America has been transfixed by Donald Trump’s very public betrayal of his oath of office–an oath which requires him to protect and defend our country. But that is hardly his only betrayal of important American values.
As Dana Milbank reminds us, he has made bigotry politically correct again.
In a recent column, Milbank looked at the crop of Republican candidates who surfaced after Trump’s election.
Behold, a new breed of Republican for the Trump era.
Seth Grossman won the Republican primary last month for a competitive House seat in New Jersey, running on the message “Support Trump/Make America Great Again.” The National Republican Congressional Committee endorsed him.
Then, a video surfaced, courtesy of American Bridge, a Democratic PAC, of Grossman saying “the whole idea of diversity is a bunch of crap.” Grossman then proclaimed diversity “evil.” CNN uncovered previous instances of Grossman calling Kwanzaa a “phony holiday” created by “black racists,” labeling Islam a cancer and saying faithful Muslims cannot be good Americans.
There was much more, and the GOP finally withdrew its endorsement. But Grossman is hardly an aberration.
Many such characters have crawled out from under rocks and onto Republican ballots in 2018: A candidate with ties to white nationalists is the GOP Senate nominee in Virginia (and has President Trump’s endorsement); an anti-Semite and Holocaust denier is the Republican candidate in a California House race; a prominent neo-Nazi won the GOP nomination in an Illinois House race; and overt racists are in Republican primaries across the country.
Milbank points to what has become increasingly obvious: As nice people flee the GOP, Trump’s Republican party now needs the support of people like this.
Some of these candidates go well beyond the bounds of anything Trump has said or done, but many have been inspired or emboldened by him. Corey A. Stewart, the Republican Senate nominee in Virginia, said he was “Trump before Trump.”
The party won’t back Stewart, but Republican lawmakers are tiptoeing. Rep. Scott W. Taylor (R-Va.), declining to disavow Stewart, noted to the Virginian-Pilot newspaper that people won’t see him as racist because “my son is named after a black guy.”
If there were only a few of these racists and anti-Semites, you might shrug it off. After all, both parties have had crazy or hateful people run for office (we’ve had some doozies here). They’ve usually been weeded out in party primaries, and they’ve rarely earned official support or endorsement.
In today’s GOP, however, they seem to be everywhere.
Russell Walker, Republican nominee for a North Carolina state House seat, is a white supremacist whose personal website is “littered with the n-word” and states that Jews are “satanic,” Vox reports.
Running in the Republican primary for Speaker Paul D. Ryan’s congressional seat in Wisconsin is Paul Nehlen, who calls himself “pro-white” and was booted from Twitter for racism.
Neo-NaziPatrick Little ran as a Republican in the California Senate primary, blaming his loss on fraud by “Jewish supremacists,” according to the website Right Wing Watch.
In North Carolina, nominee Mark Harris, in the NRCC’s “Young Guns” program for top recruits, has suggested that women who pursue careers and independence do not “live out and fulfill God’s design.”
Another Young Guns candidate, Wendy Rogersof Arizona (where Joe Arpaio is fighting for the Republican Senate nomination), has said the Democratic position on abortion is “very much like the Holocaust” and the Cambodian genocide.
As Milbank notes–with examples– these candidates have plenty of role models in the administration and in Congress. Plus, of course, the role-model-in-chief.
Thanks to Trump, today’s GOP is rapidly becoming America’s White Supremicist Party.
Big change: Now they are HONEST about how awful they are.
The Republicans have been Homophobic jerks for my whole life (and i am 69)
They have been Anti Black too. There is NOTHING NEW about who they are.
They are just a little more honest about how horrible they are.
I sure hope the young people are watching.
Sheila,
“Thanks to Trump, today’s GOP is rapidly becoming America’s White Supremicist Party.”
Thanks to Trump and, moreover, THANKS FOR THE LACK OF A SYSTEMIC DEFENSE. I know it’s difficult, but try not putting it all on Trump. We’re giving him America on a “silver platter.”
So the Republican Party is showing the world what we all knew was under those fancy covers… one ugly mess of racism, misogyny, and homophobia. Frankly, I am glad it is out in the open. You can’t clean up a mess unless you can see it.
Theresa,
It’s not ALL out in the open by a “long shot.” This mess isn’t being cleaned up. It gets worse every day.
