There is no longer any way to pretend that the MAGA movement is not all about racism. The only difference between Trump and a Grand Dragon is that the white sheet has been exchanged for a red hat. (KKK members at least understood that they should hide their faces; MAGA’s racists are “out and proud.”)
Spineless fellow-travelers in the GOP can no longer pretend that clear signs of bigotry are being “misinterpreted”– that Nazi salutes are just signs of exuberance. Trump has removed any ambiguity those quislings might hide behind.
Trump’s Executive orders attacked diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programs, ordered the Justice Department to stop civil rights prosecutions already in progress and to cease any investigations of racist discrimination currently underway. As part of that purge of diversity programs, he ordered federal workers to report colleagues who keep such programs alive and threatened those who don’t comply. In a related order, Trump revoked a 60-year-old rule banning discrimination at federal contractors.
Even his assault on the Department of Education is motivated by the fact that it investigates civil rights complaints at K-12 schools and higher education institutions.
Robert Hubbell has noted a particularly heartless coda to Trump’s effort to make bigotry great again:
Trump expanded “DEI” to include an “A” (for “accessibility”)—apparently indicating an attempt to root out efforts to expand the representation of disabled individuals protected by the Americans with Disability Act (ADA). See Mother Jones, Trump Shuts Down Diversity Programs Across Government.
The New York Times has reported that Trump’s Justice Department has not only halted new civil rights investigations, but has also signaled that it might back out of agreements with local police departments to address misconduct–sending a clear message that police officers accused of unnecessary violence against minority citizens are unlikely to face any penalties.
Hubbell also reported the contents of chilling internal memos:
Internal memos at federal agencies announced the immediate abolition of “DEIA” in ominous language that suggested a police state. The memos said,
The Department [AGENCY” NAME] is taking steps to close all agency DEIA offices and end all DEIA-related contracts in accordance with President Trump’s executive orders titled Ending Radical and Wasteful Government DEI Programs and Preferencing and Initial Rescissions of Harmful Executive Orders and Actions.
These programs divided Americans by race, wasted taxpayer dollars, and resulted in shameful discrimination.
We are aware of efforts by some in government to disguise these programs by using coded or imprecise language. If you are aware of a change in any contract description or personnel position description since November 5, 2024, to obscure the connection between the contract and DEIA or similar ideologies, please report all facts and circumstances to [omitted email address] within 10 days.
There will be no adverse consequences for timely reporting this information. However, failure to report this information within 10 days may result in adverse consequences.
Worse, the email threatens federal employees with punishment if they fail to “snitch” on other federal workers who fail to comply with vague, retrospective regulations designed to sniff out alleged “underground efforts” to promote diversity. The analog to Nazi Germany is direct. No similes or metaphors are needed. The memo is a complete one-to-one mapping onto the tactics of Hitler’s SS.
Republican assaults on the very concept of fairness and non-discrimination aren’t limited to the federal government. Here in deep-Red Indiana (former headquarters of the KKK), a bill working its way through the General Assembly would ban diversity, equity and inclusion in state agencies, educational institutions and any organization that receives money from the state.
Under SB 235, DEI’s definition includes social justice, systemic oppression and antiracism. And it bans taking positions on those issues. It also limits training related to race, sex, color, ethnicity, gender identity or sexual orientation. And it bans “influencing the composition” of employees related to race, sex, color or ethnicity.
Give the GOP credit for “coming out.” MAGA has always been racist and White Christian Nationalist to the core– an effort to reclaim social and legal dominance for straight White Christian males. Pundits who attribute Trump’s (slim) electoral victory to Democratic messaging or Biden policies simply refuse to see the GOP elephant in the room: Kamala Harris was defeated by the deeply-rooted racism and misogyny of far too many American voters.
There is no longer any intellectually honest way to avoid recognizing and naming what really motivates these people. And no way for those of us who don’t share those hatreds to escape the clear moral imperative to resist, speak truth to power, and call MAGA what it so obviously is.
We are either on the side of Episcopal Bishop Budde or the Red Hats. There is no middle ground.
“Trump expanded “DEI” to include an “A” (for “accessibility”)—apparently indicating an attempt to root out efforts to expand the representation of disabled individuals protected by the Americans with Disability Act (ADA).”
That added “A” is an issue Trump has frequently and blatantly spoken against due to his person disgust with the disabled. The mocking of a journalist and his outspoken disgust about our thousands of military disabled due to injuries as they fought for our rights and freedom, including Trump’s right to be disgusted which he has now expanded to be part of the Rule of Law.
His anti-Constitutional birthright to citizenship has failed to include FOUR of his own five children born to immigrant mothers. He and Ivana had been married 8 years and produced Donald Jr., Eric and Ivanka before she became an American citizen. Barron was only three months old when Melania became a citizen. Can he pardon them for being born in this country to an immigrant mother or lie about the facts?
