand how to ensure that a troublesome journalist asks “no more questions.”
The prince is suspected by a variety of intelligence sources of ordering the gruesome 2018 murder of Jamal Khashoggi, a Washington Post columnist, at a Saudi consulate in Turkey.
A 15-person Saudi hit squad, including members of the prince’s bodyguard detail, are believed to have subdued Khashoggi with a drug, then used a plastic bag to suffocate him. His body was sawed into pieces for easier transport out of the facility.
Now, seven years later in the Oval Office, Trump was attacking another reporter, and incidentally, exonerating the Saudi prince from his murderous history.
“You know, it’s not the question that I mind. It’s your attitude,” Trump told Bruce. “I think you are a terrible reporter. It’s the way you ask these questions. You start off with a man (the prince) who’s highly respected, asking him a horrible, insubordinate and just a terrible question.”
| It should be noted that Bruce’s questions were neither unexpected nor shrill, only touching on the leading subjects of the day, the Jeffrey Epstein scandal and the fact of a once-shunned prince was appearing in the Oval Office. “As far as this gentleman is concerned, he’s done a phenomenal job,” Trump said of the prince. But not so much the murdered columnist. “You’re mentioning somebody that was extremely controversial. A lot of people didn’t like that gentleman that you’re talking about. Whether you like him or didn’t like him, things happen. But he (the prince) knew nothing about it. And we can leave it at that. You don’t have to embarrass our guest by asking him a question like that.” |  MARY BRUCE, chief White House correspondent for ABC News, whose questions were rebuked by President Trump. PHOTO CREDIT: C-Span screenshot |
Trump went on a rant about how Epstein had given money to Democrats, but nothing to him.
“People are wise to the hoax, and ABC, your company, your crappy company, is one of the perpetrators. And I’ll tell you something, I’ll tell you something – I think the license should be taken away from ABC, because your news is so fake, and it’s so wrong.”
Outrageous.
You’d expect the president of the United States to be against murder. But here he defends the man allegedly behind the grotesque Khashoggi killing.
You’d expect the president of the United States to defend the victim – Khashoggi was a United States resident as well as a Saudi critic. But here he blames the victim, suggesting the columnist had it coming.
You’d expect the president of the United States to be horrified by the details of the bizarre killing. Instead, he passes it off as just another of those things that “happen” in one’s life.
You’d expect that the president of the United States would understand the role of journalists, professionally required to ask relevant questions of those in power, especially dictators. Instead, he suggests the obligation of a reporter was to play Oval Office hostess, worried about embarrassing a guest, rather than carrying out her journalistic duties.
IF YOU’VE MADE IT THIS FAR, you might have some objections with my singling out this particular outrage.
Surely, browbeating a reporter is hardly the worst of Donald Trump’s sins, especially during the awful months of his second term.
How about the people who will die or suffer because of lack of federal money for medical care, housing and food? How about the people snatched off city streets by masked thugs, then imprisoned and later deported?
What about people in other countries dying after American medical aid was halted?
How about farmers whose iffy economics have been upended by tariffs? Transsexuals denied employment and medical care as the government has turned them into pariahs? How about people who are drowned in floods and incinerated by wildfires because of worsening climate change, accelerated by Trump’s war on science?
Guilty, on all counts.
My outrage is personal if not downright selfish.
I feel for Mary Bruce because I know what it’s like when a news source attacks a reporter, challenging her or his credibility, freezing access to sources and information.
Reporters are – news flash – people.
They want to be liked, welcomed, praised. They don’t want to be yelled at, made fun of, degraded, rebuked, shunned, mocked, have their integrity and tradecraft challenged and their corporate boss’s economic viability undermined.
And surely, no reporter wants to be drugged, suffocated and sawed by into pieces.
So, you can understand how a career journalist might sympathize with Catherine Lucey, the Bloomberg News reporter who had asked Trump aboard Air Force One about the Epstein case, only to be told: “Quiet! Quiet, Piggy!” And then this week’s fusillade against the “terrible reporter” Mary Bruce in the Oval Office.
“People are wise to the hoax, and ABC, your company, your crappy company, is one of the perpetrators. And I’ll tell you something, I’ll tell you something – I think the license should be taken away from ABC, because your news is so fake, and it’s so wrong.”
Outrageous.
You’d expect the president of the United States to be against murder. But here he defends the man allegedly behind the grotesque Khashoggi killing.
You’d expect the president of the United States to defend the victim – Khashoggi was a United States resident as well as a Saudi critic. But here he blames the victim, suggesting the columnist had it coming.
You’d expect the president of the United States to be horrified by the details of the bizarre killing. Instead, he passes it off as just another of those things that “happen” in one’s life.
You’d expect that the president of the United States would understand the role of journalists, professionally required to ask relevant questions of those in power, especially dictators. Instead, he suggests the obligation of a reporter was to play Oval Office hostess, worried about embarrassing a guest, rather than carrying out her journalistic duties.
IF YOU’VE MADE IT THIS FAR, you might have some objections with my singling out this particular outrage.
Surely, browbeating a reporter is hardly the worst of Donald Trump’s sins, especially during the awful months of his second term.
How about the people who will die or suffer because of lack of federal money for medical care, housing and food? How about the people snatched off city streets by masked thugs, then imprisoned and later deported?
What about people in other countries dying after American medical aid was halted?
How about farmers whose iffy economics have been upended by tariffs? Transsexuals denied employment and medical care as the government has turned them into pariahs? How about people who are drowned in floods and incinerated by wildfires because of worsening climate change, accelerated by Trump’s war on science?
Guilty, on all counts.
My outrage is personal if not downright selfish.
I feel for Mary Bruce because I know what it’s like when a news source attacks a reporter, challenging her or his credibility, freezing access to sources and information.
Reporters are – news flash – people.
They want to be liked, welcomed, praised. They don’t want to be yelled at, made fun of, degraded, rebuked, shunned, mocked, have their integrity and tradecraft challenged and their corporate boss’s economic viability undermined.
And surely, no reporter wants to be drugged, suffocated and sawed by into pieces.
So, you can understand how a career journalist might sympathize with Catherine Lucey, the Bloomberg News reporter who had asked Trump aboard Air Force One about the Epstein case, only to be told: “Quiet! Quiet, Piggy!” And then this week’s fusillade against the “terrible reporter” Mary Bruce in the Oval Office.
SELF-CENTERED, FOR SURE. But also, politically potent.
My guess is that every American will have a personal grievance with Trump before his term is over – perhaps, before his first year in office is completed.
It’s one thing to be opposed philosophically, politically, theoretically, to Donald Trump’s many attacks on democracy, civil society, science, racial justice, the environment and the Constitution.
But it’s quite a different proposition when a Trump offense becomes personal to you as an individual, or your family, your clan, your profession, neighbor or friend – when it gets under your skin, when it hits home, when it becomes real.
Already, millions of Americans have been touched directly by Trump’s abuses. Researchers whose life-changing experiments have been cut short. Black men and women feeling the invisible but real bite of Trump’s racism. Physicians and their patients when the administration makes vaccinations suspect. Parents shopping for groceries.
It’s true I identify with how it feels to be belittled, mocked, insulted, slandered and intimidated by a news source simply because a journalist is doing his or her job.
But our best hope for preserving American democracy is when every one of us understands that we have an actual stake in the outcome.
That’s when we are likely to donate, participate and most importantly, remember to vote.
Politics works best when they become personal.
My guess is that every American will have a personal grievance with Trump before his term is over – perhaps, before his first year in office is completed.
It’s one thing to be opposed philosophically, politically, theoretically, to Donald Trump’s many attacks on democracy, civil society, science, racial justice, the environment and the Constitution.
But it’s quite a different proposition when a Trump offense becomes personal to you as an individual, or your family, your clan, your profession, neighbor or friend – when it gets under your skin, when it hits home, when it becomes real.
Already, millions of Americans have been touched directly by Trump’s abuses. Researchers whose life-changing experiments have been cut short. Black men and women feeling the invisible but real bite of Trump’s racism. Physicians and their patients when the administration makes vaccinations suspect. Parents shopping for groceries.
It’s true I identify with how it feels to be belittled, mocked, insulted, slandered and intimidated by a news source simply because a journalist is doing his or her job.
But our best hope for preserving American democracy is when every one of us understands that we have an actual stake in the outcome.
That’s when we are likely to donate, participate and most importantly, remember to vote.
Politics works best when they become personal.
Here are links to some of the sourced used in this post:
- https://www.c-span.org/program/white-house-event/president-trump-meets-with-saudi-crown-prince/669253
- https://apnews.com/article/media-trump-saudi-arabia-epstein-khashoggi-mbs-6cb0300433689c914250e475c4ae8483
- https://www.nytimes.com/2025/11/18/business/media/trump-reporter-khashoggi-saudis.html
- https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/nov/19/what-happened-jamal-khashoggi-murder-trump-saudi-crown-prince-mohammed-bin-salman
HERE’S HOPING:
* THE NOV. 4 VOTE PREDICTS FUTURE ELECTIONS;
* TRUMP SUFFERS REBUKE BEFORE FADING AWAY
TRUMP ASLEEP? A screenshot of California Gov. Gavin Newsom's X account showing the president seemingly asleep at an Oval Office event. Click on the image to see the X posting.
SO WHY DON’T I FEEL BETTER?
A week after the election, why don’t I feel the joy?
After all, “we” won, and won big, coast to coast.
Could it be that the Democrats are, in fact, alive and capable of actually winning?
And then there’s fresh chatter about a sleepy president – Donald Trump unable to keep his eyes open during a much photographed Oval Office event four days ago.
Could it be that Trump, approaching 80, is feeling the weight of the years and might simply slip away before his term is up?
A week after the election, why don’t I feel the joy?
After all, “we” won, and won big, coast to coast.
Could it be that the Democrats are, in fact, alive and capable of actually winning?
And then there’s fresh chatter about a sleepy president – Donald Trump unable to keep his eyes open during a much photographed Oval Office event four days ago.
Could it be that Trump, approaching 80, is feeling the weight of the years and might simply slip away before his term is up?
| Both the election dynamics and the reports of a drowsy commander-in-chief are tests of hope, that essential, but painful emotion that confronts us, both as spectators and players, in the struggle for democracy. The election results teases us by suggesting that our hope that democracy will endure is not wishful thinking. But the fear is that it will turn out to be a false hope. Meanwhile, for me, Trump’s diminished capacity challenges my hope that Trump will finish his term, so that he can earn the public and political rebuke that may be his greatest fear. Fading away would be too easy an escape for such a wicked man. THE NOV. 4 ELECTION was a delicious political feast. Take New Jersey, where the pre-election surveys showed a “tightening” race. Except that Mikie Sherrill, the Democratic candidate for governor, won a stunning victory, with 56.5 percent of the vote. | THE DEMOCRATS’ INEVITABLE SHUTDOWN DEFEAT The capitulation by Democratic Senators last night to end the government shutdown is clearly a disappointment and possibly a betrayal of their party and its millions of supporters. At the same time, I never thought the shutdown made sense, because there was no clear path to “success,” how the tactic would force Republicans to agree to ease health care costs. As to people who said this was a rare, necessary choice for the minority party to flex its muscles, I think screwing up the machinery of government would never turn out to be true leverage. Now, the Democrats are double losers: millions have been hurt by having their pay disrupted, food benefits upended; and the Democrats have gained nothing but humiliation and division. It was always going to end this way. |
Slightly bigger ( but still hugely), was the win by Abigail Spanberger in her Virginia governor’s race, 57.1 percent.
Zohran Mamdani organized a huge, enthusiastic turnout in New York City, hopefully driving the despicable Andrew Cuomo and his horror-movie mug off the public stage for good.
On the Other Coast, the complicated, brazen effort, led by Gov. Gavin Newsom, to jury-rig California voting districts, captured 63.9 percent vote to create new Democratic U.S. House seats. The plot was to checkmate the Trump-GOP effort to invent five new Republican seats in Texas.
And in Pennsylvania, three Democratic state Supreme Court justices held their posts by 27-point margins.
So last Tuesday was a Big, Beautiful Day for truth, justice and the American way.
All of which put the lie to widespread anxiety about a dispirited, ineffective resistance to Donald Trump by a defective, damaged Democratic Party.
Again the question, a week after the election, why don’t I feel the joy?
SUPERSTITION is part of the answer.
I have mixed feelings about religion, but am devoted to idiotic superstitions about Friday the 13th, wandering under ladders, and jinxing no-hitters by declaring no-hitter -in-the-making before the final out. So the jubilation that followed the election seems to me downright treacherous by tempting evil spirits.
Think of all the awful things that can happen with an election still a full year away.
Trump could – and probably will – try to hijack or monkeywrench the voting process.
He could – and probably will - try to declare martial law.
He might designate the Democratic Party a terrorist organization. And so forth.
Meanwhile, the Democrats might do what they sometimes seem to do best: self-destruct.
The Democrats could splinter, declare war on progressives, bore the nation with ineffectual centrists' righteousness.
Mamdani could turn out to be the inept, inexperienced, foot-in-the-mouth twerp that the New York Times and the rest of the media have made him out to be, dragging the actual Democratic Party down with him.
Democratic Doom and its scenarios are endless, and we are well warned that paranoia is both obligatory and well-founded.
BUT HERE’S THE THING. In the election’s wake, Donald Trump seems strangely diminished.
I don’t know whether this is a consequence of the election, or whether Trump at long last is beginning to seem mortal. He is months away from turning 80 – an age where death lurks as a reality everyday, instead of somewhere in the vague future.
He seems more vulnerable – politically and physically.
For the first time, members of Congress are showing spasms of resistance – for example dismissing Trump’s call for the Senate to abandon its 60 vote rule that gives the minority party veto power over much legislation.
He’s doing poorly in the polls. The public blames Republicans for the shutdown, even though the Democrats are full partners (See the above sidebar). The election is widely believed to have been about “affordability,” high prices being something that Trump promised to end, but cannot control or wish away.
And maybe the man is simply wearing out.
My wife pointed out a weekend article in the Washington Post that I missed, and I bet you did to, because Post seemed to downplay it, at least on its website, and the rest of the media ignored it, maybe because of fear of Trump, maybe due to professional jealousy, maybe both.
The Post’s article reported that Trump “seemed” variously to be trying not to fall asleep and actually falling asleep in a widely observed Oval Office event. CLICK HERE to follow the link (the Post has a pay wall) to the article.
The piece was about the occasion on Nov. 6 when Trump announced that pharmaceutical companies agreed to lower prices for weight-loss drugs. The Post wrote:
“Sitting behind the Resolute Desk on Thursday, the president displayed a constellation of movements familiar to anyone who has attempted to stay awake during a work meeting. He closed his eyes. He put his hand to his temple. He slouched in his chair.”
Personally, I hope that this is not going to be how justice comes for Donald Trump.
I don’t want him to fade away, succumb to a fatal disease, trip on the Air Force One ramp or to be assassinated.
Instead, I want him to hang around to be renounced, rebuked and rejected.
Impeachment would be perfect, but won’t happen. Instead, it would be nice if the voters turned on him. It would be great if the Democrats took the House next year and checkmated his campaign of terror.
The best outcome would be for his administration to fail, for the nation to vote against the party that has sustained him and return the political system to working condition, so that the word “Trump” becomes a universal slur.
Last week’s election showed us that that’s possible, even if it’s a long shot and a long way off.
So, here’s hoping Donald Trump won’t simply nod off without giving the public a chance to understand and condemn the many ways he’s damaged their lives and their country.
Rejection is Donald Trump’s nightmare; but for the rest of us, it’s an American dream.
Zohran Mamdani organized a huge, enthusiastic turnout in New York City, hopefully driving the despicable Andrew Cuomo and his horror-movie mug off the public stage for good.
On the Other Coast, the complicated, brazen effort, led by Gov. Gavin Newsom, to jury-rig California voting districts, captured 63.9 percent vote to create new Democratic U.S. House seats. The plot was to checkmate the Trump-GOP effort to invent five new Republican seats in Texas.
And in Pennsylvania, three Democratic state Supreme Court justices held their posts by 27-point margins.
So last Tuesday was a Big, Beautiful Day for truth, justice and the American way.
All of which put the lie to widespread anxiety about a dispirited, ineffective resistance to Donald Trump by a defective, damaged Democratic Party.
Again the question, a week after the election, why don’t I feel the joy?
SUPERSTITION is part of the answer.
I have mixed feelings about religion, but am devoted to idiotic superstitions about Friday the 13th, wandering under ladders, and jinxing no-hitters by declaring no-hitter -in-the-making before the final out. So the jubilation that followed the election seems to me downright treacherous by tempting evil spirits.
Think of all the awful things that can happen with an election still a full year away.
Trump could – and probably will – try to hijack or monkeywrench the voting process.
He could – and probably will - try to declare martial law.
He might designate the Democratic Party a terrorist organization. And so forth.
Meanwhile, the Democrats might do what they sometimes seem to do best: self-destruct.
The Democrats could splinter, declare war on progressives, bore the nation with ineffectual centrists' righteousness.
Mamdani could turn out to be the inept, inexperienced, foot-in-the-mouth twerp that the New York Times and the rest of the media have made him out to be, dragging the actual Democratic Party down with him.
Democratic Doom and its scenarios are endless, and we are well warned that paranoia is both obligatory and well-founded.
BUT HERE’S THE THING. In the election’s wake, Donald Trump seems strangely diminished.
I don’t know whether this is a consequence of the election, or whether Trump at long last is beginning to seem mortal. He is months away from turning 80 – an age where death lurks as a reality everyday, instead of somewhere in the vague future.
He seems more vulnerable – politically and physically.
For the first time, members of Congress are showing spasms of resistance – for example dismissing Trump’s call for the Senate to abandon its 60 vote rule that gives the minority party veto power over much legislation.
He’s doing poorly in the polls. The public blames Republicans for the shutdown, even though the Democrats are full partners (See the above sidebar). The election is widely believed to have been about “affordability,” high prices being something that Trump promised to end, but cannot control or wish away.
And maybe the man is simply wearing out.
My wife pointed out a weekend article in the Washington Post that I missed, and I bet you did to, because Post seemed to downplay it, at least on its website, and the rest of the media ignored it, maybe because of fear of Trump, maybe due to professional jealousy, maybe both.
The Post’s article reported that Trump “seemed” variously to be trying not to fall asleep and actually falling asleep in a widely observed Oval Office event. CLICK HERE to follow the link (the Post has a pay wall) to the article.
The piece was about the occasion on Nov. 6 when Trump announced that pharmaceutical companies agreed to lower prices for weight-loss drugs. The Post wrote:
“Sitting behind the Resolute Desk on Thursday, the president displayed a constellation of movements familiar to anyone who has attempted to stay awake during a work meeting. He closed his eyes. He put his hand to his temple. He slouched in his chair.”
Personally, I hope that this is not going to be how justice comes for Donald Trump.
I don’t want him to fade away, succumb to a fatal disease, trip on the Air Force One ramp or to be assassinated.