November 2018 marks the dawn in politics of women and all youth who will vote “NO” to all Republicans and their pet issues. VOTE
Facing the truth isn’t easy by a “long shot.” It has potentially dangerous consequences. It appears that we’re going to “run away” from the truth. We don’t appear to have the CIVIC COURAGE to face-up to it. It’s understandable, but, unfortunately, SUICIDAL. We’re giving away our FUTURE.
Trump, Congress, and SCOTUS are re-defining America. How do you like the Transformation? VOTE
Watch prices soar out of sight. Trump tariffs are another hidden TAX on American workers, another transfer of wealth from the many Poor and Working Stiffs to the few Oligarchs. Rein in the Trump GOP failed policies. Vote Dems in November, Rescue the USA
Your parsing eloquence comes down to hard fact. Yes, I agree.
I’m having another of those uneasy feelings about November. Pray I’m wrong.
It seems to me that what Trump did is to invite the deplorables out of the closet. Republicans are just doing what political parties do, get their people elected.
So, the real problem is our rotten core that we always knew was there, and so did Vlad the Impaler. He spotted a once a life opportunity to establish more power. He pulled a few familiar spy strings and, bingo, won the lottery and looked like an innocent bystander.
Our job is to take our country back from the whole band of thieves.
“America has been transfixed by Donald Trump’s very public betrayal of his oath of office–an oath which requires him to protect and defend our country. But that is hardly his only betrayal of important American values.”
Well if our President Agent Orange is so bad , why is Joe Donnelly using Agent Orange in one of his campaign ads, shaking hands with him no less.
Joe Donnelly a Vichy Democrat????
Brings back thoughts of Donald Rumsfeld shaking hands with Saddam Hussein. Perhaps Eugene Debs was right:
“The Republican and Democratic parties, or, to be more exact, the Republican-Democratic party, represent the capitalist class in the class struggle. They are the political wings of the capitalist system and such differences as arise between them relate to spoils and not to principles.”
Maybe Gore Vidal was right: Gore Vidal:
(1) “Americans are among the most easily frightened people on earth.”
(2) “There is only one political party in the United States: the Property Party, and it has two right wings.”
FBI chief says China is a threat, Lester Holt lets him ramble on. Be afraid is the watch word: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JFfTlsNQCmU
Rumor has it that Fake President Donald Trump is having second thoughts about inviting Putin to visit Washington this fall. That came as a complete surprise to the Republicans, who were not aware he’d had first thoughts.
Women and girls, is 2018 the year you will begin saying by-bye to
Roe v Wade? Haven’t you seen “them” nibbling at it bit-by-bit?
“There is as much money to be made from the destruction of a civilization as there is from building one.” Rhett Butler in “Gone With The Wind”
The destruction of our current civilization, as with the Civil War destruction of that civilization, has its roots deeply buried in racism. And like General Sherman; Trump is operating on the same “scorched earth” battle plan with Putin calmly awaiting the outcome.
“When the power of love is stronger than the love of power, we will have peace.” Jimi Hendricks
Addressing the prevalence of racists in the Republican Party:
Liberal Blind Spots Are Hiding the Truth About ‘Trump Country’
By Sarah Smarsh 7/19/18 N.Y. Times
“For one thing, it’s not Trump country. Most struggling whites I know here live a life of quiet desperation…” And while “much has been made of the white working class’s political shift to the right. But Mr. Trump won among white college graduates, too. According to those same exit polls trotted out to blame the “uneducated,” 49 percent of whites with degrees picked Mr. Trump, while 45 percent picked Hillary Clinton (among them, support for Mr. Trump was stronger among men). Such Americans hardly “vote against their own best interest.” Media coverage suggests that economically distressed whiteness elected Mr. Trump, when in fact it was just plain whiteness.”
I’m glad to see all the outrage to today’s blog by Sheila. O.K. We’ve been defining this mess and the cancer in the core of our society: Racism. Racism has been here ever since white European capitalists were allowed to steal and buy other human beings to do work that made them rich. Perhaps the racism always existed among our white European ancestors being that they saw the black man as less than worthy because he allowed himself to be sold and exploited. Many of our slaves came from prisons in Africa where some tribes held their enemies and sold them to the slavers for the usual beads and trinkets. (“Racing to the Brink: The End Game for Race and Capitalism”)
So, that “culture” of racism has always been there…at least among those who chose not to, or were too lazy to make the intellectual leap toward egalitarian thoughts and deeds. That disease spread to the North, when blacks escaped to live and work there and took jobs for a pittance compared to what white workers made doing the same jobs. Voila! Once again, capitalism comes to the rescue of fairness, and racial resentment develops there too.