The coverup of Hegpeth’s (sp?) known public alcoholic behavior plus the “non-disclosure” clause in his divorces has yet to point out the glaring fact that – if there is a non-disclosure clause there must be something vital to disclose. Remember Stormy Daniels and her $130,000 hush fee.
“We are either on the side of Episcopal Bishop Budde or the Red Hats. There is no middle ground.” Bishop Budde could have spoken from any denomination of religion or as an Atheist regarding her plea for humanity; it appears to have roused the ire of some within the many religious denominations to speak out in her favor.
This morning the news reported that a 91 year old Rep. Grassley has found a possible route to a THIRD TERM for Trump in the White House but President Joe Biden was too old at age 82 to be reelected to his deserved second presidential term.
The laughter at the open hatred, racism and weakness of America’s once honored humanity is resounding globally as we here at the bottom of American humanity can only look forward to losing on all issues covered by the Supreme Court’s gift of immunity to a rapist and convicted felon.]
Braun is more dangerous than Trump. We will see Braun’s decisions reflecting the Trumpian universe faster than we experience Trump’s. Time to start calling Braun out. We will see Braun’s anti public schools legislation, for example, take hold quickly. Let’s stop repeating what we know and start mobilizing. The fact that the AG has not joined other AGs in the lawsuit challenging Trump’s anti citizenship order is quite telling. Local news is not doing its journalistic duty. There is not enough coverage of what the legislature does or what Braun is proposing. People are not reading newspapers where local news traditionally is covered. Here is an example – Braun essentially signed an anti DEI order – so how can that change any state laws regarding minority contractors? smaller businesses? women owned businesses? Where is the investigative journalism about these issues? I feel increasingly powerless like I am shouting into the wind but if enough voices shout we can get past the wind.
It took Hitler 53 days to do away with Germany’s constitution.
T*ump is testing the limits, and moving the Overton window of normalcy. I see the executive order to end birthright citizenship as his test to see what he can get away with. If he is successful in this instance, where will he stop? He will eventually challenge the term limits for himself. The only consolation is that he is old and will probably not last that long. But MAGADOGE will be with us for a long time.
What eventually ended Hitler’s delusional reign was a devastating world war. It seems to me that we are on the same track. How far will we travel on this path? Are there any members of the GOP Congress who are standing against him?
Am I to take it that the new crusade against Accessibility, in addition to diversity, equity and inclusion, means in effect a summary executive repeal of, or refusal to enforce, duly-passed laws such as the ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act)? I wonder what courts will say about that. And if the courts uphold the law,will that be the case that prompts the MAGA administration to openly snub and denounce the basic idea of judicial independence and authority?
You know that’s coming. The only question is when. A totalitarian, dictatorial movement cannot tolerate the existence of laws, a legislature or judges not entirely under the thumb of the dictator. Nor state nor local governments.
Perhaps it might as well be accessibility. Persecuting people in wheelchairs adds another group of “others”, and a fairly sympathetic and widespread group at that, to the Enemies List of segments of society that MAGA seeks to turn “real Americans” against. Perhaps it will be a bridge too far when white, cisgender Christians are ordered to add their own grandma or Uncle Joe to the list of Enemies. Let us hope so.
James, there are barely any Democrats standing against Trump. Most have kissed the ring. Some, like John Fetterman (my least favorite senator), traveled to Mar-A-Lago to kneel at the altar. You will not see any resistance from the uniparty in congress and the senate. If Hegseth is confirmed, the ignorant rule the day!
When it comes to Indiana, I’d watch closely what Braun does with the local and state police (brown shirts). They are already creating paywalls to access evidence from their body cams by charging a substantial fee to release the film. The DOJ is also reducing its accountability to the people. If the cops know there is no more accountability for their racist actions, it will become chaos in the streets.
Musk announced yesterday on X that “the war against wokeism is underway!”
Will the minorities announce buyer’s remorse for supporting Trump? A lot of black people in my community have kneeled to the local oligarchy and cast votes proudly for Trump and our republican Mayor. Our “deputy mayor” is a black republican appointed after the George Floyd conflict. I watched as the local black community leaders, including preachers, all bowed to the local oligarchs instead of insisting on real change, and the local police had several lawsuits against white cops for strong-arming civilians. The leaders just positioned themselves in nice, cushy roles. When they start screaming about injustices, it will fall on deaf ears from this journalist.
My cousin, who works as a counselor in the local city school system, was asking how to deal with kids crying at school due to wondering if their parents will be home when they get out of school (Mexicans). According to my notifications, the raids started last night. How did that happen so fast? It’s almost as if the police had planned for it before Trump took office… 😉
Racists believe that humans can be ranked by skin color.
I suppose we all react to colors in different ways. My wife, for instance, does not like the color orange.
White in houses, for instance, connotes some things, but we would react to a black house differently. Ford Model T’s came only in black. The Dodge Bros offering colors challenged Henry’s supremacy. We like choice in colors.
On the other hand, once you get past the melatonin content of the skin, it seems likely that you’d find cells with the same range of differences in all humans.