Instead, I want him to hang around to be renounced, rebuked and rejected.
Impeachment would be perfect, but won’t happen. Instead, it would be nice if the voters turned on him. It would be great if the Democrats took the House next year and checkmated his campaign of terror.
The best outcome would be for his administration to fail, for the nation to vote against the party that has sustained him and return the political system to working condition, so that the word “Trump” becomes a universal slur.
Last week’s election showed us that that’s possible, even if it’s a long shot and a long way off.
So, here’s hoping Donald Trump won’t simply nod off without giving the public a chance to understand and condemn the many ways he’s damaged their lives and their country.
Rejection is Donald Trump’s nightmare; but for the rest of us, it’s an American dream.
The No Kings Protest, Part 2
A DEMONSTRATION OF DEMOCRACY & KINDNESS
Locally, A Helping Hand. Nationally, A Street Party
THE RHODE ISLAND STATE HOUSE
The State House steps. I GOT TO THE NO KINGS RALLY EARLY, and everything was going swimmingly until I reached the cascade of marble steps leading down from the State House to the plaza below, where the protest was forming.
The Rhode Island Capitol is an elegant structure, fitting for a tiny state that has an oversupply of visual wonders, including its rugged coast and more than a few Colonial-era homes.
My problem was that the sea of marble steps below me came without handrails. As I’ve entered my 80s, I have found it difficult, and lately, impossible, to navigate downward stairs without something to hold onto.
At first, I seemed to be doing okay; one foot, both feet; one foot, then the other. But I began to feel dizzy; the family member I’d come with was too far ahead for me to signal; and I wondered if this little section of public marble was suddenly about to become a personal puddle of blood and skull.
“May I help you?” asked a woman somewhere below me. “I have balance problems sometimes, too.”
“Well, actually, that would be nice,” I said.
The woman bounded up the five or six steps between us, locked one of her arms firmly onto one of mine – I’m pretty sure she’d had done this before – and led me to the safety of ground zero.
I didn’t see her again as the crowd swelled into the many thousands – 15,000 is a common estimate of the Providence gathering – but her rescue perfectly captured the spirit of the afternoon.
She saw someone in trouble. She acted. And did so in the nicest possible way, which is to say she was both kind and competent.
Which is what it will take to reverse the terrifying, dizzying course that Donald Trump is laying out for the country.
My theory is that we cannot – nor should we – try to match his brand of cruelty with a version of our own guile. Instead, we must trust our resources of kindness, compassion and caring to sustain our communities and our country.
If we are to win back our democracy, we must not become a more successful copy of Donald Trump, we must champion a better alternative. Or, why does it matter?
And secondly, we must be skilled and proficient in our democratic undertaking. We must master the mechanics of politics, understand the levers of power and perfect the arts of communication.
The Rhode Island Capitol is an elegant structure, fitting for a tiny state that has an oversupply of visual wonders, including its rugged coast and more than a few Colonial-era homes.
My problem was that the sea of marble steps below me came without handrails. As I’ve entered my 80s, I have found it difficult, and lately, impossible, to navigate downward stairs without something to hold onto.
At first, I seemed to be doing okay; one foot, both feet; one foot, then the other. But I began to feel dizzy; the family member I’d come with was too far ahead for me to signal; and I wondered if this little section of public marble was suddenly about to become a personal puddle of blood and skull.
“May I help you?” asked a woman somewhere below me. “I have balance problems sometimes, too.”
“Well, actually, that would be nice,” I said.
The woman bounded up the five or six steps between us, locked one of her arms firmly onto one of mine – I’m pretty sure she’d had done this before – and led me to the safety of ground zero.
I didn’t see her again as the crowd swelled into the many thousands – 15,000 is a common estimate of the Providence gathering – but her rescue perfectly captured the spirit of the afternoon.
She saw someone in trouble. She acted. And did so in the nicest possible way, which is to say she was both kind and competent.
Which is what it will take to reverse the terrifying, dizzying course that Donald Trump is laying out for the country.
My theory is that we cannot – nor should we – try to match his brand of cruelty with a version of our own guile. Instead, we must trust our resources of kindness, compassion and caring to sustain our communities and our country.
If we are to win back our democracy, we must not become a more successful copy of Donald Trump, we must champion a better alternative. Or, why does it matter?
And secondly, we must be skilled and proficient in our democratic undertaking. We must master the mechanics of politics, understand the levers of power and perfect the arts of communication.
YESTERDAY’S SECOND NO KINGS DAY protest in Rhode Island was both civilized and practical, and, from what I’ve seen and read, the same could have been said for demonstrations throughout the country.
The Providence protest had a serene, comfortable, at-home feel. Sure, anger and fear drove people to concoct colorful signs, dress up as inflatable creatures, write clever slogans. But they did all of this in a way that made you happy to be among friends, neighbors at a barn-raising, volunteers cleaning up after the flood.
But numbers absolutely count. It was good that people turned out by the thousands in my state, and by the millions across the nation. The battle for democracy depends on numbers. It’s not enough for one or two of us to vote; what matters is how many millions vote and do so in enough numbers to win.
WHY WAS THIS PROTEST SO SUCCESSFUL? On a practical level, at least in our New England neck of the woods, the weather couldn’t have been nicer for mid-October. Temperatures in the 60s, just a whisper of wind, deliciously blue skies. It put you in a mood.
Further, participants were determined to be peaceful, glad to show how that’s done. And none of this was an accident or unique.
A relative lives outside Philadelphia, and he wrote me this in an email:
The Providence protest had a serene, comfortable, at-home feel. Sure, anger and fear drove people to concoct colorful signs, dress up as inflatable creatures, write clever slogans. But they did all of this in a way that made you happy to be among friends, neighbors at a barn-raising, volunteers cleaning up after the flood.
But numbers absolutely count. It was good that people turned out by the thousands in my state, and by the millions across the nation. The battle for democracy depends on numbers. It’s not enough for one or two of us to vote; what matters is how many millions vote and do so in enough numbers to win.
WHY WAS THIS PROTEST SO SUCCESSFUL? On a practical level, at least in our New England neck of the woods, the weather couldn’t have been nicer for mid-October. Temperatures in the 60s, just a whisper of wind, deliciously blue skies. It put you in a mood.
Further, participants were determined to be peaceful, glad to show how that’s done. And none of this was an accident or unique.
A relative lives outside Philadelphia, and he wrote me this in an email:
| I spent a joyful hour and a half at a No Kings rally near me. It was one of those side of the road with lots of signs and a bit of chanting things, and it made me grin the entire time. (No speakers.) People honked when they went by. OK, there was one pickup truck that said Support ICE, and they were laughing, and someone ran by brandishing a Trump flag. But it was a chill experience. When I left the throng of thousands, I drove along the route, honking my horn. And I ran into several people from our church, and a lot of others were planning to go to a different neighborhood one. |
In its countrywide wrap up, the Associated Press described the mood nationally as that of a street fair:
| Trump’s Republican Party disparaged the demonstrations as "Hate America" rallies. But in many places the events looked more like a street party. There were marching bands, huge banners with the U.S. Constitution’s “We The People” preamble that people could sign, and demonstrators wearing inflatable costumes, particularly frogs, which have emerged as a sign of resistance in Portland, Oregon. |
The Rhode Island edition featured a “march,” from the State House down a slight bill to the Providence City Hall, then back for speeches.
A friend, who helped organize the event, said there was one unpleasant mini-clash, with a group trying stir emotions over transsexual rights. She described it this way:
A friend, who helped organize the event, said there was one unpleasant mini-clash, with a group trying stir emotions over transsexual rights. She described it this way:
| The only sour note came as people were leaving — RI Turning Point, the Charlie Kirk org, set up tables on Francis Street across from the mall to hold a “debate” on why trans women shouldn’t be able to compete in women’s sports. About 20 very offended trans activists began screaming and yelling at them, despite our best attempts to de-escalate. They weren’t having it. The police, who are so roundly denounced by some, were fabulous. They just stood calmly between the groups and waited for it to die down. |
IN THE AFTERMATH, the worrywarts, the scolds and the Monday Morning crabby coaches will say that big, peaceful, block party protests aren’t enough to back down the ICE agents and other storm-troopers-in-training, or to counter a Republican Congress that won’t do its Constitutional duty in restraining the president, or to scare a criminal president into going straight.
Of course, that’s all true. It will take more than a protest in June and another in October to turn the country around. But yesterday’s demonstration was a solid step forward and one to be cheered and celebrated. Just think if there were no mass demonstrations, no protests, no rallies. What would the worrywarts and the scolds be saying then?
What took place this weekend was both joyous and profound.
Personally, it was a moment to be cherished, when a stranger acted like a friend and offered me her helping hand, maybe one that was lifesaving.
Of course, that’s all true. It will take more than a protest in June and another in October to turn the country around. But yesterday’s demonstration was a solid step forward and one to be cheered and celebrated. Just think if there were no mass demonstrations, no protests, no rallies. What would the worrywarts and the scolds be saying then?
What took place this weekend was both joyous and profound.
Personally, it was a moment to be cherished, when a stranger acted like a friend and offered me her helping hand, maybe one that was lifesaving.
 |  |  |
THE “NO KINGS 2” PROTESTS
The Good, Bad & Ugly. Mostly the Good.
THE FIRST "No Kings'" rally in Middletown, RI, June 14, 2025
AS 2025 DRAWS TO ITS SAD, soul-shattering close, nothing I will do this year will be more important – at least to me – than showing up for this Saturday’s No Kings protest.
If it all works out as planned, my participation will be immensely insignificant.
That is, if the turnout exceeds the 5 million headcount that sponsors estimated for the first No Kings Day back on June 14, whether I’m present or not will be of no consequence.
A drop of water in the ocean, one seat in a sold-out soccer stadium, a kernel of corn on a vast Midwestern farm.
And, let’s be honest, if the day produces the largest demonstration in American history, that might have no practical effect in stopping Donald Trump’s evolving dictatorship.
Critics will say that it was just one day, so what the heck. No practical impact. Nobody got elected. Or un-elected. No legislation was enacted. Nothing happened. Nothing changed.
Or that, in one city, in one state, maybe in several places, the protests will turn ugly and produce enough head-banging, shots-fired viral video to accelerate Trump’s continuing campaign to turn American soldiers against American citizens.
Or, maybe the whole thing it will be a flop. Just thousands, not millions, nationwide.
Or, regardless of size, big, small or medium, it will provide fodder for to rightwing lies and distortions.
House Speaker Mike Johnson got a head start on the smear campaign, according to Politico, by describing a planned No Kings event in Washington, as a “hate America rally.”
HERE’S ANOTHER THING. I really don’t like big protests or even bite-sized ones.
For one thing, I’m pretty sure that somebody is going to say something stupid. They’ll say something that I completely, totally don’t agree with. But lots of people will cheer. And by being present, it will seem like I’m in solidarity, one-for-all/all-for-one. It’s guaranteed.
I’ll give you an example that still rankles. Back in the Black Lives Matter days, egregious, vicious racist police conduct generated this slogan: “Defund the Police!”
I know enough about government that if you want to reform some out-of-control public service, you have to spend MORE money, not less, such as bigger salaries for police, more money for training, and lots of cash for added mental health professionals and others to help police do non-police work.
So, on Saturday, I don’t want to hear an antisemitic chant like “From the river to the sea,” or some anti-Palestinian slurs or “This time, don’t just shoot his ear.”
For that matter, my ideal protest is an event with no-speeches, no music, no chanting, no sloganeering, and which lasts no more than 15 minutes, just long enough to get a credible headcount and maybe some drone photos to prove it. And that’s a wrap.
WHICH IS NOT HOW DEMOCRACY WORKS.
Democracy is messy, imperfect, mixed-up, noisy, infuriating and disorganized. People have to put up with all sorts of companions, buddies and fellow travelers, including misanthropes like yours truly.
And if ever our country needed a humongous day of protest, it is now, nearly 10 months into the most dangerous, cruelest, despotic, corrupt presidential administration in history.
We need every single body possible to say “no” to Donald J. Trump. No to savage roundups of immigrants, no to troops on American streets, no to absurd health policies, no to acceleration of climate destruction, no to bullying professors, no to racism, no to desecration of a great country.
So thanks for the people who are planning No Kings Day 2 in thousands of cities and towns across American. It is our privilege to protest. Our duty to protest. it’s the least we can do.
Just don’t ask me to chant, chat or sing during the bus ride from Newport to Providence for the hopefully biggest-ever, most fantastic rally ever held at the Rhode Island State House.
I may try to make a small sign.
HARVARD:
The Ideal Deal Is No Deal;
But 2nd Best Would Be . . .
YET ANOTHER CHILLING ANNOUNCEMENT came this week from the White House, suggesting that Harvard University has agreed to a deal with the Trump Administration.
The only glimmer of hope is that the statement came from Trump himself, since the president almost never tells the truth.
Still, that Harvard and the Trump autocracy are even talking is dispiriting, since the university’s resistance has been a rare moment of hope that the Trump juggernaut can be stopped.
The stakes are enormous. If Harvard, the nation’s oldest and arguably most important university can be bullied, how likely is it that lesser colleges, to say nothing of other kinds of institutions, will be willing or able to fight back?
That’s why its so important to mortals who’ve never set foot in Harvard Yard that the university should make no deal.
No. Nyet. Nope. Nada. Nein. Zero.
The symbolism is important: Eggheads, 1 / Knuckleheads, 0.
More critical is the lesson that every schoolyard scholar learns the hard way: there’s no such thing as a deal with a bully. The tormentor always wants more. And more.
The Trump administration, falsely claiming egregious antisemitism at Harvard, withheld billions in federal research dollars and demanded severe control over campus governance.
A 2nd BEST DEAL
Trump said on Sept. 30 that Harvard would agree to finance $500 million to operate “trade schools.” What other concessions might be on the table wasn’t clear.
But if Harvard ends up making a deal, I have some thoughts that might help Harvard – and the rest of us.
HARVARD’S FUTURE
There’s no question that Harvard has much at stake if the Trump Administration succeeds in extracting concessions, or if Harvard fights and loses its legal challenges.
Indeed, although Harvard has enormous resources - $53 billion in endowment funds, nearly 25,000 students, 20,700 faculty and staff, the federal government has far more financial and legal (illegal) firepower.
Harvard wins on the merits.
Last month, U.S. District Judge Allison D. Burroughs ruled in favor of the university, cancelling funding cuts.
“A review of the administrative record makes it difficult to conclude anything other than that Defendants used antisemitism as a smokescreen for a targeted, ideologically-motivated assault on this country’s premier universities,” Burroughs wrote.
But who knows how an appeals court, or the Trump-compliant Supreme Court would rule.
A loss could mean a far diminished Harvard, and in the worst case, maybe a failed institution.
But in settling with Trump, and the precedent that sets, Harvard has to ask itself this question:
What’s more important: Harvard University’s survival? Or continuation of the United States as a democracy?
The only glimmer of hope is that the statement came from Trump himself, since the president almost never tells the truth.
Still, that Harvard and the Trump autocracy are even talking is dispiriting, since the university’s resistance has been a rare moment of hope that the Trump juggernaut can be stopped.
The stakes are enormous. If Harvard, the nation’s oldest and arguably most important university can be bullied, how likely is it that lesser colleges, to say nothing of other kinds of institutions, will be willing or able to fight back?
That’s why its so important to mortals who’ve never set foot in Harvard Yard that the university should make no deal.
No. Nyet. Nope. Nada. Nein. Zero.
The symbolism is important: Eggheads, 1 / Knuckleheads, 0.
More critical is the lesson that every schoolyard scholar learns the hard way: there’s no such thing as a deal with a bully. The tormentor always wants more. And more.
The Trump administration, falsely claiming egregious antisemitism at Harvard, withheld billions in federal research dollars and demanded severe control over campus governance.
A 2nd BEST DEAL
Trump said on Sept. 30 that Harvard would agree to finance $500 million to operate “trade schools.” What other concessions might be on the table wasn’t clear.
But if Harvard ends up making a deal, I have some thoughts that might help Harvard – and the rest of us.
- ABJECT APOLOGY – The administration will issue an apology – signed personally by Trump with his trademark scrawl, like the one he used on the Epstein “birthday drawing.” The document admits the government’s violations of the university’s First Amendment free speech rights, and apologize for the strain it has put on the university’s students, faculty and administrators.
- FINANCIAL TERMS – The government agrees to pay the university a penalty of $500 million, in addition to court-approved legal and administrative costs resulting from the government’s abuse of its powers.
- DEMOCRACY INITIATIVE – The university intends to use some of the above-cited penalty payments to establish a Harvard University School of Democracy, to study defense of democratic governments against becoming dictatorships. The Administration agrees to make its officials available for symposia, research and other initiatives.
- FOREIGN STUDENTS – The government acknowledges foreign students have been demonized and disadvantaged by the administration’s false or exaggerated antisemitism claims. The government, at its cost, will undertake remedial measures to make these students whole. Select students, who need transportation from their home countries to the Cambridge, Mass. campus, will be offered free passage aboard Air Force One and Marine One aircraft.
- TRANSSEXUAL RESEARCH – The federal Department of Health and Human Services agrees to provide Harvard and its partner universities sufficient grants for comprehensive research and teaching initiatives into the experience of individuals experiencing and seeking gender change.
HARVARD’S FUTURE
There’s no question that Harvard has much at stake if the Trump Administration succeeds in extracting concessions, or if Harvard fights and loses its legal challenges.
Indeed, although Harvard has enormous resources - $53 billion in endowment funds, nearly 25,000 students, 20,700 faculty and staff, the federal government has far more financial and legal (illegal) firepower.
Harvard wins on the merits.
Last month, U.S. District Judge Allison D. Burroughs ruled in favor of the university, cancelling funding cuts.
“A review of the administrative record makes it difficult to conclude anything other than that Defendants used antisemitism as a smokescreen for a targeted, ideologically-motivated assault on this country’s premier universities,” Burroughs wrote.
But who knows how an appeals court, or the Trump-compliant Supreme Court would rule.
A loss could mean a far diminished Harvard, and in the worst case, maybe a failed institution.
But in settling with Trump, and the precedent that sets, Harvard has to ask itself this question:
What’s more important: Harvard University’s survival? Or continuation of the United States as a democracy?
THE 'SUPINE' COURT --
IS THIS WHERE JUSTICE COMES TO DIE?
IN A PREVIOUS BLOG POST, I proposed that we duplicate Trump’s move in changing the name of the Department of Defense to the "Department of War. " We could re-name other agencies or departments. Among my suggestions: The White House would become “The Gold House,” and the Department of Justice the “Department of Injustice.” Etc.
A clever reader later suggested a new name for the Supreme Court – proposing “The Supine Court,” reflecting the high court’s practice of affirming Donald Trump’s excesses and abuses.
I admire that title change. But it got me to wondering whether I and others are being unfair to the Supreme Court, automatically writing off its Trump rulings simply because we don’t like the president.
So, I decided to take a look at an actual Supreme Court ruling, taking the bold, outrageous and astonishingly courageous step of actually reading one them – all 31 pages.