On the other hand, the various movements over the centuries to discount that original prejudice and bigotry have, in fact, made progress. Republicans, like those mentioned in this blog want nothing to do with progress. They are intellectually lazy, uncomfortable with thought, scared to death of “the other” and see their whiteness as their overarching right for them to live as they do.
THESE are the people who must be defeated soundly in November, and in all elections moving forward. We progressives must find a way to put this toothpaste back in the tube. When that disgusting and ancient culture of racism (Republicanism) is allowed to eat at our body politic, it takes a bite out of all of us. I think it is ironic that the rest of the Western world is, for the most part, leaving us, the “shining light on the hill” (or whatever the hell he said), as a second or third-rate nation in just about every area that matters to the betterment of mankind. The Racist element in our capitalistic economic philosophy – the same one embraced totally by Republicanism – is driving the wedge of social division deeply between us.
Donald Trump sees himself as the ultimate wedge. He has NO idea what it will take to MAGA. He only cares about what gets him in front of cameras and gets stupid white people fawning over his every utterance that spills from that sewer he calls a mouth.
Marv has once again nailed it totally. There is no real countervailing effort at all to fight this. Some of that may be due to the shock of the thing, that these fools are saying this stuff right out in the open but that should make our collective determination to fight this that much more vibrant and aggressive but there has been no consistency at all in doing so. We are on the verge of loosing ourselves and our country in this and I wonder what sort of calamity or other form of disaster is going to shake us loose from our easy chairs and realize that we are likely in for the fight of our lives to save this place. It’s up to use to do it and since that is the case we can’t keep on just reeling from blow after blow as we have been. There has to be an organized effort to stop this “thing” in its tracks before it is so far along that we have missed our chance to do so.
“Media coverage suggests that economically distressed whiteness elected Mr. Trump, when in fact it was just plain whiteness.”
Somewhat. Whiteness may have brought Trump 40 million of his votes, but it was Clinton’s lack of enthusiasm for and refusal to fight for blue collar workers that sent 20 million blue collar voters – remnants of the Reagan democrats – to the Trump side. Imagine how the vote would have turned if Clinton had showed some SUSTAINED PASSION FOR LABOR. Instead, her best effort for labor was to snap, “It’s in the platform, now let’s talk about women and children,” which she did for over a thousand hours. Imagine how even half-a-million of the usual democratic voters refusing to flip for Trump would have affected the outcome in swing states.
Like everything with Trump, since he’s not a polished liar, his agenda is quite clear. My favorite photo ops are him in prayer with Pence’s evangelical whites. The irony is hilarious.
Next in line are the blatant racists which Nixon coined the Southern Agenda. “We can get passionate voters to vote against their own self-interest if we blame the blacks for all our problems.”
Matt Taibbi wrote many luscious stories about the Tea Party rallies he attended.
Ronald Reagan used coded words because he was slightly more polished than Trump. Ronald had the training of an actor. Trump is a reality host which means he plays himself.
But what I find interesting is the damage done by Democrats like Bill Clinton go completely unnoticed. #WelfareReform #PrivatePrisonIndustry
The pro-market folks have made deals with MANY devils in order to WIN. With capitalism, it’s not how you play the game, the important thing is you WIN.
Those who’ve recognized the wisdom of Eugene Debs, et al, are way ahead of the game. Our economic system is the core of ALL our problems which was the case at its inception since it was subsidized by slave labor. Now it’s mainly subsidized by socializing its costs while privatizing the profits.
Our capitalist media models focus on right and left when there is no such thing. Our country is a corporate hierarchy where the Board of Plutarchs has all the power and they will keep it at any cost.
Which goes to Vernon’s advocacy…what will the people be willing to sacrifice to make the necessary changes?
But Vernon should know the essential truth behind Einstein’s classic statement, “No problem was ever solved by the same level of consciousness which created the problem.”
Some of us have carried out elevating the consciousness of our society. And me personally, it’s all pro bono work. I don’t get paid by any philanthropist or university to advocate this change. In fact, most of them have banned me for pointing out the truth and holding it against the powerful.
#Sacrifice takes many forms. I believe in Dr. Martin Luther King’s methods. They worked in the 60’s and they’ll work again today.
Voting democrat doesn’t change the systemic problem unless you are voting for enlightened democrats. As most have pointed out, Joe Donnelly is not an enlightened dem. He’s a corporatist’s pawn. He plays the game of politics but serves the system which has corrupted and compromised our society.