Inherited diversity is just a fact of life. All species exhibit diversity, but another aspect of diversity is culture.
I like to apply the physics concept of how place and time change together, so I often think of placetime as being the same as spacetime. Lives start at one placemoment in location and time. That is wherever our mother’s vagina was at the moment her final push became our first breath and experience. We move through placetime all of our lives by our energy, and physics adds to our energy the energy of space born at the Big Bang. At some other placetime we have our final breath and experience. In between what we experience makes us as unique as our DNA is. During our lives from birth to death, we gather experiences that, among other things, teach our species the symbologies humans are defined by, as letters and numbers get forged into words and sentences and terms of equations further refined in meaning into paragraphs, chapters, books, and so forth which over my life have been redefined in location and access into the World Wide Web of interconnected clients and servers. Our level of understanding of our times and world grows with experience, and our ability to experience can be increased enormously by our skilled use of the tool of learning and our ability to learn by adept use of the World Wide Web.
Due to the forces of genetics and culture, change never stops, and diversity never goes away.
Our Constitution designs equity under the law for everyone who lives here.
Progress comes about through the inclusion of many perspectives in all human affairs.
In a single stroke of his sharpie, Donald Trump regulated human progress in the formerly united states by the force of law. And his sycophants all said Amen.
I see and smell the work of Stephen Miller in some of these “executive orders” regarding the “others”. And to several points, this summary tells us what path we’re headed toward: “The analog to Nazi Germany is direct. No similes or metaphors are needed. The memo is a complete one-to-one mapping onto the tactics of Hitler’s SS.”
This is Stephen Miller’s idea of the final solution. He’s been diddling this stuff for years. But he’s just one of the whole tribe of zombies that Republicans bring to the table from the sewers of their hateful “minds”. Our decency, or what’s left of it, is rapidly being destroyed by this tyranny.
The courts? I saw where a court has declared the birthright order to be fundamentally un-constitutional. No worries. Trump’s SCOTUS will happily go to their knees and decide against the lower court. Get used to that NAZI scenario too.
Orange Jesus (OJ) is simply the vessel for the Koch consortium. It’s clear from his answers to questions about his Executive Orders that he has no idea what’s in them. Welcome to Project 2025, everyone! I believed him when he said he hadn’t read it because he doesn’t read anything. We not only have a racist, misogynist President, we have a Know Nothing President. Welcome to the1850s.
OJ is old, but he’s not the key. If you wondered why J.D. Vance was picked for VP, here’s your answer. Get everyone used to him. Let him learn from OJ what he needs to know about being the star of the show. He’s the perfect version two, self absorbed, clueless, and a blowhard. He’ll be perfect in the new role.
What fun!
So, he released criminals, and a drug lord, of whom will prey on the Americans he says he wants to protect…, and these are not Mexicans!
Keep in mind the Orwellian bit:
“Every record has been destroyed or falsified, every book rewritten, every picture has been repainted, every statue and street building has been renamed, every date has been altered. And the process is continuing day by day and minute by minute. History has stopped. Nothing exists except an endless present in which the Party is always right.” George Orwell (“1984”)
Then recall Martin Niemoller’s “First they came,” poem!
It was published in 1961.
“It was miraculous. It was almost no trick at all, he saw, to turn vice into virtue and slander into truth, impotence into abstinence, arrogance into humility, plunder into philanthropy, thievery into honor, blasphemy into wisdom, brutality into patriotism, and sadism into justice. Anybody could do it; it required no brains at all. It merely required no character.”Joseph Heller, Catch-22
Amen Sheila. I keep yelling this to the heavens: the racism and misogyny killed her campaign. We simply are not seeing that, and it’s in our DNA – that and the evil legacy and lie of Manifest Destiny.
I wonder how anyone could ever have doubted their intent.
This is like thinking you can control your car while speedily driving on black ice.
If Elon Musk is a genuine nazi, why has he been receiving monies and government contracts from Democratic administration’s?
Fair question,no
And with all of this Trump’s support from non-white voters is growing.
Peggy’s observation that Trump is acting as the hand of the Kochs and other big-business interests offers a clue to why accessibility is being added to the Enemies List. Accessibility accommodations (wheelchair ramps, elevators, handicapped parking spaces, website accessibility requirements, etc.) cost businesses money.
Let’s call things out. Trump is a criminal who is attempting to turn Congress and the Supreme Court into his criminal enterprises. He’s given the green light to Jan. 6. rioters to go out and perform MORE criminal acts towards those who resist.
A good movie for people to watch right now should be “The Wave” which is about a teacher who tries to explain to his students how the German Populace accepted Hitler and the Nazis. There are two versions of the wave. One is a video done in 1982 and the other is a more modern version called Die Welle. There is also a netflix series about it called “We are the Wave”
Included in the DEI hires at DOJ are an honors group. As of yesterday, just the offered jobs had been rescinded, but it’s a wait and see.