What I hoped to find is that the Supreme Court is not always the callous, arbitrary bunch of judicial autocrats that misread and misstate the Constitution in service of politics.
Many people wish the same: that the court acts as a fair interpreter of the laws and Constitution – even to the point where, if we disagree with this or that ruling, we can trust that all nine justices make an sincere effort to get things right.
ONE CASE: RACIAL PROFILING?
You may have seen headlines: about the case which the Supreme Court appeared to endorse racial profiling by allowing the Trump immigration officers to continue using Latino-based identifying tactics in rounding up suspected undocumented immigrants in Los Angeles.
On Sept. 8, the Supreme Court “stayed,” or put on hold an earlier, federal District Court order that told the administration stop using four kinds of profiling that targeted people with Latino indicators.
Put a different way, the Supreme Court allowed the government to continue business as usual, pending the outcome of a Court of Appeals review (a hearing in that court was scheduled, yesterday, Sept. 24).
The Supreme Court ruling sure smelled bad – as if the nation’s highest court was blessing a detestable practice: racial profiling. And in the process, the court seemed to weaken the Constitution's Fourth Amendment, which protects citizens from unfair searches and seizures.
What makes this ruling fairly easy for an amateur un-judge like me to understand is that two justices, Sonia Sotomayor and Brett Kavanaugh, wrote opposing positions, and they did so in relatively clear language.
 | Sotomayor, in a seething objection to the ruling, which allowed profiling of Latinos, puts it this way: We should not have to live in a country where the Government can seize anyone who looks Latino, speaks Spanish and appears to work a low wage job. Rather than stand idly by while our constitutional freedoms are lost, I dissent. |
 | Kavanaugh, defending the ruling, excuses the government’s tactics as having minimal impact on legal citizens, while dismissing objections to the tactics as little more than a lawbreaker’s attempt to avoid capture. He writes: The interests of individuals who are illegally in the country in avoiding being stopped by law enforcement for questioning is ultimately an interest in evading the law. That is not an especially weighty legal interest. |
THE ORDER WAS PART of the Supreme Court’s “emergency docket,” in which the orders usually aren’t signed or explained.
But Kavanaugh decided to give it a try, writing a “concurring” opinion. Whether his fellow conservatives – Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch and Amy Coney Barrett – agreed with his reasoning isn't clear, since they wrote nothing.
Whether it was her need to counter Kavanaugh’s statement, or the weight of the issues themselves, Sotomayor wrote a dissent, which was signed by fellow liberal justices, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson.
After reading both statements Un-Judge Jones boils things down to two items:
1. The terms of the Fourth Amendment, which says:
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
2. The meaning of the word “reasonable,” as when it’s okay to “search” or “seize” people suspected of being undocumented immigrants.
Un-Judge Jones was surprised by one element of the case: Federal law does allow immigration officers to stop and question an “alien’ or “suspected alien” about his or her legal status. But the catch is that an officer has to have a “reasonable suspicion,” based on specific facts, to do so.
Which is where the troubling profiling questions come in.
PROFILING
In their writings, the two justices largely agreed that that immigration agents had been using four factors in their hunt for undocumented immigrants:
To be clear, apparent ethnicity alone cannot furnish reasonable suspicion. Under this Court’s case law regarding immigration stops, however, it can be a ‘relevant factor’ when considered along with other salient factors.
So the racial appearance alone isn't sufficient, he said. But heck, the way you look, combined with the other factors, and agents have got a suspicious character.
Sotomayor isn't buying that:
The Government, and now the concurrence (Kavanaugh) has all but declared that all Latinos, U.S. citizens or not, who work low wage jobs are fair game to be seized at any time taken away from work, and held until they provide proof of their legal status to the agents’ satisfaction.
WHATS THE BIG DEAL?
Kavanaugh describes the stops by immigration agents as being no major problem for those involved, even people who turned out to have legal status, because, at worst, the stops were momentary inconveniences. He puts it this way:
If the officers learn that the individual they stopped is a U.S. citizen or otherwise lawfully in the United States, they promptly let the individual go. If the individual is illegally in the United States, the officers may arrest the individual and initiate the process for removal.
But Sotomayor cites actual examples, including those involving U.S. citizens, that were more brutal and disruptive than Kavanaugh described.
Such activities in “Operation At Large,” have caused “panic and fear” in the city and surrounding communities, she writes, with some people afraid to go to work or pick up their children from school.
BY THE NUMBERS
Kavanaugh notes that illegal immigration is a huge problem in the U.S., especially in Los Angeles, where he says 10 percent of the population, or 2 million persons, are “illegal immigrants.”
Not surprisingly, given those extraordinary numbers., U .S. immigration officers have prioritized immigration enforcement in the Los Angeles area.
So having lots of undocumented people around validates the use the four profiling factors to locate and question individuals.
But it doesn’t take a math wizard to consider the “extraordinary numbers” from a different point of view: that if 10 percent of the LA population is believed to be undocumented, then 90 percent are authorized to be in the U.S.
So it’s logical that a good many of the people are being stopped for no good reason.
Sotomayor says other LA numbers argue against using the profile factors as a way to zero in on illegal immigrants.
Never mind that nearly 47 percent of the Central District's population identifies as Hispanic or Latino . . . Never mind that over 37 percent of the population of Los Angeles County speaks Spanish at home,and over 55 percent speak at language other than English.
WHAT’S “REASONABLE?”
In order to stop someone for questioning, Kavanaugh writes, immigration officials must have “a reasonable suspicion” that a person is illegally in the U.S.
So, a combination of factors does that job, he says, including the “high number” of undocumented persons in LA; the belief that undocumented folks “tend to gathering in certain locations;” that “they often work in certain kinds of jobs;” and that many “come from Mexico or Central America and do not speak much English.” Kavanaugh writes:
Under this Court’s precedents, not to mention common sense, those circumstances taken together can constitute at least reasonable suspicion of illegal residents in the United States.
Not so fast, Sotomayor counters.
It’s not reasonable to suspect individual persons of wrong doing if the factors “describes a very large category of presumably innocent people,” she writes, quoting previous cases.
In one past case, Mexican ancestry “alone did not constitute reasonable suspicion to support stops by Border Patrol agents," because large numbers of authorized persons near the border look like people with Mexican backgrounds.
She says:
The Fourth Amendment thus prohibits exactly what the Government is attempting to do here: seize individual based solely on a set of facts that ‘describes a very large category of presumably innocent’ people.
THE PROPER ROLE OF THE COURT
Kavanaugh goes to some length to say that he isn’t trying to set immigration policy, just uphold the courts’ role as fair enforcers of the Constitution and the law, as the Supreme Court has done in the past.
. . . We now likewise must decline to step outside our constitutionally assigned role to improperly restrict reasonable Executive Branch enforcement of the immigration laws.
Consistency and neutrality are hallmarks of good judging and in my view, we abide by those enduring judicial values in this case by granting the stay.
But Kavanaugh sure sounds like a policy maven, with strong views on immigration, and not positive ones, noting that "millions" of people are here illegally, and that the big numbers cause a "myriad" of social and economic problems, quoting a previous case.
Kavanaugh does take a moment to show that he's a nice guy:
To be sure, I recognize and fully appreciate that many (not all, but many) illegal immigrants come to the United States to escape poverty and the lack of freedom and opportunities in their home countries, and to make better lives for themselves and their families.
But he puts on his judicial face, noting sternly that illegal immigrants cause problems for immigrants who are doing things the right way:
. . . they are not only violating the immigration laws, but also jumping in front of those non-citizens who follow the rules and wait in line to immigrate into the United States through the legal immigration process.
Sotomayor, on the other hand, isn't debating immigration policy, but concentrates on the court’s role in enforcing the Constitution and immigration laws. The District Court’s order banning the profiling factors, she says:
. . . does not preclude the Government from enforcing the immigration laws, so long as in doing so, it stops individual based on additional facts on top of the four factors listed.
She writes that actual cases showed that legal as well as undocumented persons suffered, despite Kavanaugh’s assurances that stop were only mildly inconvenienced and that Kavanaugh’s reasoning:
. . . improperly shifts the burden onto an entire class of citizens to carry enough documentation to provide that they deserve to walk freely. The Constitution does not permit the creation of such a second-class citizenship status.
She continues with this damning statement:
Countless people in the Los Angeles area have been grabbed, thrown to the ground, and handcuffed simply because of their looks, their accents and the fact they make a living by doing manual labor. Today, the Court needlessly subjects countless more to these exact same indignities.
CONCLUSION
Un-Judge Jones, having read the two opinions, thinks Sotomayor out-classes Kavanaugh, certainly from a debating perspective.
Kavanaugh trivializes the harm caused to legal citizens, in the frightening nature of the experience of being stopped, in time lost from work and in the sheer worry about being intercepted by immigration officials, with some people feeling the need to carry documents proving their citizenship.
On the surface, at Kavanaugh's arguments sound like "common sense," one of the phrases he uses in his opinion, but actually they seem reckless, leaving citizens unprotected from overbearing government agents.
If someone looks like an undocumented person, talks like one, shows up in places where undocumented people supposedly frequent and if they perform jobs that many undocumented persons work - well, what the heck, why not? Ignoring the majority of people who fit the profile, but are legal citizens.
I find Kavanaugh's sympathy for immigrants, and his professed commitment to judicial impartiality, to be superficial and hypocritical - but that may be unfair to him.
Sotomayor, on the other hand, seems hard-headed and properly focused on the plain reading of the Fourth Amendment in protecting all of us from improper stops. I also like her emphasis on what happens in actual cases, as opposed to what's supposed to happen. She writes:
Immigration agents are not conducting "brief stops for questions," as the concurrence would like to believe. They are seizing people using firearms, physical violence and warehouse detentions.
Nor are undocumented immigrants the only ones harmed by the Government's conduct. United States citizens are also being seized, taken from their jobs and prevented from working to support themselves and their families.
What jumped out at me was that the ruling on profiling tactics is proably not about “illegal immigrants” but about people who are U.S. citizens.
Sotomayor emphasizes that the Fourth Amendment is supposed to protect everyone, and in this case, thousands of people are being brutalized, many of them legal U.S. citizens.
Think of profiling in a different context, let's say locating potential assassins.
The criteria might include factors such as: *gun owners, *registered voters, *young males, *consumers of social media, *people with valid drivers' licenses, *folks who wear baseball caps, *weirdos who lately have been acting even more strangely than usual, *video gamers, *guys living in their parents' basements, and * people who weren't popular in school.
Rounding up thousands, even millions, of people meeting those criteria might land one or two possible assassins; or, maybe not. But, for sure you'd be bothering lots of innocent people.
Sadly, though, I don't think words matter all that much in today's Supreme Court
The ultimate decision, when the profiling case completes the appeals level and returns to the Supreme Court for a final opinion, what's "reasonable" and what's not will depend on the whims of the individual justices.
And I'm betting the justices have already made up their minds, and they'll dress up their conclusions in courtly, legal language.
Then what will matter won't be words, but numbers.
Six to three; five to four.
All of this, of course,is just Un-Judge Jones' opinion.
He very much would like to be overruled - and surprised - by the nation's highest court.
* * *
NOTE: If you'd like to read the case, here's the PDF that includes the Kavanaugh and Sotomayor opinions.
But Kavanaugh decided to give it a try, writing a “concurring” opinion. Whether his fellow conservatives – Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch and Amy Coney Barrett – agreed with his reasoning isn't clear, since they wrote nothing.
Whether it was her need to counter Kavanaugh’s statement, or the weight of the issues themselves, Sotomayor wrote a dissent, which was signed by fellow liberal justices, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson.
After reading both statements Un-Judge Jones boils things down to two items:
1. The terms of the Fourth Amendment, which says:
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
2. The meaning of the word “reasonable,” as when it’s okay to “search” or “seize” people suspected of being undocumented immigrants.
Un-Judge Jones was surprised by one element of the case: Federal law does allow immigration officers to stop and question an “alien’ or “suspected alien” about his or her legal status. But the catch is that an officer has to have a “reasonable suspicion,” based on specific facts, to do so.
Which is where the troubling profiling questions come in.
PROFILING
In their writings, the two justices largely agreed that that immigration agents had been using four factors in their hunt for undocumented immigrants:
- What did immigrant suspects look like, based on their racial and ethnic appearances?
- Did they speak English and, if so, how well?
- What places where undocumented persons were likely to gather, perhaps looking for work, like a big box store parking lot, a car wash or a bus stop?
- What kinds of jobs did undocumented workers seek, such as landscaping, construction, agriculture and day labor.
To be clear, apparent ethnicity alone cannot furnish reasonable suspicion. Under this Court’s case law regarding immigration stops, however, it can be a ‘relevant factor’ when considered along with other salient factors.
So the racial appearance alone isn't sufficient, he said. But heck, the way you look, combined with the other factors, and agents have got a suspicious character.
Sotomayor isn't buying that:
The Government, and now the concurrence (Kavanaugh) has all but declared that all Latinos, U.S. citizens or not, who work low wage jobs are fair game to be seized at any time taken away from work, and held until they provide proof of their legal status to the agents’ satisfaction.
WHATS THE BIG DEAL?
Kavanaugh describes the stops by immigration agents as being no major problem for those involved, even people who turned out to have legal status, because, at worst, the stops were momentary inconveniences. He puts it this way:
If the officers learn that the individual they stopped is a U.S. citizen or otherwise lawfully in the United States, they promptly let the individual go. If the individual is illegally in the United States, the officers may arrest the individual and initiate the process for removal.
But Sotomayor cites actual examples, including those involving U.S. citizens, that were more brutal and disruptive than Kavanaugh described.
- Jason Gavidia, “a Latino U.S. citizen,” was working on his car in a tow yard, when a masked agent asked three times whether he was an American, to which he said yes. But when Gavidia couldn’t remember the name of the hospital in which he was born, agents “racked a rifle,” took his phone, pushed him against a fence, and twisted his arm. He was released only when Gavidia produced a REAL identification, (which was not returned to him).
- *Jorge Viramontes, a citizen, managed a car wash, which immigrant agents went to four times over nine days. One of those times, an agent refused to accept Viramontes' driver’s license as proof of citizenship and drove him to a “warehouse” for 30 minutes before verifying his status and driving him back to the car wash.
Such activities in “Operation At Large,” have caused “panic and fear” in the city and surrounding communities, she writes, with some people afraid to go to work or pick up their children from school.
BY THE NUMBERS
Kavanaugh notes that illegal immigration is a huge problem in the U.S., especially in Los Angeles, where he says 10 percent of the population, or 2 million persons, are “illegal immigrants.”
Not surprisingly, given those extraordinary numbers., U .S. immigration officers have prioritized immigration enforcement in the Los Angeles area.
So having lots of undocumented people around validates the use the four profiling factors to locate and question individuals.
But it doesn’t take a math wizard to consider the “extraordinary numbers” from a different point of view: that if 10 percent of the LA population is believed to be undocumented, then 90 percent are authorized to be in the U.S.
So it’s logical that a good many of the people are being stopped for no good reason.
Sotomayor says other LA numbers argue against using the profile factors as a way to zero in on illegal immigrants.
Never mind that nearly 47 percent of the Central District's population identifies as Hispanic or Latino . . . Never mind that over 37 percent of the population of Los Angeles County speaks Spanish at home,and over 55 percent speak at language other than English.
WHAT’S “REASONABLE?”
In order to stop someone for questioning, Kavanaugh writes, immigration officials must have “a reasonable suspicion” that a person is illegally in the U.S.
So, a combination of factors does that job, he says, including the “high number” of undocumented persons in LA; the belief that undocumented folks “tend to gathering in certain locations;” that “they often work in certain kinds of jobs;” and that many “come from Mexico or Central America and do not speak much English.” Kavanaugh writes:
Under this Court’s precedents, not to mention common sense, those circumstances taken together can constitute at least reasonable suspicion of illegal residents in the United States.
Not so fast, Sotomayor counters.
It’s not reasonable to suspect individual persons of wrong doing if the factors “describes a very large category of presumably innocent people,” she writes, quoting previous cases.
In one past case, Mexican ancestry “alone did not constitute reasonable suspicion to support stops by Border Patrol agents," because large numbers of authorized persons near the border look like people with Mexican backgrounds.
She says:
The Fourth Amendment thus prohibits exactly what the Government is attempting to do here: seize individual based solely on a set of facts that ‘describes a very large category of presumably innocent’ people.
THE PROPER ROLE OF THE COURT
Kavanaugh goes to some length to say that he isn’t trying to set immigration policy, just uphold the courts’ role as fair enforcers of the Constitution and the law, as the Supreme Court has done in the past.
. . . We now likewise must decline to step outside our constitutionally assigned role to improperly restrict reasonable Executive Branch enforcement of the immigration laws.
Consistency and neutrality are hallmarks of good judging and in my view, we abide by those enduring judicial values in this case by granting the stay.
But Kavanaugh sure sounds like a policy maven, with strong views on immigration, and not positive ones, noting that "millions" of people are here illegally, and that the big numbers cause a "myriad" of social and economic problems, quoting a previous case.
Kavanaugh does take a moment to show that he's a nice guy:
To be sure, I recognize and fully appreciate that many (not all, but many) illegal immigrants come to the United States to escape poverty and the lack of freedom and opportunities in their home countries, and to make better lives for themselves and their families.
But he puts on his judicial face, noting sternly that illegal immigrants cause problems for immigrants who are doing things the right way:
. . . they are not only violating the immigration laws, but also jumping in front of those non-citizens who follow the rules and wait in line to immigrate into the United States through the legal immigration process.
Sotomayor, on the other hand, isn't debating immigration policy, but concentrates on the court’s role in enforcing the Constitution and immigration laws. The District Court’s order banning the profiling factors, she says:
. . . does not preclude the Government from enforcing the immigration laws, so long as in doing so, it stops individual based on additional facts on top of the four factors listed.
She writes that actual cases showed that legal as well as undocumented persons suffered, despite Kavanaugh’s assurances that stop were only mildly inconvenienced and that Kavanaugh’s reasoning:
. . . improperly shifts the burden onto an entire class of citizens to carry enough documentation to provide that they deserve to walk freely. The Constitution does not permit the creation of such a second-class citizenship status.
She continues with this damning statement:
Countless people in the Los Angeles area have been grabbed, thrown to the ground, and handcuffed simply because of their looks, their accents and the fact they make a living by doing manual labor. Today, the Court needlessly subjects countless more to these exact same indignities.
CONCLUSION
Un-Judge Jones, having read the two opinions, thinks Sotomayor out-classes Kavanaugh, certainly from a debating perspective.
Kavanaugh trivializes the harm caused to legal citizens, in the frightening nature of the experience of being stopped, in time lost from work and in the sheer worry about being intercepted by immigration officials, with some people feeling the need to carry documents proving their citizenship.
On the surface, at Kavanaugh's arguments sound like "common sense," one of the phrases he uses in his opinion, but actually they seem reckless, leaving citizens unprotected from overbearing government agents.