Every time I see somebody refer to American “values”, I cringe. Our supposed values have done more damage to the world, even our solar system, than any other developed society. We’ve become a global embarrassment. Who else in the world legally allows the bribing of public officials?
This very fact creates not the fruit, but the poisonous tree itself.
Todd,
Actually, I DO know and understand Einstein’s posit. That was in my posting today. Thank you for corroborating my comments about capitalism being the root of so many things that, without proper regulation, will tear ANY society to shreds.
A trip through neighborhoods in Carmel in 2016 showed the fallacy of the working poor and blue collar only support for DT. Trump/Pence signs sprouted like weeds in those places, clearly demonstrating that the supporters were reacting mostly based on fear of the “other” and personal entitlement to white privilege.
I do not agree with Marv and Tom that there is no countervailing effort. The press is full of it. I do agree that there is no official countervailing effort, but don’t worry. These people are unlikely to be elected and if so they will be marginalized in the congress since they will be toxic.
“As we peer into society’s future, we — you and I, and our government — must avoid the impulse to live only for today, plundering, for our own ease and convenience, the precious resources of tomorrow. We cannot mortgage the material assets of our grandchildren without risking the loss also of their political and spiritual heritage. We want democracy to survive for all generations to come, not to become the insolvent phantom of tomorrow.” From IKE’s farewell address
==========================================================
The plunder of Steroid-Crony-Capitalism has now become a poisonous creature infecting the whole planet. Our mighty machines and financial markets depend on extractive capitalism. Consequences of this extractive capitalism are ignored by our McMega-Media- immediate profit like the immediate high of heroin is all that is valued.
Socialism because it focuses on the uniting the whole society is a dangerous enemy for Corporatism. Corporatism wants to place us all in different boats and send us out sea to fight among ourselves for the best fishing grounds. The Corporatists in both political parties seek to divide and conquer, or better yet let us proles enforce their rules on the “other”.
You wonder what IKE would think???
“The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.” Martin Luther King, Jr.
If the majority of white educated people for Trump — well, more is the pity
If the majority of registered voters did not get out to vote, more is the pity.
If the majority of men voted for Trump, more is the pity.
If the majority of white women voted for Trump, more is the pity.
“Every nation gets the government it deserves.” Joseph de Maistre
And it’s not new: it can be said to stem directly from Pres. Reagan’s speech supporting state’s rights in Philadelphia in August, 1980. PHILADELPHIA – as in Philadelphia, Mississippi.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reagan%27s_Neshoba_County_Fair_%22states%27_rights%22_speech
Tom,
“Marv has once again nailed it totally. There is no real countervailing effort at all to fight this. Some of that may be due to the shock of the thing, that these fools are saying this stuff right out in the open but that should make our collective determination to fight this that much more vibrant and aggressive but there has been no consistency at all in doing so.”
Tom, you have to take on the underlying SYSTEM OF CONTROL. It is owned by the RACIST OLIGARCHY. We’ve been a political democracy. But, we’ve never have been a REAL social democracy. How could that have been when we had SLAVERY AND JIM Crow. I have seen through all of this, since my school days in Jacksonville.
I had been the protege of Ed Ball, the brother-in-law of Alfred I. dupont. The large dupont estate was on the banks of the St. John’s River here in Jacksonville. Alfred’s brother, Lamont dupont, was responsible for the attempted FASCIST TAKEOVER in the mid-30’s that General Smedley Butler had prevented, after testifying in front of a Congressional Committee.
Ed Ball took over control of Alfred I. dupont’s estate when he died in the 30’s. He, along with the oil man, H.L. Hunt in Dallas, who I had successfully prosecuted as a member of a three man team for the Treasury Department, were the two most powerful men politically, as well as financially, in the DEEP SOUTH. That’s why in the over 50 years that I have tracked the REAL DEEP STATE, I have countered its movement ( believe me, it moves) 75% of the time in approximately 20 attempts.
This includes being the strategist behind the scene in breaking the color barrier in college football in the “deep South,” the upfront strategist in the 1 man, 1 vote victory in Dallas, and the undisclosed “deep throat” for the book, “Accommodation: The Politics of Race in an American City” by the investigative reporter of The Dallas-Times Herald, Jim Schutze. See my website: http://www.strategicpower.org.