If someone looks like an undocumented person, talks like one, shows up in places where undocumented people supposedly frequent and if they perform jobs that many undocumented persons work - well, what the heck, why not? Ignoring the majority of people who fit the profile, but are legal citizens.
I find Kavanaugh's sympathy for immigrants, and his professed commitment to judicial impartiality, to be superficial and hypocritical - but that may be unfair to him.
Sotomayor, on the other hand, seems hard-headed and properly focused on the plain reading of the Fourth Amendment in protecting all of us from improper stops. I also like her emphasis on what happens in actual cases, as opposed to what's supposed to happen. She writes:
Immigration agents are not conducting "brief stops for questions," as the concurrence would like to believe. They are seizing people using firearms, physical violence and warehouse detentions.
Nor are undocumented immigrants the only ones harmed by the Government's conduct. United States citizens are also being seized, taken from their jobs and prevented from working to support themselves and their families.
What jumped out at me was that the ruling on profiling tactics is proably not about “illegal immigrants” but about people who are U.S. citizens.
Sotomayor emphasizes that the Fourth Amendment is supposed to protect everyone, and in this case, thousands of people are being brutalized, many of them legal U.S. citizens.
Think of profiling in a different context, let's say locating potential assassins.
The criteria might include factors such as: *gun owners, *registered voters, *young males, *consumers of social media, *people with valid drivers' licenses, *folks who wear baseball caps, *weirdos who lately have been acting even more strangely than usual, *video gamers, *guys living in their parents' basements, and * people who weren't popular in school.
Rounding up thousands, even millions, of people meeting those criteria might land one or two possible assassins; or, maybe not. But, for sure you'd be bothering lots of innocent people.
Sadly, though, I don't think words matter all that much in today's Supreme Court
The ultimate decision, when the profiling case completes the appeals level and returns to the Supreme Court for a final opinion, what's "reasonable" and what's not will depend on the whims of the individual justices.
And I'm betting the justices have already made up their minds, and they'll dress up their conclusions in courtly, legal language.
Then what will matter won't be words, but numbers.
Six to three; five to four.
All of this, of course,is just Un-Judge Jones' opinion.
He very much would like to be overruled - and surprised - by the nation's highest court.
* * *
NOTE: If you'd like to read the case, here's the PDF that includes the Kavanaugh and Sotomayor opinions.
THE COLLIE & THE CROW
Raising again, our enduring, elusive vision of an America united.
MEEKO AND RUSSELL, border collie and crow, in their Oregon backyard. PHOTO CREDIT: Autumn Buck, via the Washington Post
IT WAS ONE OF THOSE QUIRKY ANIMAL STORIES meant to distract us from the despair and distress of the normal news. And, now, in today's harsh political moment, it's especially welcome.
The border collie and the crow. The bird and the dog. Fast friends in the grassroots of the American Northwest.
Maybe you saw the story in last week’s Washington Post.
A young crow was injured this past June when its nest fell from an 80-foot-tall tree into the backyard of Autumn Buck and her husband, Tedd Simmons, in Portland, Oregon.
Autumn and Tedd fashioned a homemade nest for the crow, raising it six feet from the ground, and then feeding their young patient typical hospital gruel: mashed bananas and soggy kibble.
Enter Meeko, the couple’s 5-year-old border collie. With no sheep to superintend, Meeko took charge of recovery nest security, chasing away errant cats and standing guard.
The bird – now Christened “Russell” after the actor, Russell Crowe – healed, getting back use of his land legs, then learning fly.
In the meantime, a bond between bird and dog evolved and matured.
Russell took to sleeping on Meeko’s tail.
They played fetch: somebody would throw a tiny crocheted “cake;” Russell would grab it, then drop it for Meeko to retrieve. Toss Meeko a Frisbee, and Russell raced to get there first. They played “chase.” Together, they greeted the mail carrier. And in their spare time, they just hung out.
In the morning, the crow, who slept in a chestnut tree, would come to a glass door of the house, persistently pecking at the glass demanding that Meeko be let out to play.
REALLY? DID THIS HAPPEN? Is the story true? Sound too good?
Reasonable questions, and mine, too. Autumn Buck, as you can see if you can access the Post story, supplied the newspaper with bird-dog photo; and there's even some video of the duo in action.
But in today’s untamed and unreliable internet, now made even less reliable by fast-evolving artificial intelligence, who knows?
I’m choosing to believe it. Border collies are protective; crows are among the world's smartest birds.
But as far as seeing the tale as a cutesy, escapist story, I see it as a modern Aesop’s Fable, a parable about America’s long and continuing aspiration to become a nation for all of us.
GETTING ALONG IS ACTUALLY A BIBLICAL CONCEPT.
It's that lion lying down with the lamb business. The actual wording is from the Book of Isaiah, 11-6:
The wolf shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid, and the calf and the lion and the fatling together, and a little child shall lead them.
OF COURSE, THERE ARE THE COUNTRY'S FOUNDING DOCUMENTS
The Declaration of Independence put it this way in 1775:
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.
THE MOST MOVING AND ENDURING STATEMENT of American unity comes from Martin Luther King’s “I Have A Dream” speech, which, on Aug. 28, 1963, defined the civil rights movement.
I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia, sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.
* * *
I have a dream that one day down in Alabama, with its vicious racists, with its governor having his lips dripping with the words of interposition and nullification, one day, right down in Alabama, little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and
brothers.
I have a dream today.
A little more than four years later, King was assassinated, perhaps as much as punishment and rejection for his vision, as from the impact of his murder’s bullet.
ANOTHER MAN NAMED KING took up the theme more that two decades later.
Rodney Glen King wondered why people from different backgrounds and viewpoints couldn’t see eye to eye.
King had been stopped by Los Angeles police for drunk driving and was videotaped as he was savagely beaten. Officers were charged, never convicted, and that outcome produced six days of riots, in which 63 people were killed.
On May 1, 1992, Rodney King made a TV appeal that the rioting stop:
I just want to say – you know – can we, can we all get along? Can we, can we get along? Can we stop making it horrible for the older people and the kids?
* * *
It's just not right, because those people will never go home to their families again. And, I mean, please, we can, we can get along here. We all can get along. We just gotta. We gotta. I mean, we're all stuck here for a while. Let's, you know, let's try to work it out. Let's try to beat it, you know. Let's try to work it out.
Rodney King, who had confronted substance abuse throughout his life, drowned in his swimming pool in 2012, his death ruled accidental, with drugs and alcohol said to be contributing factors.
THE UNITY THEME WAS PICKED UP AGAIN, when Barack Obama, then an Illinois state senator, addressed the Democratic National Convention in Boston, July 27, 2004.
In his version of a common community, Obama rejected political, racial and cultural divisions.
. . . there is not a liberal America and a conservative America — there is the United States of America.
There is not a black America and a white America and Latino America and Asian America — there's the United States of America.
The pundits like to slice-and-dice our country into Red States and Blue States; Red States for Republicans, Blue States for Democrats.
But I've got news for them, too: We worship an awesome God in the Blue States, and we don't like federal agents poking around in our libraries in the Red States. We coach Little League in the Blue States, and, yes, we've got some gay friends in the Red States.
The speech propelled Obama into the presidency, the first person of color to hold the nation’s highest office. Obama served two terms, from 2009 to 2017. And it seemed as if Obama’s vision and those of the two Kings and of the Bible’s prophets, and of the Founders, finally had been realized.
My opinion is the opposite – that America could not countenance a Black man in the White House, and savagely, that formed the basis for Donald Trump, a racist, to be elected president. Twice.
Trump, a man of unbounded hatred, now is tearing the country to pieces by setting all of us apart – Black, White, girl, boy, liberal, conservative, red state, blue state, rich, poor, college graduate, high school graduate, urban, rural, Native American, immigrant American.
Never have we been more divided since the Civil war, and maybe the divisions today are even deeper than during a period when our differences were so profound: slave versus free man/woman.
But I also think the prophecy, the dream, the vision, the plea for unity will live on until they become a fact, in practice as well as in principle.
We can get along. Our superficial differences do not define us. At a time of environmental collapse, in fact, we creatures have the same interest in our mutual survival, and more in common, than our remarkable differences.
I mean, if the bird and the dog, the collie and the crow, can do it, why can't the rest of us do the same?
The border collie and the crow. The bird and the dog. Fast friends in the grassroots of the American Northwest.
Maybe you saw the story in last week’s Washington Post.
A young crow was injured this past June when its nest fell from an 80-foot-tall tree into the backyard of Autumn Buck and her husband, Tedd Simmons, in Portland, Oregon.
Autumn and Tedd fashioned a homemade nest for the crow, raising it six feet from the ground, and then feeding their young patient typical hospital gruel: mashed bananas and soggy kibble.
Enter Meeko, the couple’s 5-year-old border collie. With no sheep to superintend, Meeko took charge of recovery nest security, chasing away errant cats and standing guard.
The bird – now Christened “Russell” after the actor, Russell Crowe – healed, getting back use of his land legs, then learning fly.
In the meantime, a bond between bird and dog evolved and matured.
Russell took to sleeping on Meeko’s tail.
They played fetch: somebody would throw a tiny crocheted “cake;” Russell would grab it, then drop it for Meeko to retrieve. Toss Meeko a Frisbee, and Russell raced to get there first. They played “chase.” Together, they greeted the mail carrier. And in their spare time, they just hung out.
In the morning, the crow, who slept in a chestnut tree, would come to a glass door of the house, persistently pecking at the glass demanding that Meeko be let out to play.
REALLY? DID THIS HAPPEN? Is the story true? Sound too good?
Reasonable questions, and mine, too. Autumn Buck, as you can see if you can access the Post story, supplied the newspaper with bird-dog photo; and there's even some video of the duo in action.
But in today’s untamed and unreliable internet, now made even less reliable by fast-evolving artificial intelligence, who knows?
I’m choosing to believe it. Border collies are protective; crows are among the world's smartest birds.
But as far as seeing the tale as a cutesy, escapist story, I see it as a modern Aesop’s Fable, a parable about America’s long and continuing aspiration to become a nation for all of us.
GETTING ALONG IS ACTUALLY A BIBLICAL CONCEPT.
It's that lion lying down with the lamb business. The actual wording is from the Book of Isaiah, 11-6:
The wolf shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid, and the calf and the lion and the fatling together, and a little child shall lead them.
OF COURSE, THERE ARE THE COUNTRY'S FOUNDING DOCUMENTS
The Declaration of Independence put it this way in 1775:
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.
THE MOST MOVING AND ENDURING STATEMENT of American unity comes from Martin Luther King’s “I Have A Dream” speech, which, on Aug. 28, 1963, defined the civil rights movement.
I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia, sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.
* * *
I have a dream that one day down in Alabama, with its vicious racists, with its governor having his lips dripping with the words of interposition and nullification, one day, right down in Alabama, little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and
brothers.
I have a dream today.
A little more than four years later, King was assassinated, perhaps as much as punishment and rejection for his vision, as from the impact of his murder’s bullet.
ANOTHER MAN NAMED KING took up the theme more that two decades later.
Rodney Glen King wondered why people from different backgrounds and viewpoints couldn’t see eye to eye.
King had been stopped by Los Angeles police for drunk driving and was videotaped as he was savagely beaten. Officers were charged, never convicted, and that outcome produced six days of riots, in which 63 people were killed.
On May 1, 1992, Rodney King made a TV appeal that the rioting stop:
I just want to say – you know – can we, can we all get along? Can we, can we get along? Can we stop making it horrible for the older people and the kids?
* * *
It's just not right, because those people will never go home to their families again. And, I mean, please, we can, we can get along here. We all can get along. We just gotta. We gotta. I mean, we're all stuck here for a while. Let's, you know, let's try to work it out. Let's try to beat it, you know. Let's try to work it out.
Rodney King, who had confronted substance abuse throughout his life, drowned in his swimming pool in 2012, his death ruled accidental, with drugs and alcohol said to be contributing factors.
THE UNITY THEME WAS PICKED UP AGAIN, when Barack Obama, then an Illinois state senator, addressed the Democratic National Convention in Boston, July 27, 2004.
In his version of a common community, Obama rejected political, racial and cultural divisions.
. . . there is not a liberal America and a conservative America — there is the United States of America.
There is not a black America and a white America and Latino America and Asian America — there's the United States of America.
The pundits like to slice-and-dice our country into Red States and Blue States; Red States for Republicans, Blue States for Democrats.
But I've got news for them, too: We worship an awesome God in the Blue States, and we don't like federal agents poking around in our libraries in the Red States. We coach Little League in the Blue States, and, yes, we've got some gay friends in the Red States.
The speech propelled Obama into the presidency, the first person of color to hold the nation’s highest office. Obama served two terms, from 2009 to 2017. And it seemed as if Obama’s vision and those of the two Kings and of the Bible’s prophets, and of the Founders, finally had been realized.
My opinion is the opposite – that America could not countenance a Black man in the White House, and savagely, that formed the basis for Donald Trump, a racist, to be elected president. Twice.
Trump, a man of unbounded hatred, now is tearing the country to pieces by setting all of us apart – Black, White, girl, boy, liberal, conservative, red state, blue state, rich, poor, college graduate, high school graduate, urban, rural, Native American, immigrant American.
Never have we been more divided since the Civil war, and maybe the divisions today are even deeper than during a period when our differences were so profound: slave versus free man/woman.
But I also think the prophecy, the dream, the vision, the plea for unity will live on until they become a fact, in practice as well as in principle.
We can get along. Our superficial differences do not define us. At a time of environmental collapse, in fact, we creatures have the same interest in our mutual survival, and more in common, than our remarkable differences.
I mean, if the bird and the dog, the collie and the crow, can do it, why can't the rest of us do the same?
DEPARTMENT OF NAMES
Get out your erasers and Sharpies as we align titles and names with our nation’s goals and philosophies.
 THE WHITE HOUSE |  THE GOLD HOUSE |
ON JUNE 5, PRESIDENT TRUMP signed an executive order moving to change the name of the Department of Defense to the Department of War.
The text of the order said that change “… demonstrates our ability and willingness to fight and win wars on behalf of our Nation at a moment’s notice, not just to defend.”
In comments at the signing, Trump said the move actually restores a title that had been used until after World War II, when, in his telling, the country “decided to go woke” and stopped winning wars.
That version of history would have surprised the only man who has ordered the destruction of two cities with atomic bombs, President Harry Truman, who later went on to change “war” to “defense.”
“We could have won every war, but we really chose to be very politically correct, or wokey, and we just fight forever.” said Trump, who has long been suspected of dodging the draft during his student years.
My wife points out another irony, since among the honors that Trump seems to covet is the Nobel Peace Prize, a concept that seems at war with the military department's new title.
In any case, the War Department designation got me thinking – and I’m sure a lot of people, too – about other changes that better fit with Trump’s vision for America.
HERE’S A FEW OF MY SUGGESTIONS. Some need just a syllable or two added or subtracted; others. a word or two, here or there.
CURRENT NAME: The White House.
PROPOSED NAME: The Gold House.
This would fit in with Trump’s executive mansion makeover, plastering gold leaf over the Oval Office and other historic areas, converting the Rose Garden to a patio, adding a convention wing, with the goal of recreating a Washington version of the original American Dream home, Mara-a-Logo
CURRENT NAME : Department of Health and Human Services
PROPOSED NAME: Department of Death and Inhumane Services
Carries out Director R. F. Kennedy’s vision of how to make America sick again by discouraging vaccine use and by cutting cutting-edge medical research, while implementing the Big Beautiful Bill’s reductions to Medicaid, which are sure to be followed by reductions in Medicare and Social Security benefits to both able and disabled Americans of all ages. A political question: will people who are sick and dying be allowed to vote?
CURRENT NAME: Department of Energy
PROPOSED NAME: Department of Fossil Fuels
Implements the president’s vision of a nation free of wind and solar power in favor of oil and natural gas, along with the Great Coal Revival. “Our planet got started with a Big Bang," the president said, reading from prepared remarks. "Let’s see if it ends the same way.”
CURRENT NAME: Harvard University
PROPOSED NAME: Trump University
“I ask you,” the president exclaimed at a signing of an agreement between the Administration and the nation’s most esteemed university, “shouldn’t higher education reform be about more than money? Of course not: money trumps everything. But the 'Art of the Deal' says if you can get all of Harvard’s endowment, plus a meaningful name change, go for it. And I’m sure you won’t be surprised to know that the president of the Trump University and the United States of America WILL BE ONE IN THE SAME. Thank you for your attention.”
CURRENT NAME: Environmental Protection Agency
PROPOSED NAME: Environmental Pollution Agency
(See Department of Fossil Fuels)
CURRENT NAME: Department of Housing and Urban Development
PROPOSED NAME: Department of Unhousing and Urban Disparagement
“I would have preferred 'The Department of Homelessness,'" Trump said at the signing. "But I wanted to keep the gullible liberals guessing about whether I’m going woke. But don’t you worry, whether we increase the number of homeless people or number of unhoused people, we'll need to call out more of the National Guard to protect our wretched cities from the poorest and most helpless.”
CURRENT NAME: Department of Homeland Security
PROPOSED NAME: Department of Homeland Insecurity
No explanation needed. Masked, unidentified thugs with dubious police powers snatching people off the streets and stuffing them into unmarked SUVs and sending them to secret detention centers before deporting them to countries with names most of us can’t spell: Makes it hard to get good night’s sleep, then to wake up to a nightmare that turns out not to be a dream.
CURRENT NAME: Department of Justice
PROPOSED NAME: Department of Injustice
Another no explanation needed. On his first day in office, Trump granted pardons and/or clemency to about 1,600 people convicted or suspected of taking part in the Jan. 6 insurrection at the Capitol in 2021. Later, his DOI went after people involved in those prosecutions or who otherwise offended the president. Bringing criminals to justice in America has always been iffy; now, it's that much harder to tell the bad guys from the good guys, assuming there still are good guys.
CURRENT NAME: Department of Labor
PROPOSED NAME: Department of Unorganized Labor
“I mean, how stupid does a union guy (or gal) have to be to have voted for me, and any other Republican,” Trump said while signing the executive order. “Talk about un-enlightened self interest.”
CURRENT NAME: Federal Bureau of Investigation
PROPOSED NAME: Federal Bureau of Intrusion
(See Department of Injustice, Department of Homeland Insecurity).
CURRENT NAME: Central Intelligence Agency
PROPOSED NAME: Central Ignorance Agency
The CIA has long been a mixed blessing. We need spies to know what other countries are up to; but the agency has long been a mechanism for international meddling. "Now, the perceived danger is that in the past, the CIA came up with actual facts. Trust me, facts no longer matter.”
CURRENT NAME: Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives
PROPOSED NAME: Bureau for the Promotion of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives
“It’s time we accelerated the development, possession and use of substances and mechanisms that maim and kill and that generally are bad for the human body,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “This change reflects core values of this Administration.”
CURRENT NAME: John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts
PROPOSED NAME: Donald J. Trump Center for the Performing Arts
But you knew that was coming.
CURRENT NAME: National Portrait Gallery
PROPOSED NAME: National Portrait Gallery
Same name, but a new Permanent Exhibit: Featuring photographs, paintings and Time magazine covers of Donald J. Trump through the 20th and 21st Centuries.
CURRENT NAME: Library of Congress
PROPOSED NAME: None
We closed the place.
CURRENT NAME: United States of America
PROPOSED NAME: Disunited States of America
The text of the order said that change “… demonstrates our ability and willingness to fight and win wars on behalf of our Nation at a moment’s notice, not just to defend.”
In comments at the signing, Trump said the move actually restores a title that had been used until after World War II, when, in his telling, the country “decided to go woke” and stopped winning wars.
That version of history would have surprised the only man who has ordered the destruction of two cities with atomic bombs, President Harry Truman, who later went on to change “war” to “defense.”
“We could have won every war, but we really chose to be very politically correct, or wokey, and we just fight forever.” said Trump, who has long been suspected of dodging the draft during his student years.
My wife points out another irony, since among the honors that Trump seems to covet is the Nobel Peace Prize, a concept that seems at war with the military department's new title.
In any case, the War Department designation got me thinking – and I’m sure a lot of people, too – about other changes that better fit with Trump’s vision for America.
HERE’S A FEW OF MY SUGGESTIONS. Some need just a syllable or two added or subtracted; others. a word or two, here or there.
CURRENT NAME: The White House.
PROPOSED NAME: The Gold House.
This would fit in with Trump’s executive mansion makeover, plastering gold leaf over the Oval Office and other historic areas, converting the Rose Garden to a patio, adding a convention wing, with the goal of recreating a Washington version of the original American Dream home, Mara-a-Logo
CURRENT NAME : Department of Health and Human Services
PROPOSED NAME: Department of Death and Inhumane Services
Carries out Director R. F. Kennedy’s vision of how to make America sick again by discouraging vaccine use and by cutting cutting-edge medical research, while implementing the Big Beautiful Bill’s reductions to Medicaid, which are sure to be followed by reductions in Medicare and Social Security benefits to both able and disabled Americans of all ages. A political question: will people who are sick and dying be allowed to vote?
CURRENT NAME: Department of Energy
PROPOSED NAME: Department of Fossil Fuels
Implements the president’s vision of a nation free of wind and solar power in favor of oil and natural gas, along with the Great Coal Revival. “Our planet got started with a Big Bang," the president said, reading from prepared remarks. "Let’s see if it ends the same way.”
CURRENT NAME: Harvard University
PROPOSED NAME: Trump University
“I ask you,” the president exclaimed at a signing of an agreement between the Administration and the nation’s most esteemed university, “shouldn’t higher education reform be about more than money? Of course not: money trumps everything. But the 'Art of the Deal' says if you can get all of Harvard’s endowment, plus a meaningful name change, go for it. And I’m sure you won’t be surprised to know that the president of the Trump University and the United States of America WILL BE ONE IN THE SAME. Thank you for your attention.”
CURRENT NAME: Environmental Protection Agency
PROPOSED NAME: Environmental Pollution Agency
(See Department of Fossil Fuels)
CURRENT NAME: Department of Housing and Urban Development
PROPOSED NAME: Department of Unhousing and Urban Disparagement
“I would have preferred 'The Department of Homelessness,'" Trump said at the signing. "But I wanted to keep the gullible liberals guessing about whether I’m going woke. But don’t you worry, whether we increase the number of homeless people or number of unhoused people, we'll need to call out more of the National Guard to protect our wretched cities from the poorest and most helpless.”
CURRENT NAME: Department of Homeland Security
PROPOSED NAME: Department of Homeland Insecurity
No explanation needed. Masked, unidentified thugs with dubious police powers snatching people off the streets and stuffing them into unmarked SUVs and sending them to secret detention centers before deporting them to countries with names most of us can’t spell: Makes it hard to get good night’s sleep, then to wake up to a nightmare that turns out not to be a dream.
CURRENT NAME: Department of Justice
PROPOSED NAME: Department of Injustice
Another no explanation needed. On his first day in office, Trump granted pardons and/or clemency to about 1,600 people convicted or suspected of taking part in the Jan. 6 insurrection at the Capitol in 2021. Later, his DOI went after people involved in those prosecutions or who otherwise offended the president. Bringing criminals to justice in America has always been iffy; now, it's that much harder to tell the bad guys from the good guys, assuming there still are good guys.
CURRENT NAME: Department of Labor
PROPOSED NAME: Department of Unorganized Labor
“I mean, how stupid does a union guy (or gal) have to be to have voted for me, and any other Republican,” Trump said while signing the executive order. “Talk about un-enlightened self interest.”
CURRENT NAME: Federal Bureau of Investigation
PROPOSED NAME: Federal Bureau of Intrusion
(See Department of Injustice, Department of Homeland Insecurity).
CURRENT NAME: Central Intelligence Agency
PROPOSED NAME: Central Ignorance Agency
The CIA has long been a mixed blessing. We need spies to know what other countries are up to; but the agency has long been a mechanism for international meddling. "Now, the perceived danger is that in the past, the CIA came up with actual facts. Trust me, facts no longer matter.”
CURRENT NAME: Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives
PROPOSED NAME: Bureau for the Promotion of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives
“It’s time we accelerated the development, possession and use of substances and mechanisms that maim and kill and that generally are bad for the human body,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “This change reflects core values of this Administration.”
CURRENT NAME: John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts
PROPOSED NAME: Donald J. Trump Center for the Performing Arts
But you knew that was coming.
CURRENT NAME: National Portrait Gallery
PROPOSED NAME: National Portrait Gallery
Same name, but a new Permanent Exhibit: Featuring photographs, paintings and Time magazine covers of Donald J. Trump through the 20th and 21st Centuries.
CURRENT NAME: Library of Congress
PROPOSED NAME: None
We closed the place.
CURRENT NAME: United States of America
PROPOSED NAME: Disunited States of America
AN EPOCH OF MISERY
Engineered by the nation’s criminal-at-the-top
THE NATIONAL GUARD at Washington D.C.'s Union Station. CREDIT: Department of Defense
IN ALASKA, seasoned dictator with apprentice dictator. CREDIT: White House video I’M NOT GIVING UP, and I hope the rest of us aren’t, either.
But these are miserable times. They are hard, painful, exhausting and relentless.
We are ensnared in Donald Trump’s Epoch of Misery.
Every day, no matter the time and day of the week,there’s a new barrage of cruel, destructive and shattering assaults on the American character, our experiment in democracy, our aspiration to be just, creative, decent and loving.
It’s because there’s a criminal in charge of an entire country – our country, our America, our United States of America – and that crook at the top is out to get us – all of us.
We are in a moment when a merciless, murderous, malevolent mind is stalking our collective and individual lives.
It never sleeps, never takes a day off, never goes on vacation, never misses a beat in its ceaseless crusade to ravage the sacred mystery of what makes us decent, good and human.
August, the last full chapter of summer, has been particularly savage.
There was the red carpet meeting in Alaska between the seasoned dictator and the apprentice dictator that pretended to be focused on ending the Ukraine war, but was really just a chance for two mean guys to be mean together.
There's the still evolving invasion of Washington by the National Guard, plus agents of “law” enforcement, dispatched on the pretext of cleaning up crime in Washington, D.C. – orchestrated by the criminal-at-the-top.
Imagine, soldiers, military vehicles, patrolling the streets and parks of our capital city. The National Guard is supposed to protect citizens from enemies aboard, and rescue them from disasters at home. The Guard is populated by our neighbors, our brothers and sisters, our friends and work colleagues.
Now, these folks are dispatched on a new mission: to terrify us, to arrest us, maybe shoot us, but for the time being, to get us used to the idea that if we get out of line – protest, express our freedom of speech rights, display a sign with the wrong picture or slogan – that Guard will follow orders and do whatever it takes to shut us up.
Next deployment, Chicago. But maybe Baltimore is closer. Then onto New York. Any place that votes Democratic, and better still, has a Black mayor and lots of Black citizens, because the criminal-at-the-top, in addition to being a bully, an extortionist, a cheat and a liar, is, at heart, a racist.
BY NOW WE KNOW THE WORST PART OF ANY DAY is waking up to nightmare headlines about the fresh Miseries engineered the previous day by the criminal-at-the-top.
But a couple of mornings ago, Misery got off to a particularly early, “breaking news” start, with live video of the FBI searching the home of one of the people the criminal-at-the-top hates the most (which is saying something), John Bolton.
JOHN BOLTON CREDIT: Gage Skidmore
Bolton is the man with the funny mustache who is disliked throughout the spectrum of good and evil, who was once Trump’s national security advisor, but later turned out to be an eloquent and compulsive Trump critic.
The 7 a.m. searches of Bolton’s home and his office were both a smack down of a Trump enemy, but more importantly, a demonstration that no man or woman is beyond the reach of the criminal-at-the-top.
Indeed, a onetime Trump White House lawyer, Ty Cobb, joked that when he learned of the Bolton search, “I went down and locked my door.”
To prove the point, Trump over the weekend suggested that maybe his Department of Injustice should take a look at another friend-turned-enemy, former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie.
Christie’s perceived crime was the moldy Bridgegate Scandal, which is too old and complicated to go into here. But Christie’s actual offense was mouthing off on the TV Sunday talk shows, suggesting that the Bolton searches could be a result of Trump’s politicized Department of Justice. Later, Trump got in the last word, noting that Christie is a “slob” and “everybody knows it.”
AN EXAMPLE OF PROLONGED TRUMPIAN MISERY was yesterday’s chapter in the saga of Kilmar Armando Ábrego Garcia.
He’s the immigrant illegally sent to a notorious El Salvadoran prison, eventually returned to the U.S., subsequently imprisoned, freed for several days, then scooped up again yesterday when he checked in – as he was required to – with federal officials. The new plan, deport him to Uganda, a move put on hold – last we heard – by a federal judge. The lesson being, if not “resistance is futile,” at least “you better have a lawyer or a whole bunch of lawyers on speed dial.”
Closer to home for me in tiny Rhode Island, the Misery Epoch last Friday halted construction of a big ocean wind farm off the coast. Forty-five of Revolution Wind’s 65 turbines already have been completed.
The project is supposed to produce enough power to light up 350,000 homes in Rhode Island and Connecticut, and is a big part of the littlest state’s effort to limit climate change and create jobs.
But the criminal-at-the-top doesn’t like “windmills,” preferring energy from climate-wrecking fossil fuels. State and federal officials were fighting to reverse the stop-work order.
Moving from the tiniest state to one of the biggest, Texas, Republicans, like all Republicans everywhere, did as they were told by the criminal-at-the-top. The don’t mess with Texans moved to prevent a Democratic takeover of the House in the mid-term elections by creating five new Republican-heavy House districts.
This morning’s wake-up news was that Trump says he’s moving to fire Lisa Cook from the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve, part of his drive to take over the supposedly independent central bank. Note that she is Black and a woman, two categories detested by the criminal-at-the-top.
ENOUGH, YOU ARE SAYING. Just stop. Too much. Shut up. Zip it, please.
Indeed, I’m not telling you anything you don’t know – which is that August isn’t over and neither is the Epoch of Misery. There’s always September and then the next three years.
The point is, and I expect that you know this, too, is that the criminal-at-the-top is only getting started and that the Misery Epoch will get worse, much, much worse.
In D.C., for example, I think Trump is trying ratchet up the Misery, trying to create “an incident” in which he can really crack down, maybe declare martial law and maybe not just in Washington.
My guess is that’s why the National Guard is now carrying guns; why Trump issued an executive order make burning the American flag a crime even though the Supreme Court once said it isn’t; why Trump is suggesting removal of no-cash bail - anything to make the DC crackdown more tense, more unstable, more explosive.
The 7 a.m. searches of Bolton’s home and his office were both a smack down of a Trump enemy, but more importantly, a demonstration that no man or woman is beyond the reach of the criminal-at-the-top.
Indeed, a onetime Trump White House lawyer, Ty Cobb, joked that when he learned of the Bolton search, “I went down and locked my door.”
To prove the point, Trump over the weekend suggested that maybe his Department of Injustice should take a look at another friend-turned-enemy, former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie.
Christie’s perceived crime was the moldy Bridgegate Scandal, which is too old and complicated to go into here. But Christie’s actual offense was mouthing off on the TV Sunday talk shows, suggesting that the Bolton searches could be a result of Trump’s politicized Department of Justice. Later, Trump got in the last word, noting that Christie is a “slob” and “everybody knows it.”
AN EXAMPLE OF PROLONGED TRUMPIAN MISERY was yesterday’s chapter in the saga of Kilmar Armando Ábrego Garcia.
He’s the immigrant illegally sent to a notorious El Salvadoran prison, eventually returned to the U.S., subsequently imprisoned, freed for several days, then scooped up again yesterday when he checked in – as he was required to – with federal officials. The new plan, deport him to Uganda, a move put on hold – last we heard – by a federal judge. The lesson being, if not “resistance is futile,” at least “you better have a lawyer or a whole bunch of lawyers on speed dial.”
Closer to home for me in tiny Rhode Island, the Misery Epoch last Friday halted construction of a big ocean wind farm off the coast. Forty-five of Revolution Wind’s 65 turbines already have been completed.
The project is supposed to produce enough power to light up 350,000 homes in Rhode Island and Connecticut, and is a big part of the littlest state’s effort to limit climate change and create jobs.
But the criminal-at-the-top doesn’t like “windmills,” preferring energy from climate-wrecking fossil fuels. State and federal officials were fighting to reverse the stop-work order.
Moving from the tiniest state to one of the biggest, Texas, Republicans, like all Republicans everywhere, did as they were told by the criminal-at-the-top. The don’t mess with Texans moved to prevent a Democratic takeover of the House in the mid-term elections by creating five new Republican-heavy House districts.
This morning’s wake-up news was that Trump says he’s moving to fire Lisa Cook from the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve, part of his drive to take over the supposedly independent central bank. Note that she is Black and a woman, two categories detested by the criminal-at-the-top.
ENOUGH, YOU ARE SAYING. Just stop. Too much. Shut up. Zip it, please.
Indeed, I’m not telling you anything you don’t know – which is that August isn’t over and neither is the Epoch of Misery. There’s always September and then the next three years.
The point is, and I expect that you know this, too, is that the criminal-at-the-top is only getting started and that the Misery Epoch will get worse, much, much worse.
In D.C., for example, I think Trump is trying ratchet up the Misery, trying to create “an incident” in which he can really crack down, maybe declare martial law and maybe not just in Washington.
My guess is that’s why the National Guard is now carrying guns; why Trump issued an executive order make burning the American flag a crime even though the Supreme Court once said it isn’t; why Trump is suggesting removal of no-cash bail - anything to make the DC crackdown more tense, more unstable, more explosive.
ENGINEER of the Epoch of Misery, the criminal-at-the-top. CREDIT: Gage Skidmore
Trump eventually, maybe sooner than eventually, will try to militarize more Democratic cities.
Trump will try to use that militarization to quell protests.
Trump will try to use facilities created for deportable immigrants to lock up national security risk protesters.
Trump will try use the Internet, AI and so forth to track what we write, what we read, what we say, and criminalize all three.
Which is why it is so important to keep speaking out, to go to rallies and protests, to support the John Boltons, the Kilmar Garcias and the Chris Christies, not because we like them, but because, like them, we are all at the same risk of a government under control of a criminal-at-the-top.
The only way to bring an end to the Epoch of Misery is for people of good will to bring it to an end. I don’t know how, don’t know exactly what to do. I can’t tell you what will work and what won’t.
It’s not an easy fight. But it’s ours.
Trump will try to use that militarization to quell protests.
Trump will try to use facilities created for deportable immigrants to lock up national security risk protesters.
Trump will try use the Internet, AI and so forth to track what we write, what we read, what we say, and criminalize all three.
Which is why it is so important to keep speaking out, to go to rallies and protests, to support the John Boltons, the Kilmar Garcias and the Chris Christies, not because we like them, but because, like them, we are all at the same risk of a government under control of a criminal-at-the-top.
The only way to bring an end to the Epoch of Misery is for people of good will to bring it to an end. I don’t know how, don’t know exactly what to do. I can’t tell you what will work and what won’t.
It’s not an easy fight. But it’s ours.
Guest Essay
TAKING TO THE STREETS
HOW EFFECTIVE ARE REGULAR PROTESTS
AT COUNTERING TRUMP'S WAR ON AMERICA?
ONE OF THE COMPLAINTS I hear most often is that Americans aren’t standing up to the cruel and destructive policies cascading from Donald Trump’s second administration.
“Why are people ignoring the fill-in-the-blank outrage of the moment: Medicare cuts, food stamp curbs, immigrant kidnappings and deportations, extortion of colleges, law firms and other institutions?”
Of course, millions of people are turning to the streets.
In my hometown, Newport, R.I., a “Bridge Brigade” is sponsored by the Newport Democratic City Committee and allies at the big Newport Bridge interchange every other week. There was a big turnout on “No Kings Day” back in June. There are, in fact, lots of demonstrations.
But do they have an impact? Have they become so common that they are little more than barely noticed wall paper? Do they feature the same folks, mostly elderly? In short, what's the point?
A friend, Maria Johnson, of Middletown, Conn., examines the plusses and minuses of regular protests in an essay published recently in the Hartford Courant. She’s given me permission to reprint it here.
Why We March
By Maria Johnson
I AM WRITING THIS exactly six months into Donald J. Trump’s presidency. That means – I did the math – there are still three and a half years left to go. Sigh. How are we gonna make it?
My unscientific survey – basically, of my friends and myself – reveals that four out of four people have had it, man. We’re tired, cranky, restless. Fed up.
We avoid the news, gripe to each other about whatever news seeps out, and share snarky posts.
And still, we suffer.
Nothing left to do but take to the streets. Put our bodies on the line. We make protest signs, some of them serious, referencing Germany in the ’30s; some of them funny (“Only Elvis is King”), and we stand at busy intersections, where passing cars mostly honk their support.
Are we saving democracy? That’s doubtful. Are we saving ourselves? More likely.
“I do it for myself,” said my art teacher friend Mary who protests weekly in Burlington, VT. “I cannot do nothing.”
Ed McKuen, one of the organizers of the weekly protests here in Middletown, said the aim is “to make people think. When they see their neighbors standing on the corner to protest what’s going on in Washington and when they see the messages people are holding up, we hope that they will think about it, maybe join us or get involved.”
Another fellow protester said she’s out there “because otherwise I fall into despair. It’s good to be around people who think and act the way I do. It kind of keeps you going.”
I get it. I protest to feel better, too, but I fear the serotonin may be wearing off. At yesterday’s protest, for example, I got into a dustup with a regular pedestrian at the crosswalk. Our exchange began benignly enough when he observed how consistently our group shows up. How long have we been doing this? he asked.
I’d joined the movement when it was already months in progress, so I wasn’t sure, but I pointed out Ed McKuen – “He would know.”