Nothing can be sustainable without a COUNTERVAILING FORCE that can provide for POLITICAL EQUILIBRIUM. My partner, Professor Harvey Wheeler, explained all of this as the author of “Democracy in a Revolutionary Era” as well as the co-author with Eugene Burdick of “Fail Safe,” which was later made into a movie.
It’s dangerous to deal with the truth. However, you have to make the decision whether you want to be on the INSIDE or the OUTSIDE. You can not deal with the problem from the INSIDE, as it is too contaminated with racism and anti-Semitism.
By the way, Professor Tony Judt, who I discussed a day or so ago, was an exception to the rule, as he viewed the world from the OUTSIDE although having a prestige position in the INSIDE. That’s why he received so much HEAT before he died.
I hope PEACEnet will be, at least, the start of an organizational answer to this out of control situation.
When Obama gave his speech in South Africa honoring Nelson Mandela on what would have been his 100 birthday, the white house sent orders to the embassy there, not to assist the former POTUS in any way! Another example of Trump’s hatred for a black president that he continues to destroy in every way he can. It seems black & white, on the world stage as to what’s going on. Our system of Government is being exceptionally challenged now. Will the three branches hold up and balance a corruption of power, or is this the sign of increasing consolidation of survival of the fittest?
Why shouldn’t we be looking forward to Nov 6 as the countervailing effort?
Gerald,
“I do not agree with Marv and Tom that there is no countervailing effort. The press is full of it.
Remember: You have to COLLECT all the DOTS, before you can CONNECT all the DOTS. It is impossible for investigative reporters to have collected all the necessary dots. Only ORGANIZED WARNING INTELLIGENCE can do that. You have to have been there at the BEGINNING as was pointed out in “They Thought They Were Free” by Milton Mayer which Professor Kennedy referred to a few weeks ago on this blog.
Pete,
“Why shouldn’t we be looking forward to Nov 6 as the countervailing effort?”
We should be, but only with the right “ammunition” that can be an EFFECTIVE countervailing force against the threesome of Trump, Pence, and Bannon.
Remember the Japanese weren’t DUMB ENOUGH to match-up with the ATOMIC BOMB.
Todd,
“But Vernon should know the essential truth behind Einstein’s classic statement, “No problem was ever solved by the same level of consciousness which created the problem.”
You’re absolutely right: “Problems can’t be solved at the same level of awareness that created them” ~Albert Einstein…….this has been the quote at the top of the homepage to my website http://www.StrategicPower.org for the past eight years.
It’s the reasoning behind my strategy for attacking the REAL DEEP STATE. We must have a DEEPER AWARENESS as Professor Einstein had so wisely pointed out. Only dealing with the SURFACE LEVEL will be our undoing because, at this point in time, it is IMPOSSIBLE to win the the battle for DEMOCRACY, by only concentrating at that LEVEL.
The Germans in W.W. II understood that principle real well by making sure that one of its major efforts would be directed toward SUBMARINE WARFARE.
“White Nationalist” is an oxey moron!
Trump’s point – and that of his party – is to destroy democracy before democracy destroys capitalism. It a model that explains all his actions, and all of Congress’s inaction, from attacking NATO to befriending tyrants to separating children to touting racism to undermining our free press to building America’s judicial system in his own image, to bending Congress to his will.
In Republican eyes it is naive to attempt to distribute the nation’s wealth equitably when they feel it clearly belongs to those who created it (it’s all that old-time Ayn Rand (another Russian) malarkey). So when you see Mitch standing there with his chinless face hanging down at Trump’s latest verbal atrocity, you know he is buying in because he agrees with the goal. All loyal Republicans agree with the goal. If we don’t make strides in the fall election, democracy is toast.
Terry,
“All loyal Republicans agree with the goal. If we don’t make strides in the fall election, democracy is toast.”
Ditto. That’s exactly the mindset we’re facing. Let’s face up to it. It can be done. No doubt, it’s not going to be easy. That’s one thing for sure.
Larry Kaiser,
As you know 80,000 voters if strategic placed would have swung it for Hillary.
I felt Ms. Smarsh was making the point that the liberal blind spot is that somehow we can educate our way out of bias, and therefore wrongly concluded it was only the biased uneducated that caused the election of Trump. The electoral facts don’t bear this out.
Wake up call?
” RNC officials reported almost $14 million in fundraising in June, compared to just $8 million raised by Democrats during that time. The party remains far ahead of the DNC in to-date fundraising totals for this cycle, enjoying a lead of almost $100 million in total funds raised, according to The Washington Post.”