“Oh, the communist?” said the guy, and I, so brimming with the Kumbaya spirit of the sunny morning, mistakenly believed he was making a joke about what the other team thinks of us.
“Yep, we’re all communists,” I said.
Then the man made himself better understood. He said that, admittedly, Trump can be hard to take, but “at least he’s getting things done.”
Uh-oh. Getting things done?! That’s it, I told him, we’re done talking.
“Oh, because we disagree?”
Well, since he put it that way, yes.
What I couldn’t think to say in the moment is that what Trump’s “getting done” is dismantling democracy, cruelly depriving people of health care and a secure retirement, enlisting masked goons to pull innocent people off the street and deporting them to foreign jails, gutting or eliminating the government agencies that keep us safe and our children well-educated, turning on our allies, including Canada – Canada! – and generally making America a laughingstock around the world.
Disgusted, I said, “Why don’t you talk to my friend over here who has patience with people like you?” I pointed to my optimistic pal, Phoebe, who, unlike myself, actually believes she can change MAGA minds through the power of a civil conversation.
“Or else,” I said, changing the subject, “we can admire these lovely flowers here,” and I took a step toward a concrete planter abounding with pink and yellow petunias.
“Don’t come at me!” the guy said, as if I wielded a knife.
Come at him? And they call us libs snowflakes. I was seething with anger as he finally walked away down the sidewalk.
There was yet more drama to come – and from someone on our side!
I had approached a woman standing alone apart from the group. I told her I was going to write an essay about our protests and asked why she was out here today.
“It’s an opportunity to get …” she began, then stopped. “Are you recording me?”
It seemed an odd question considering I was holding my cellphone an inch from her mouth and had no notebook in which to record her response. I said yes, I was, and she gave me a good scolding for not saying so ahead of time.
What the …? O-kay, I said, backing away. Fine. I won’t use you. And I headed across the street, inwardly repeating my new mantra: “Fewer people, more painting.”
“Why are people ignoring the fill-in-the-blank outrage of the moment: Medicare cuts, food stamp curbs, immigrant kidnappings and deportations, extortion of colleges, law firms and other institutions?”
Of course, millions of people are turning to the streets.
In my hometown, Newport, R.I., a “Bridge Brigade” is sponsored by the Newport Democratic City Committee and allies at the big Newport Bridge interchange every other week. There was a big turnout on “No Kings Day” back in June. There are, in fact, lots of demonstrations.
But do they have an impact? Have they become so common that they are little more than barely noticed wall paper? Do they feature the same folks, mostly elderly? In short, what's the point?
A friend, Maria Johnson, of Middletown, Conn., examines the plusses and minuses of regular protests in an essay published recently in the Hartford Courant. She’s given me permission to reprint it here.
Why We March
By Maria Johnson
I AM WRITING THIS exactly six months into Donald J. Trump’s presidency. That means – I did the math – there are still three and a half years left to go. Sigh. How are we gonna make it?
My unscientific survey – basically, of my friends and myself – reveals that four out of four people have had it, man. We’re tired, cranky, restless. Fed up.
We avoid the news, gripe to each other about whatever news seeps out, and share snarky posts.
And still, we suffer.
Nothing left to do but take to the streets. Put our bodies on the line. We make protest signs, some of them serious, referencing Germany in the ’30s; some of them funny (“Only Elvis is King”), and we stand at busy intersections, where passing cars mostly honk their support.
Are we saving democracy? That’s doubtful. Are we saving ourselves? More likely.
“I do it for myself,” said my art teacher friend Mary who protests weekly in Burlington, VT. “I cannot do nothing.”
Ed McKuen, one of the organizers of the weekly protests here in Middletown, said the aim is “to make people think. When they see their neighbors standing on the corner to protest what’s going on in Washington and when they see the messages people are holding up, we hope that they will think about it, maybe join us or get involved.”
Another fellow protester said she’s out there “because otherwise I fall into despair. It’s good to be around people who think and act the way I do. It kind of keeps you going.”
I get it. I protest to feel better, too, but I fear the serotonin may be wearing off. At yesterday’s protest, for example, I got into a dustup with a regular pedestrian at the crosswalk. Our exchange began benignly enough when he observed how consistently our group shows up. How long have we been doing this? he asked.
I’d joined the movement when it was already months in progress, so I wasn’t sure, but I pointed out Ed McKuen – “He would know.”
“Oh, the communist?” said the guy, and I, so brimming with the Kumbaya spirit of the sunny morning, mistakenly believed he was making a joke about what the other team thinks of us.
“Yep, we’re all communists,” I said.
Then the man made himself better understood. He said that, admittedly, Trump can be hard to take, but “at least he’s getting things done.”
Uh-oh. Getting things done?! That’s it, I told him, we’re done talking.
“Oh, because we disagree?”
Well, since he put it that way, yes.
What I couldn’t think to say in the moment is that what Trump’s “getting done” is dismantling democracy, cruelly depriving people of health care and a secure retirement, enlisting masked goons to pull innocent people off the street and deporting them to foreign jails, gutting or eliminating the government agencies that keep us safe and our children well-educated, turning on our allies, including Canada – Canada! – and generally making America a laughingstock around the world.
Disgusted, I said, “Why don’t you talk to my friend over here who has patience with people like you?” I pointed to my optimistic pal, Phoebe, who, unlike myself, actually believes she can change MAGA minds through the power of a civil conversation.
“Or else,” I said, changing the subject, “we can admire these lovely flowers here,” and I took a step toward a concrete planter abounding with pink and yellow petunias.
“Don’t come at me!” the guy said, as if I wielded a knife.
Come at him? And they call us libs snowflakes. I was seething with anger as he finally walked away down the sidewalk.
There was yet more drama to come – and from someone on our side!
I had approached a woman standing alone apart from the group. I told her I was going to write an essay about our protests and asked why she was out here today.
“It’s an opportunity to get …” she began, then stopped. “Are you recording me?”
It seemed an odd question considering I was holding my cellphone an inch from her mouth and had no notebook in which to record her response. I said yes, I was, and she gave me a good scolding for not saying so ahead of time.
What the …? O-kay, I said, backing away. Fine. I won’t use you. And I headed across the street, inwardly repeating my new mantra: “Fewer people, more painting.”
 "NO KINGS DAY," June 14, Middletown, Conn. |  "NO KINGS DAY," June 14, Middletown, R.I. |
BECAUSE WHAT WAS I EVEN DOING HERE? I thought of Colin McEnroe, the Connecticut Public Radio host who on his Monday call-in show said he thinks there are “too many protests, frankly.” Asked by a caller to expand, he said he fears they’re becoming “background noise.”
“In West Hartford,” he noted, “there’s a bunch of people who protest every Saturday morning, every single Saturday morning. That’s fine, and good on them, and God bless all those guys in their gray ponytails. I think at a certain level that’s good.”
(The “gray ponytails” crack struck me as a little mean, but there’s no denying that our Resistance movement does trend older. “I never thought at my age I’d be protesting again,” said a 74-year-old woman on the corner with me. But that’s an essay for another day.)
McEnroe praised, by contrast, the “really effective” No Kings protest of a few weeks earlier, the wildly popular nationwide one that coincided with Trump’s bust of a birthday military parade.
He shared an anecdote about a particularly heartbreaking situation, in which a woman declined to seek medical treatment for fear of bankrupting her family, and he mused that maybe protests can somehow be joined to educating the public -- “and then maybe when you’ve learned a few new things, you can think more about what your next protest would be…so it’ll be a sonic boom instead of a pop gun.”
Like myself, and unlike my optimistic friend Phoebe, McEnroe despairs of MAGA types ever changing their minds, because “people’s existential identity is wrapped up in their hatred of the other side.”
That’s true. I barely recognize myself wearing this new existential identity.
And as with the most primitive forms of reptilian consciousness, McEnroe went on, it would “go against survival” to concede the merest point to the enemy.
That’s true, too. And it is about survival.
Survival of the country, survival of our personal happiness, our peace of mind, our ability, even willingness, to get along with one another, our hope in the future. That’s what’s so at risk.
So. Will I drag my sorry-ass self and my sign back onto the sidewalk, where people will very likely annoy me, next week and the week after that for the next three and a half years? I guess I will. Because short of voting the bums out in the midterms, what else can I do?
My friend Patty thinks I’m playing into MAGA’s hands by being ready to give up because of the unrelenting bad news out of Washington and two unpleasant encounters. My crankiness, she said, is blinding me to the loveliness of the protests, the new friends made, and the sense of solidarity, all of which does us good.
Plus, “it’s exposure,” said another fellow protester over the encouraging honking of horns, “and any exposure we can provide – everything’s needed now.”
* * *
Maria Johnson lives with her husband in Middletown, Conn., where she paints, writes, and, okay, protests.
“In West Hartford,” he noted, “there’s a bunch of people who protest every Saturday morning, every single Saturday morning. That’s fine, and good on them, and God bless all those guys in their gray ponytails. I think at a certain level that’s good.”
(The “gray ponytails” crack struck me as a little mean, but there’s no denying that our Resistance movement does trend older. “I never thought at my age I’d be protesting again,” said a 74-year-old woman on the corner with me. But that’s an essay for another day.)
McEnroe praised, by contrast, the “really effective” No Kings protest of a few weeks earlier, the wildly popular nationwide one that coincided with Trump’s bust of a birthday military parade.
He shared an anecdote about a particularly heartbreaking situation, in which a woman declined to seek medical treatment for fear of bankrupting her family, and he mused that maybe protests can somehow be joined to educating the public -- “and then maybe when you’ve learned a few new things, you can think more about what your next protest would be…so it’ll be a sonic boom instead of a pop gun.”
Like myself, and unlike my optimistic friend Phoebe, McEnroe despairs of MAGA types ever changing their minds, because “people’s existential identity is wrapped up in their hatred of the other side.”
That’s true. I barely recognize myself wearing this new existential identity.
And as with the most primitive forms of reptilian consciousness, McEnroe went on, it would “go against survival” to concede the merest point to the enemy.
That’s true, too. And it is about survival.
Survival of the country, survival of our personal happiness, our peace of mind, our ability, even willingness, to get along with one another, our hope in the future. That’s what’s so at risk.
So. Will I drag my sorry-ass self and my sign back onto the sidewalk, where people will very likely annoy me, next week and the week after that for the next three and a half years? I guess I will. Because short of voting the bums out in the midterms, what else can I do?
My friend Patty thinks I’m playing into MAGA’s hands by being ready to give up because of the unrelenting bad news out of Washington and two unpleasant encounters. My crankiness, she said, is blinding me to the loveliness of the protests, the new friends made, and the sense of solidarity, all of which does us good.
Plus, “it’s exposure,” said another fellow protester over the encouraging honking of horns, “and any exposure we can provide – everything’s needed now.”
* * *
Maria Johnson lives with her husband in Middletown, Conn., where she paints, writes, and, okay, protests.
AN INSPIRED VOICE FROM
- AND FOR - HIGHER-ED
"Ransom" and "protection money:" What Wesleyan's Michael Wolf says Trump is demanding from the nation's universities and colleges.
WESLEYAN UNIVERSITY'S campus in Middletown, Conn. CREDIT: Wesleyan University
IN MY LAST DANGEROUS TIMES POST, I featured a broadcast interview with an academic veteran, M. Lee Pelton, whom I thought gave voice to the worst arguments that higher education officials are using as they give in to President Trump’s extortion and shake-downs demands.
Pelton, former president of Willamette University and Emerson College, argued on a Boston radio talk show that the government’s financial hold over universities is so vast that “. . .you find yourself in a position of having to capitulate.”
But there are more inspired collegiate voices, and an eloquent one is that of Michael Roth, president of Wesleyan University in Middletown, Conn.
He appeared on a recent PBS News Hour broadcast, and described a settlement Columbia University made with the Trump administration as equivalent to paying "ransom" to a kidnapper. And that paying "protection money" to Trump compromises not only the independence of colleges and universities, but many other American institutions.
My own view is that no college or university – no law firm, no media organization – should ever let themselves be bullied by Trump. I like how Rhode Island Atty. Gen. Peter Neronha put it after Brown University in Providence announced a settlement with Trump
“I think he’s a blackmailer, frankly,” Neronha said of Trump to the Boston Globe. “My overall view is to fight, not give in, even if it requires sacrifice.”
As I did with Pelton’s statements, I’m copying the Roth interview transcript.
I don’t think transcripts make for great reading, but they do put the speakers’ views in context. You can follow this link to the archived News Hour broadcast.
THE NEWS HOUR INTERVIEW
Pelton, former president of Willamette University and Emerson College, argued on a Boston radio talk show that the government’s financial hold over universities is so vast that “. . .you find yourself in a position of having to capitulate.”
But there are more inspired collegiate voices, and an eloquent one is that of Michael Roth, president of Wesleyan University in Middletown, Conn.
He appeared on a recent PBS News Hour broadcast, and described a settlement Columbia University made with the Trump administration as equivalent to paying "ransom" to a kidnapper. And that paying "protection money" to Trump compromises not only the independence of colleges and universities, but many other American institutions.
My own view is that no college or university – no law firm, no media organization – should ever let themselves be bullied by Trump. I like how Rhode Island Atty. Gen. Peter Neronha put it after Brown University in Providence announced a settlement with Trump
“I think he’s a blackmailer, frankly,” Neronha said of Trump to the Boston Globe. “My overall view is to fight, not give in, even if it requires sacrifice.”
As I did with Pelton’s statements, I’m copying the Roth interview transcript.
I don’t think transcripts make for great reading, but they do put the speakers’ views in context. You can follow this link to the archived News Hour broadcast.
THE NEWS HOUR INTERVIEW
MICHAEL ROTH, president of Wesleyan University. CREDIT: Wesleyan University
| AMNA NAWAZ, of the News Hour: Columbia University and the Trump administration have reached a deal that restores federal funding and research grant money to the university. As part of the agreement, Columbia will pay $200 million to the federal government over three years and an additional $21 million to resolve alleged civil rights violations against Jewish employees. The university agreed to suspend, expel, or revoke degrees from some 70 students who participated in pro-Palestinian demonstrations and it will issue a report to a monitor to ensure diversity, equity, and inclusion is not promoted on campus. Columbia, which was at risk of losing billions of dollars from the government, says it retains its academic freedom. For a closer look at this agreement and what it means for a higher education in the U.S., I'm joined by Michael Roth, president of Wesleyan University. President Roth, welcome back to the "News Hour." Thanks for joining us. MICHAEL ROTH: Thanks for having me. NAWAZ: So let's just start with your initial reaction. When you heard the news and the details of this settlement, what did you think? ROTH: Well, I felt like one must feel when you have paid a ransom in a kidnapping situation and the person who's been kidnapped is returned safely. You think, thank goodness, the kid's OK, or the person kidnapped is OK. But I wouldn't praise the agreement that led to the liberation of the kidnapped person. And so, in this case, I was pleased that this particular moment of assault on higher education by the Trump administration has been resolved, at least for now, although who knows? These agreements come and go with this White House. I was and I am distressed that, in this country today, the executive branch of the federal government wants to be able to dictate terms to private universities, law firms, newspapers, TV stations. And so all of these things are evidence that the current administration is trying to erode support for institutions in civil society. NAWAZ: Let me put to you, if I may, what the acting president of Columbia University, Claire Shipman, said in an interview on CNN this morning defending the terms of the deal. Claire Shipman, Acting President, Columbia University: "I think there are a couple of really important things about this agreement from our point of view. One, it doesn't cross the red lines that we laid out. It protects our academic integrity. That was, of course, essential to us. "And, two, it does reset our relationship with the federal government in terms of research funding. And it's not just money for Columbia. I mean, this is about science. It's about curing cancer, cutting-edge, boundary-breaking science that actually benefits the country and humanity." NAWAZ: President Roth, do you believe that, after this deal, Columbia can move forward with full academic freedom, as President Shipman there is saying? And what do you believe the downstream effects of making a deal like this are for other universities? ROTH: Well, it's very clear that if you annoy the White House in this regime, you could get sucked into a process of litigation or fines that bear no relation to the facts of the matter, but just become a way of expressing loyalty, of conforming to the wishes of the government. We saw it at UVA (University of Virginia) just a week or two ago. You see it now at George Mason (University). This is an effort to tell universities, as they have told law firms, as they're telling newspapers and as they have done with TV stations, telling these organizations, you are not independent. If you contract with the federal government, we have a — we, the government, has the right to tell you what to do. This agreement does protect many things at Columbia. And, again, I'm not criticizing them for signing it. I don't criticize the parent for paying a ransom to get their kids back. They're getting their science back. But they're also telling the federal government, you can tell us how to run our Middle East studies program, telling the federal government, you can tell us how many police officers we should have at a minimum on campus or how students should be disciplined. The White House has determined how students should be disciplined at a private university. This is massive overreach. This is an assault on the independence of civil society in America. And conservatives, liberals, moderates, they should all be concerned when a White House tells you how to run your private associations. NAWAZ: So you're saying they should be concerned. As you note, Columbia is not the only university that's been targeted by this administration. Harvard, as we have been covering, has actually been fighting the administration in court, but we know there's also settlement talks going on. Do you believe universities and colleges will have no other choice but to make some kind of deal in order to move forward? ROTH: Well, I do think that, when you're dealing with a very, very powerful entity like the federal government, especially when it doesn't obey its own laws — I mean, there are no findings of fact here about what the specific actions of anti-Semitism were — or discrimination against white people. There's no findings of facts there. It's just, you give us $221 million, and then we allow you to compete for grants. I mean, it's a very old-fashioned game. You pay the powerful figure so that you can go along and continue to operate. Now, you operate in a way, of course, that you don't want to annoy that powerful figure or that powerful organization. And it sends a chilling message across America that, if you have a late-night comedy show, if you have a law firm, if you are working in an educational institution or a library, or, as we read today, in a museum like the Smithsonian, if you don't please the president, you are at risk. And, again, I don't blame them for trying to make the best of that situation, but, as Americans, I'm not worried about Columbia. I'm not worried about Wesleyan. I'm worried about the country, where we are being subject to a White House that thinks it could tell us what to do at every turn. NAWAZ: As you know, the administration has long argued that this was about combating antisemitism on campus. This was a deal welcomed by Columbia's Hillel Jewish organization. The executive director said in part: "The announcement's an important recognition of what Jewish students and families have expressed with increasing urgency. Anti-Semitism at Columbia is real. It has a tangible impact on Jewish students' sense of safety, belonging, and their civil rights." I guess the question, President Roth, is if it makes Jewish students and staff feel safer, did the administration pressure and the deal do what it intended to do? ROTH: How does paying the government $220 million to do basic science make Jews safer? As a Jew, I find this horrific. I know anti-Semitism is real, and I know it was real and is real at Columbia, as it is in Congress, as it is in most places in the United States. But the idea that you pay off the government in order to get them off your back so you can do cancer research, and that's good for the Jews, I think it's ridiculous. We don't need the White House to tell us anti-Semitism is real two weeks after the Defense Department contracts with Grok, Elon Musk's artificial intelligence entity after it praised Hitler. This is an administration that is not concerned with Jewish welfare. I am concerned with Jewish welfare as a Jew, as a professor, as a college president. I think it's really important to call out anti-Semitism. But to pay up basically protection money in a way that's supposed to make Jews safer, I think, in the long run, it's — as we say in my community, it's not good for the Jews. NAWAZ: That is Michael Roth, president of Wesleyan University, joining us tonight. President Roth, thank you for your time. ROTH: Thank you for having me. |
A COMMENTATOR to my previous post, D. Neale Adams, (See it below) noted that I overstated the case in asserting that Lee Pelton speaks for all campus officials in rationalizing a devil's bargain with Trump.
Adams is right - the academic barrel is not completely rotten, and, in fact, I had planned today's Roth interview as a follow up and contrast to Pelton.
What led to my exaggeration is the worry that unless enough campus institutions fight back as a group, Trump-the-bully will have a greater chance of success. I should be more careful as a writer - as should the campus quislings.
In short, bullies can be beaten - but only if enough would-be victims stand up to them.
As the cliche/ slogan goes ( not necessarily from Ben Franklin):
'We must all hang together, or most assuredly we shall all hang separately.'
The following links were used in preparation of this post:
Adams is right - the academic barrel is not completely rotten, and, in fact, I had planned today's Roth interview as a follow up and contrast to Pelton.
What led to my exaggeration is the worry that unless enough campus institutions fight back as a group, Trump-the-bully will have a greater chance of success. I should be more careful as a writer - as should the campus quislings.
In short, bullies can be beaten - but only if enough would-be victims stand up to them.
As the cliche/ slogan goes ( not necessarily from Ben Franklin):
'We must all hang together, or most assuredly we shall all hang separately.'
The following links were used in preparation of this post:
A VOICE OF CAMPUS CAPITULATION
What it sounds like when higher-ed
kowtows to the schoolyard bully
BROWN UNIVERSITY's campus. Brown recently reached a "settlement" with the Trump administration: CREDIT: Brown University
STUPID ME. It’s taken me years to figure out what’s wrong with our country, or, more to the point, who is wrong with the country.
And it’s not Donald Trump, the psychopath and the most accomplished extortionist-gangster-bully president in American history; nor, for that matter, is it one of the slavish, suck-up enablers of Trump's Republican cult; nor is it one of the Trump whisperers, like the loathsome aide Stephen Miller, the presumed architect of Trump's racist immigration pogrom.
The people who are undermining the country are outwardly the most respectable, admired and upright people among us. For the purposes of this discussion, let’s call this convocation of thugs, traitors and turncoats by their official titles: college presidents and trustees.
What a disgusting, repugnant bunch.
While the rest of us are wringing our hands and self-flagellating about “what can we do” to reverse Trump’s assault on America and democracy, we are being double-crossed by this supposedly articulate, well-dressed, highly credentialed, and probably decent-smelling gang of academic betrayers.
They are allowing Trump to extort their institutions of higher education by reaching “settlements” that are nothing more than shakedown demands in which power, not money, is the extorter-in-chief’s most favored kind of tribute.
By caving in to Trump to protect their own interests, the compliant campuses trigger a chain reaction of capitulation throughout the educational eco-system, which then extends to businesses, non-profit organizations, religious institutions and other sectors in the rest of the country.
You’d think that the university and college royalty would be in the best position – due to its vast intellectual and institutional resources – to confront the most common kind of educational outlaw: the schoolyard bully.
But instead of teaching the rest of us about how to neuter and defeat the schoolyard bully, the higher-ed crowd is conducting a national seminar in capitulation and humiliation, empowering the bully to succeed beyond his wildest expectations.
Recently, I actually heard an actual Voice of Capitulation, spelling out the rationalizations, defeatism and doublespeak that threatens not only the leafy campuses of academia, but the country itself.
The forum was the weekday midday radio program, “Boston Public Radio,” (*see correction at end) produced by GBH, the Boston public broadcasting superpower and featuring long-time co-hosts Margery Eagan and Jim Braudy, who have an engaging sweet-and-sour chemistry and a relentless liberal focus.
One of their interviewees this day – July 29 – was a regular guest of the show, M. Lee Pelton, former president at two campuses, Willamette University in Oregon and Emerson College in Massachusetts and, since 2021, CEO of the Boston Foundation.
I don’t know anything about Pelton, who may have a personal history of educational accomplishment and social heroism, but on this day, he gave a shocking, if candid, rationale for kowtowing to Trump.
What follows is a transcript I made of a portion of the interview, which you can hear for yourself on the station’s podcast, at this link: https://www.wgbh.org/podcasts/boston-public-radio/bpr-full-show-7-29-such-as-it-is
I apologize in advance for the awkwardness of translating a verbal exchange into a printed format. And I’ve edited some of Braude’s typically long-winded question/lectures.
The co-hosts were concerned about a report in the New York Times that Harvard University may be edging toward a huge financial settlement with the Trump administration. They were obviously worried that Harvard might follow the lead of Columbia University, which earlier had caved into Trump’s demands for tribute to correct alleged anti-Semitism.
And it’s not Donald Trump, the psychopath and the most accomplished extortionist-gangster-bully president in American history; nor, for that matter, is it one of the slavish, suck-up enablers of Trump's Republican cult; nor is it one of the Trump whisperers, like the loathsome aide Stephen Miller, the presumed architect of Trump's racist immigration pogrom.
The people who are undermining the country are outwardly the most respectable, admired and upright people among us. For the purposes of this discussion, let’s call this convocation of thugs, traitors and turncoats by their official titles: college presidents and trustees.
What a disgusting, repugnant bunch.
While the rest of us are wringing our hands and self-flagellating about “what can we do” to reverse Trump’s assault on America and democracy, we are being double-crossed by this supposedly articulate, well-dressed, highly credentialed, and probably decent-smelling gang of academic betrayers.
They are allowing Trump to extort their institutions of higher education by reaching “settlements” that are nothing more than shakedown demands in which power, not money, is the extorter-in-chief’s most favored kind of tribute.
By caving in to Trump to protect their own interests, the compliant campuses trigger a chain reaction of capitulation throughout the educational eco-system, which then extends to businesses, non-profit organizations, religious institutions and other sectors in the rest of the country.
You’d think that the university and college royalty would be in the best position – due to its vast intellectual and institutional resources – to confront the most common kind of educational outlaw: the schoolyard bully.
But instead of teaching the rest of us about how to neuter and defeat the schoolyard bully, the higher-ed crowd is conducting a national seminar in capitulation and humiliation, empowering the bully to succeed beyond his wildest expectations.
Recently, I actually heard an actual Voice of Capitulation, spelling out the rationalizations, defeatism and doublespeak that threatens not only the leafy campuses of academia, but the country itself.
The forum was the weekday midday radio program, “Boston Public Radio,” (*see correction at end) produced by GBH, the Boston public broadcasting superpower and featuring long-time co-hosts Margery Eagan and Jim Braudy, who have an engaging sweet-and-sour chemistry and a relentless liberal focus.
One of their interviewees this day – July 29 – was a regular guest of the show, M. Lee Pelton, former president at two campuses, Willamette University in Oregon and Emerson College in Massachusetts and, since 2021, CEO of the Boston Foundation.
I don’t know anything about Pelton, who may have a personal history of educational accomplishment and social heroism, but on this day, he gave a shocking, if candid, rationale for kowtowing to Trump.
What follows is a transcript I made of a portion of the interview, which you can hear for yourself on the station’s podcast, at this link: https://www.wgbh.org/podcasts/boston-public-radio/bpr-full-show-7-29-such-as-it-is
I apologize in advance for the awkwardness of translating a verbal exchange into a printed format. And I’ve edited some of Braude’s typically long-winded question/lectures.
The co-hosts were concerned about a report in the New York Times that Harvard University may be edging toward a huge financial settlement with the Trump administration. They were obviously worried that Harvard might follow the lead of Columbia University, which earlier had caved into Trump’s demands for tribute to correct alleged anti-Semitism.
LEE PELTON CREDIT: The Boston Foundation
| MARGERY EAGAN: . . . Now, shortly after closing their diversity offices at Harvard that serve minority students, LGBTQ students and women, they've closed that over there at Harvard, now, they may be open to spending up to $500 million to get Trump off their back and making some concessions to the president. So what do you think? JIM BRAUDE: Can I break up your questions? So I’m interested to hear first what you think of the done deal of the Columbia thing and then we can move on to what we're reading in the New York Times this morning, what do you think about what happened? LEE PELTON: Well, you know, when Bart Giamatti stepped down as the president of Yale, he said that being a college president is no way for an adult to make a living. And this is especially true these days. So the paradigm shift, which has been in existence for quite a while, but which the Trump administration has taken advantage of, is it's private universities are really not private anymore. EAGAN: Right. PELTON: They're not private, because they're beholden to federal funding of, you know, the billions of dollars, that's for Columbia, that's for Harvard. And so you find yourself in a position of having to capitulate and, you know, I think unfortunately that's just where we are. And they're just, they're, they're not the beginning, but they're one of several private universities that I think will not be able to survive with the withdrawal of billions of dollars in federal funding to support their research and other aspects of the university. BRAUDE: So would you've done the same thing – you were president of Emerson – if you were confronted with the same situation… you're being accused by somebody who hangs out with neo Nazis, the President United States, of anti-Semitism? We know there is is anti-Semitism being dealt with; we know he blows it out of proportion. And they say to you, not only do we want money from you, not only are we gonna limit your academic freedom, you have to agree to a monitor, an outside monitor to oversee your compliance. Would you agree to that? PELTON: I don't know. I mean, I can't speak . . . . BRAUDE: I think you do know. PELTON: No, I know I can't because I can't speak to the particulars of this, of this, only what I read in the press, so I don't know what else, what are some of the other aspects of this. But you know, we live in an authoritarian, of the authoritarian federal government. BRUADE: So you give into authoritarianism. Is that what? Because you have no choice? Because they . . . . PELTON: Maybe, yeah, maybe. I don't, I don't know. I don't know what I would do in that situation, because I'm not confronted with it. I don't know all the facts, the details and so on and so forth. I think it's unfortunate. It, it upsets me to no end. And, but, should I be upset with the fact that they capitulated, or should I be upset because we have this authoritarian regime that is using all of its tools to bring colleges and universities to their knees? BRAUDE: This may be totally naive, because I've never had a job at that level of responsibility like you did when you ran Emerson or (Claire) Shipman (acting president at Columbia) or (President Alan) Garber over there at Harvard. But it's, there's no question that if you don't cut a deal and you lose – well, you know, even if you win the litigation, it's about short term funding – Trump legally will probably deny billions in the future . . . . PELTON: Right. But it's not just money that – this is not money. This is about people. And so, you know, dozens, hundreds of people will no longer be able to work there. Or be able to do their, you know, the lifesaving research that we all depend on. So it's not, you know, we can talk about it in terms of, of, you know, monetary perspective, but it's, it's much more than that, it's really about, it's really about people. EAGAN: But you know what? You're, you're much more of an historian than I am. You're certainly much more of an expert on civil rights struggles than I am. It seems to me that in every kind of struggle, particularly in the civil rights struggle, there were people that were willing to say “No, I'm not . . . . I’m gonna to stand up . . . “ at risk of their own lives, and people lost their lives, never mind their jobs,. And it seems like that's sort of, I mean I'm quite a coward myself, so I'm not, you know, (if) I could stand up to this kind of pressure. Do you know what I'm saying? But this doesn't; this doesn't work. PELTON: Yeah, but it's, maybe it doesn't, we'll see. But it's a massive, massive scale, and it involves hundreds of thousands of people. It involves giving up the search to do lifesaving research for millions of people. So you know…. EAGAN: So you don’t think he won’t back down? You don't think he’ll get his capitulation, and then he’ll say: Ha, ha, ha? PELTON: I don't know. I, I, I have no idea whether or not he will back down. We'll, we'll see. The history is, of course, he will change his mind and some quixotic moment. So you know, we'll just, we’ll see, so . . . . BRAUDE: Can I ask you one more thing here on this deal, and by the way, I, I… It's very hard to say what you're saying. I know it is, because I know you, and I know how you feel about fights, and you are a guy who fights. But you've also been a university president . . . . If the most powerful university in the world gets accused of anti-Semitism. They think they have a legal case against what Trump is doing; they decide to drop it to make a settlement that at least in part gives in to Trump. Then it seems to me that the message to Donald Trump is that you should send a letter to every single college and university that gets a dollar in federal funding, accuse them of anti-Semitism – no hearings, no nothing, no due process – and say, if it turns out you don't cut a deal with me like Harvard and Columbia did, next week, you're never getting another federal dollar. I mean, that's not a ridiculous extrapolation from the Columbia and potentially the Harvard situation. Is it? PELTON: No, it's not. But this is not just about anti-Semitism, this is about the erasure of DEI. BRAUDE: Exactly! Exactly! And the anti-Semitism thing is the cover. PELTON: Yeah, this is what this is about and it's, it's – the scale it, of the encroachment of it is really frightening and disturbing. BRAUDE: You talk to some of these presidents; you talk, you talk to some of these people, I assume, is that right? PELTON: No, not so much. BRAUDE: Really, is that true? You're not making eye contact with me? PELTON: No, no, I know, I mean, I've got my own gig. . . . (They all laugh at Pelton’s joke that his current job is running the community foundation, not a college or university.)  JIM BRAUDY & MARGERY EAGAN in screenshot from a 2022 video CREDIT: GBH |
I THINK EAGAN AND BRAUDY asked the right questions, and Pelton gave the wrong answers.
Most distressing was Pelton’s defeatism.
He deemed that the fight is over and that, as the saying goes, resistance is futile; that the universities are out-gunned by the federal government; that the bully has all the cards.
Further, Pelton says there’s simply too much to lose to warrant resistance – billions of dollars, vital research, hundreds and thousands of employees and their jobs..
And that complexity confounds a solution: the “problem” has deep historical roots; the facts, unknown and known, differ from place to place.
All of which is nonsense.
Bullies, whether they haunt the schoolyard or the White House, succeed when the rest of us let them.
If enough universities stand up to Trump, he cannot succeed. But if one university after another makes an individual “deal” with Trump, it encourages the rest to fall into line.
As of this writing, the latest cave-in is Rhode Island’s homegrown member of the Ivy League.
Brown University announced a “settlement” that doesn’t seem as egregious as Columbia’s. But Brown still gave Trump his due: spending money that’s in short supply at the university for Rhode Island workforce development. Brown also agreed not to do something it doesn’t do anyway: provide medical treatment to transsexual minors. But, by failing to robustly defend transsexuals, the agreement opens the door to Trumpian scapegoating of other minorities.
Still, the details of the Brown agreement aren’t as important as that fact that the university agreed to a settlement in the first place. That betrayed the rest of us and encourages others to follow its example.
In dealing with bullies, what counts is what the crowd does: stand up to the bully or give in.
Lee Pelton, of course, is not the source of the problem. He’s not promoting Trump; he’s not currently a college president.
But, chillingly, he gives voice to the quisling mentality that is empowering the schoolyard bully.
His voice is what capitulation sounds like.
The following links were used in preparation of this post:
* Correction: The original version of this post wrongly identified the program on which Lee Pelton appeared as "Greater Boston." The correct title is "Boston Public Radio."
Most distressing was Pelton’s defeatism.
He deemed that the fight is over and that, as the saying goes, resistance is futile; that the universities are out-gunned by the federal government; that the bully has all the cards.
Further, Pelton says there’s simply too much to lose to warrant resistance – billions of dollars, vital research, hundreds and thousands of employees and their jobs..
And that complexity confounds a solution: the “problem” has deep historical roots; the facts, unknown and known, differ from place to place.
All of which is nonsense.
Bullies, whether they haunt the schoolyard or the White House, succeed when the rest of us let them.
If enough universities stand up to Trump, he cannot succeed. But if one university after another makes an individual “deal” with Trump, it encourages the rest to fall into line.
As of this writing, the latest cave-in is Rhode Island’s homegrown member of the Ivy League.
Brown University announced a “settlement” that doesn’t seem as egregious as Columbia’s. But Brown still gave Trump his due: spending money that’s in short supply at the university for Rhode Island workforce development. Brown also agreed not to do something it doesn’t do anyway: provide medical treatment to transsexual minors. But, by failing to robustly defend transsexuals, the agreement opens the door to Trumpian scapegoating of other minorities.
Still, the details of the Brown agreement aren’t as important as that fact that the university agreed to a settlement in the first place. That betrayed the rest of us and encourages others to follow its example.
In dealing with bullies, what counts is what the crowd does: stand up to the bully or give in.
Lee Pelton, of course, is not the source of the problem. He’s not promoting Trump; he’s not currently a college president.
But, chillingly, he gives voice to the quisling mentality that is empowering the schoolyard bully.
His voice is what capitulation sounds like.
The following links were used in preparation of this post:
- https://www.wgbh.org/podcasts/boston-public-radio/bpr-full-show-7-29-such-as-it-is
- https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/23/nyregion/columbia-trump-funding-deal.html
- https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/23/nyregion/columbia-trump-settlement-what-to-know.html
- https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/28/us/politics/trump-harvard-payment.html
- https://www.bostonglobe.com/2025/07/30/metro/brown-university-deal-trump-research-federal-funding/
- Go to brown.edu, then "news."
* Correction: The original version of this post wrongly identified the program on which Lee Pelton appeared as "Greater Boston." The correct title is "Boston Public Radio."
IF TRUMP CALLS SOMEONE 'VERY EVIL' & 'BAD,' IS HE TALKING ABOUT HIMSELF?
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP, in white hat, speaking in Texas; First Lady Melania Trump is at left, and Texas Gov. Greg Abbott. PHOTO CREDIT: White House video screenshot
IF DONALD TRUMP TOLD THE WORLD that you were “a bad person” and “a very evil person” should you take a day – maybe an entire week – to think about that assessment and consider the implications?
Because if there’s one subject in which Trump is truly expert, it’s what goes into being "very evil" and "bad."
Last Friday, Trump made that kind of a diagnosis during the visit he and the First Lady made to the Hill Country of Texas, where nearly 300 people may have died in the catastrophic July 4 flood.
It happened this way:
Wearing a “USA” baseball cap, Trump presided over a “round table” of Texas and federal officials, who variously mourned the tragedy and praised the ongoing rescue and recovery operations.
At one point, the session was opened to reporters, one of whom asked this question:
“Several families we heard from are obviously upset because they say those warnings, those alerts didn’t go out in time, and they also say that people could have been saved. What do you say to those families?”
Trump’s first reply:
“Well, I think everyone did an incredible job under the circumstances.”
And then, instinctively, the president of the United States remembered that Job One is not reflection about how well government serves the country, but character assassination, public humiliation and reputation destruction.
Like a judge pronouncing the death penalty, Trump intoned:
“Only a bad person would ask a question like that, to be honest with you. I don’t know who you are, but only a very evil person would ask a question like that.”
A Texas Congressman, Republican Rep. Chip Roy, chimed in, according to The Daily Beast:
“For all of the media clamoring to ask that ridiculous first question and try to point fingers, the governor (Greg Abbott) said it best when he said pointing fingers is for losers.”
None of the news stories I ran across took Trump’s assessment of the reporter’s character to heart, noting that his attack was one of his standard “distraction” ploys, saying something personal and mean about someone, instead of addressing the question.
Indeed, most stories didn’t name the journalist at all, identifying her simply as “the reporter,” since it’s no longer news that any media type who asks a bothersome question could get that kind of response from the one person in America capable of blowing the world to bits.
But I wondered how the reporter – any reporter – would feel to be labeled “bad” and “very evil” on national television.
Because if there’s one subject in which Trump is truly expert, it’s what goes into being "very evil" and "bad."
Last Friday, Trump made that kind of a diagnosis during the visit he and the First Lady made to the Hill Country of Texas, where nearly 300 people may have died in the catastrophic July 4 flood.
It happened this way:
Wearing a “USA” baseball cap, Trump presided over a “round table” of Texas and federal officials, who variously mourned the tragedy and praised the ongoing rescue and recovery operations.
At one point, the session was opened to reporters, one of whom asked this question:
“Several families we heard from are obviously upset because they say those warnings, those alerts didn’t go out in time, and they also say that people could have been saved. What do you say to those families?”
Trump’s first reply:
“Well, I think everyone did an incredible job under the circumstances.”
And then, instinctively, the president of the United States remembered that Job One is not reflection about how well government serves the country, but character assassination, public humiliation and reputation destruction.
Like a judge pronouncing the death penalty, Trump intoned:
“Only a bad person would ask a question like that, to be honest with you. I don’t know who you are, but only a very evil person would ask a question like that.”
A Texas Congressman, Republican Rep. Chip Roy, chimed in, according to The Daily Beast:
“For all of the media clamoring to ask that ridiculous first question and try to point fingers, the governor (Greg Abbott) said it best when he said pointing fingers is for losers.”
None of the news stories I ran across took Trump’s assessment of the reporter’s character to heart, noting that his attack was one of his standard “distraction” ploys, saying something personal and mean about someone, instead of addressing the question.
Indeed, most stories didn’t name the journalist at all, identifying her simply as “the reporter,” since it’s no longer news that any media type who asks a bothersome question could get that kind of response from the one person in America capable of blowing the world to bits.
But I wondered how the reporter – any reporter – would feel to be labeled “bad” and “very evil” on national television.
MARISSA ARMAS PHOTO CREDIT: Armas' Facebook page
A SUPERFICIAL SEARCH of the Internet found one story that identified “the reporter” – aired by the Texas TV station she’s worked for since earlier this year, KTVT Dallas-Fort Worth, which refers to itself as “CBS News Texas.”
She’s Marissa Armas.
According to a Texas blogger, Armas has a master’s degree in journalism from Columbia University, and a bachelor’s in journalism from Metropolitan State University in Denver, Colorado.
She’s worked as an anchor and reporter at stations in Colorado, New Mexico and Texas, and at NBC Digital and Latino. At Columbia, she was chapter president of the National Association of Hispanic Journalists. She’s a native of Denver.
My quick scan of the Internet found no journalist defending her, nor any echoing Trump’s smear.
Armas posted a short mention of the incident on her Facebook page:
“Friday, I asked President Trump about whether there were sufficient warnings to people in Kerr County before the devastating floods, and this was his response.”
She posted a video clip of Trump’s comment.
Later, Armas was back at being her “bad” and “very evil” self, covering a vigil a week after the flood.
“With flowers and candles, in front of a large wooden cross, the Kerry County community mourned,” she said, and held up a microphone to Ava Vanwinkle, who said: “It’s very devastating to happen to such a small town; nothing like this has ever happened before.”
“As tears streamed down their faces,” Armas' narration continued, “community members looked at the photos attached to a growing memorial wall, showing the faces of the dozens of people who were killed and are still missing, a week later.”
So, Armas did what journalists are supposed to do, just kept on doing her job, while letting Trump’s rudeness speak for itself, Maybe she took Trump’s attack as a badge of honor, the way people used to brag about finding their names on President Richard Nixon’s “enemies list.”
BUT HURTFUL WORDS have meaning and real-world effects.
If reporters seem to laugh off Trump’s attacks, are they still wounded? I also wonder whether some reporters – the real ones, not the sycophants who also roam the White House press room these days – tone down or even skip pointed questions, not wanting to trigger the commander-in-chief’s venom.
And more to the point, how many people who respect and follow Trump have added “the reporter” to their own encyclopedic lists of people to despise and disparage?
Trump’s long war against the press is far more serious than his schoolyard taunts against Melissa Armas.
He’s seeking to defund NPR (National Public Radio) and PBS (the Public Broadcasting Service), with a House-passed bill pulling back money for two of the nation’s most trusted news sources. The measure could reach a critical Senate vote this week.
He’s bullied ABC and CBS into offering spurious “settlements,” hurting both organizations' bottom lines and credibility, while Jeff Bezos, owner of the Washington Post, seems determined to weaken that great newspaper, ostensibly to cozy up to Trump.
BECAUSE TRUMP SEEMS TO BE A NARCISSIST, thereby thinking of himself first , it’s possible that when he calls people names, he’s really talking about Donald J. Trump, and not you, me or Marissa Armas.
A case can be made that he’s at least a second-hand murderer.
By canceling most of the USAID program, he’s condemning millions of foreigners to early deaths from treatable diseases; his big, beautiful bill will cause millions of Americans to lose medical care, and some will die early.
His pull back on efforts to combat climate change could devastate the planet. His immigration “policies” rip apart families and deport people to dangerous countries. His tariffs threaten the economy and the well-being of people in our own and other countries. His foul, mean and dehumanizing language increases the possibility of political and cultural violence.
Talk about bad and very evil.
The following sites were used in this posting:
She’s Marissa Armas.
According to a Texas blogger, Armas has a master’s degree in journalism from Columbia University, and a bachelor’s in journalism from Metropolitan State University in Denver, Colorado.
She’s worked as an anchor and reporter at stations in Colorado, New Mexico and Texas, and at NBC Digital and Latino. At Columbia, she was chapter president of the National Association of Hispanic Journalists. She’s a native of Denver.
My quick scan of the Internet found no journalist defending her, nor any echoing Trump’s smear.
Armas posted a short mention of the incident on her Facebook page:
“Friday, I asked President Trump about whether there were sufficient warnings to people in Kerr County before the devastating floods, and this was his response.”
She posted a video clip of Trump’s comment.
Later, Armas was back at being her “bad” and “very evil” self, covering a vigil a week after the flood.
“With flowers and candles, in front of a large wooden cross, the Kerry County community mourned,” she said, and held up a microphone to Ava Vanwinkle, who said: “It’s very devastating to happen to such a small town; nothing like this has ever happened before.”
“As tears streamed down their faces,” Armas' narration continued, “community members looked at the photos attached to a growing memorial wall, showing the faces of the dozens of people who were killed and are still missing, a week later.”
So, Armas did what journalists are supposed to do, just kept on doing her job, while letting Trump’s rudeness speak for itself, Maybe she took Trump’s attack as a badge of honor, the way people used to brag about finding their names on President Richard Nixon’s “enemies list.”
BUT HURTFUL WORDS have meaning and real-world effects.
If reporters seem to laugh off Trump’s attacks, are they still wounded? I also wonder whether some reporters – the real ones, not the sycophants who also roam the White House press room these days – tone down or even skip pointed questions, not wanting to trigger the commander-in-chief’s venom.
And more to the point, how many people who respect and follow Trump have added “the reporter” to their own encyclopedic lists of people to despise and disparage?
Trump’s long war against the press is far more serious than his schoolyard taunts against Melissa Armas.
He’s seeking to defund NPR (National Public Radio) and PBS (the Public Broadcasting Service), with a House-passed bill pulling back money for two of the nation’s most trusted news sources. The measure could reach a critical Senate vote this week.
He’s bullied ABC and CBS into offering spurious “settlements,” hurting both organizations' bottom lines and credibility, while Jeff Bezos, owner of the Washington Post, seems determined to weaken that great newspaper, ostensibly to cozy up to Trump.
BECAUSE TRUMP SEEMS TO BE A NARCISSIST, thereby thinking of himself first , it’s possible that when he calls people names, he’s really talking about Donald J. Trump, and not you, me or Marissa Armas.
A case can be made that he’s at least a second-hand murderer.
By canceling most of the USAID program, he’s condemning millions of foreigners to early deaths from treatable diseases; his big, beautiful bill will cause millions of Americans to lose medical care, and some will die early.
His pull back on efforts to combat climate change could devastate the planet. His immigration “policies” rip apart families and deport people to dangerous countries. His tariffs threaten the economy and the well-being of people in our own and other countries. His foul, mean and dehumanizing language increases the possibility of political and cultural violence.
Talk about bad and very evil.
The following sites were used in this posting:
- https://www.cbsnews.com/texas/news/president-trump-answers-questions-about-warnings-before-central-texas-floods/
- https://www.thedailybeast.com/trump-insults-evil-reporter-who-dares-to-ask-about-floods/
- https://www.facebook.com/marissaearmas/
- https://mikemcguff.blogspot.com/2025/04/marissa-armas-joins-cbs-news-texas.html
- https://www.cbsnews.com/texas/news/kerrville-texas-floods-memorial-vigil-kerr-county-people-killed-missing/
AS TRUMP TRIUMPHS,
SOUNDS OF HOPE
FROM A SMALL STATE
FADED and tattered, the flag is ready for another Fourth of July
ARE YOU FEELING AS OVERWHELMED as I am by Donald Trump’s string of “successes” in his hideous crusade to destroy our country – drowning the rest of us in his sewer of misery and shame?
At the same time, because I live in the nation’s smallest state, I'm inspired that such a tiny place has a loud and eloquent voice, encouraged, perhaps by the state's motto, “Hope." More about this later.
First, let me acknowledge that the nation is at a truly awful place, and that it’s possible that we are actually doomed.
For example, Trump today gets to play Robin Hood in reverse, with the Republican Congress passing his hideous mega-bill that will take away food and health care from millions of Americans, while tossing a few extra bucks to the ultrawealthy.
Trump had wanted – and got – the legislation enacted just in time for this year’s Fourth of July – turning the holiday into perverse betrayal of its noble founding principles.
You’d think the president’s enablers would have been wary of the timing, since somebody might actually read the Declaration, and discover the contrast between its eloquent vision of democracy and Trump’s racist, cruel and authoritarian agenda.
At the same time, because I live in the nation’s smallest state, I'm inspired that such a tiny place has a loud and eloquent voice, encouraged, perhaps by the state's motto, “Hope." More about this later.
First, let me acknowledge that the nation is at a truly awful place, and that it’s possible that we are actually doomed.
For example, Trump today gets to play Robin Hood in reverse, with the Republican Congress passing his hideous mega-bill that will take away food and health care from millions of Americans, while tossing a few extra bucks to the ultrawealthy.
Trump had wanted – and got – the legislation enacted just in time for this year’s Fourth of July – turning the holiday into perverse betrayal of its noble founding principles.
You’d think the president’s enablers would have been wary of the timing, since somebody might actually read the Declaration, and discover the contrast between its eloquent vision of democracy and Trump’s racist, cruel and authoritarian agenda.
| We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. |
Trump’s just getting started: pardoning the January 6th insurrectionists, along with a bunch of other criminals; sending masked thugs to round up immigrants and tossing them into a growing gulag of detention centers; bullying universities, law firms, media companies and other countries; accelerating the destruction of the environment; betraying Ukraine freedom fighters and declaring war on scientists.
IS THERE NO END OF IT?
There must be. After all, Donald Trump, however repulsive, is merely human, so there be limits, counterforces,the same mortal vulnerabilities that frustrate and ultimately trip up the rest of us.
But it doesn’t seem to be working that way.
Everything we’ve learned about justice and fairness seems broken. None of the inspirational phrases and clichés seem to be working:
DISPIRITING AND DISCOURAGING as Trump’s successes have been in his first five-plus months, I cannot accept that the future is as hopeless and bleak as it feels this Independence Day.
Yes, we could be hurtling toward our own version of the Fall of the Roman Empire. And just because we won the Revolution, the War of 1812, survived World War II, the Cold War, Watergate, McCarthyism and all the other contests of good over evil, there's no guarantee of a safe landing this time.
But I am inspired by my perspective from my tiny corner of the cosmos, Rhode Island.
Really, it’s a nothingburger as a state, which almost doesn’t deserve to be one. Rhode Island is almost impossible to find on a national map, measuring only 37 miles wide and 48 miles long, with just over a million-plus souls.
IS THERE NO END OF IT?
There must be. After all, Donald Trump, however repulsive, is merely human, so there be limits, counterforces,the same mortal vulnerabilities that frustrate and ultimately trip up the rest of us.
But it doesn’t seem to be working that way.
Everything we’ve learned about justice and fairness seems broken. None of the inspirational phrases and clichés seem to be working:
- What goes around, comes around.
- The pendulum swings both ways.
- The bigger they are, the harder they fall.
- Live by the sword, die by the sword.
- The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.
DISPIRITING AND DISCOURAGING as Trump’s successes have been in his first five-plus months, I cannot accept that the future is as hopeless and bleak as it feels this Independence Day.
Yes, we could be hurtling toward our own version of the Fall of the Roman Empire. And just because we won the Revolution, the War of 1812, survived World War II, the Cold War, Watergate, McCarthyism and all the other contests of good over evil, there's no guarantee of a safe landing this time.
But I am inspired by my perspective from my tiny corner of the cosmos, Rhode Island.
Really, it’s a nothingburger as a state, which almost doesn’t deserve to be one. Rhode Island is almost impossible to find on a national map, measuring only 37 miles wide and 48 miles long, with just over a million-plus souls.
RHODE ISLAND is the little red dot. CREDIT - Wikipedia
But here's the thing, which I do mention a lot in these posts: the state’s motto is “Hope.” It was one of the original 13 colonies; and 249 years ago, two Rhode Islanders signed the Declaration of Independence.
These days, tiny Rhode Island has lots of big mouths, and during The Dark Times, they keep making me proud.
For example, Rhode Island has an exceptional Congressional delegation, including Sheldon Whitehouse, who is a U.S. Senator, a former U.S. attorney, and a former state attorney general, and who understands a thing or two about corruption.
In a floor speech while the Senate was debating the awful bill in the Capitol, Whitehouse said :
These days, tiny Rhode Island has lots of big mouths, and during The Dark Times, they keep making me proud.
For example, Rhode Island has an exceptional Congressional delegation, including Sheldon Whitehouse, who is a U.S. Senator, a former U.S. attorney, and a former state attorney general, and who understands a thing or two about corruption.
In a floor speech while the Senate was debating the awful bill in the Capitol, Whitehouse said :
| This place feels to me, today, like a crime scene. Get some of that yellow tape and put it around this chamber. This piece of legislation is corrupt. This piece of legislation is crooked. This piece of legislation is a rotten racket. This bill, cooked up in back rooms, dropped at midnight, cloaked in fake numbers with huge handouts to big Republican donors. It loots our country for some of the least deserving people you could imagine. When I first got here, this chamber filled me with awe and wonderment. Today, I feel disgust. |
Another eloquent "local" voice is Tom Nichols, who is a writer for the Atlantic magazine, and formerly was on the faculty of the Naval War College in Newport.
Nichols lives in the town next to us, and he wrote this recently about Trump’s sour view of America, which often depicts our country as being no better than Russia and other bad actors:
Nichols lives in the town next to us, and he wrote this recently about Trump’s sour view of America, which often depicts our country as being no better than Russia and other bad actors:
| … when Trump depicts America as an unending nightmare of crime and carnage, he’s not only trying to trigger a cortisol rush among his followers; he’s also creating a narrative of despair. It’s a clever approach. He tells Americans that because the world is nasty, all that “shining city on a hill” talk is just stupid and all that matters is making some deals to get them stuff they need... ... some people support Trump because they want certain policies on immigration or taxes or judges. Others enjoy his reality-TV approach to politics. Some of his critics reject his plans; others reject everything about the man and his character. But none of us, as Americans, have to accept Trump’s calumnies about the United States. We are a nation better than the dictatorships in Moscow and Beijing; we enjoy peace and prosperity that predated Trump and will remain when he is gone. We live in an America governed by Trump. But we do not have to accept that we live in Trump’s America. |
EVERY OTHER WEDNESDAY, during the afternoon commuter rush, the Newport Democratic City Committee and other groups hold a “Bridge Brigade” demonstration at the intersection connecting the ramps to and from the Newport Bridge.
It’s largely an older group – some people are there with canes, others bring chairs – but they are boisterous, waving U.S. and Ukraine flags, with homegrown signs, big “RESIST” and “NO KINGS” banners, and they ring cow bells and yell and wave a lot.
The inspiring part is how many cars honk their horns when they see the group, which this past Wednesday numbered 35 people. With every blast of a car or truck horn, the demonstrators went crazy, shaking their flags and signs and hooting and hollering.
And maybe it was just me, but I felt that this past week, the exchanges between the demonstrators and drivers were louder, more joyful and more inspired, despite – or maybe because of – all the terrible successes Trump is enjoying.
Hey, it was just one protest in a small place – but the voices and horns were loud, happy and full of hope.
And maybe that’s how democracies are saved.
It’s largely an older group – some people are there with canes, others bring chairs – but they are boisterous, waving U.S. and Ukraine flags, with homegrown signs, big “RESIST” and “NO KINGS” banners, and they ring cow bells and yell and wave a lot.
The inspiring part is how many cars honk their horns when they see the group, which this past Wednesday numbered 35 people. With every blast of a car or truck horn, the demonstrators went crazy, shaking their flags and signs and hooting and hollering.
And maybe it was just me, but I felt that this past week, the exchanges between the demonstrators and drivers were louder, more joyful and more inspired, despite – or maybe because of – all the terrible successes Trump is enjoying.
Hey, it was just one protest in a small place – but the voices and horns were loud, happy and full of hope.
And maybe that’s how democracies are saved.
BRIAN C. JONES
I'VE BEEN a reporter and writer for 61 years, long enough to have learned that journalists don't know very much, although I've met some smart ones.
Mainly, what reporters know comes from asking other people questions and fretting about their answers.
This blog is a successor to one inspired by our dog, Phoebe, who was smart, sweet and the antithesis of Donald Trump. She died Feb. 3, 2022, and I don't see getting over that very soon.
Occasionally, I think about trying to reach her via cell phone.
Mainly, what reporters know comes from asking other people questions and fretting about their answers.
This blog is a successor to one inspired by our dog, Phoebe, who was smart, sweet and the antithesis of Donald Trump. She died Feb. 3, 2022, and I don't see getting over that very soon.
Occasionally, I think about trying to reach her via cell phone.
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