As Americans try to cope with the national lunacy being imposed on us by the cretins in charge of our federal government, two essential elements of our current disaster have become too obvious to ignore.
First, voters did this. Granted, not a majority–most voters cast their ballots for someone other than the cult leader, and a disgraceful number of American citizens didn’t even bother to vote. Trump’s “victory” was razor-thin–but it was a victory, and we are reaping the consequences of that disastrous civic failure.
Second, the overwhelming reason voters supported Trump was racism. Those voters didn’t cast ballots for the destruction of America’s global dominance, or for the evisceration of Medicaid and Social Security; most of them (if they followed actual news and knew what was going on) would oppose measures hobbling the IRS’ ability to audit our billionaire overlords. No–what they wanted, and what the administration is providing, is culture war, an effort to take the United States back to the social arrangements of the 1950s and before, a time when LGBT folks were closeted, no one had even heard the word “trans,” women were in the kitchen, and Black people “knew their place.”
A recent essay from Jennifer Rubin in The Contrarian examined the language MAGA employs in an effort to veil that obvious effort. Prominent, of course, is the administration’s war against “DEI.” (It’s so much nicer to rail against letters of the alphabet than to use the N word…)
As with “CRT,” the MAGA censors, thought police (aimed at rooting out “improper ideology”), Great Replacement paranoids, and outright bigots cannot tell us precisely what “DEI” is—they merely know they are dead set against it. Teaching children to hate America. Making whites feel guilty. Quotas. None of that resembles the “DEI” practices utilized by universities, employers, researchers, and government entities—but that’s irrelevant to them.
Nuanced concepts (e.g., outreach to recruit Americans of all backgrounds, medical trials to ensure women’s physiology is taken into account) do not appeal to people who think Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth and Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick epitomize “merit.”
Increasingly “DEI” in the MAGA dictionary has come to mean “Blacks” or “women” or “a convenient scapegoat who represents the ‘other.’” A plane goes down? DEI. A museum pays tribute to the greatness of Jackie Robinson? DEI.
Increasingly, the anti-DEI mission has become an explicit attempt to blame or erase non-whites, females, and other disenfranchised groups. Remember when they used to oppose “canceling” people and policing speech? MAGA ideologues no longer hide their core belief: that white men are inherently qualified, the “true” history of America has been made by white males, and non-white men are to blame for all calamities.
What Rubin correctly calls a “ham-handed effort to bolster white advantage” doesn’t conceal the obvious. The goal is to resegregate America, to return the country to what White Christian Nationalists believe is the proper, “Godly” order of things: dominance of White Christian Males over everyone else. As Rubin notes, if we had any doubts of that goal, Trump’s repeal of LBJ’s Executive Order 11375 gives the game away.
LBJ’s Executive Order “gave the Secretary of Labor the authority to ensure equal opportunity for people of color and women in federal contractors’ recruitment, hiring, training and other employment practices,” The point was simple; if the federal government was contracting with private firms, it had the right to demand that those firms refrain from discriminating. If the composition of the relevant workforce was markedly different from local demographics, that didn’t necessarily preclude contracting, but the business would need to show that it had taken affirmative steps to recruit a more representative workforce.
In other words, the government wasn’t going to use our tax dollars to reward intentional discrimination.
As Rubin points out,
The anti-DEI crusade seems aimed to repeal the fundamental statutory and constitutional protections that prohibit discrimination and give meaning to “All men are created equal.” After all, if the MAGA crowd really wanted to root out unfairness and promote merit they would insist we reject unqualified white appointees and dump legacy admissions at colleges and universities schools. Instead, the anti-DEI crusade aims to bolster white entitlement and eradicate any sense of obligation to right society’s wrongs.
The war against “DEI” and the effort to make “woke” an epithet are intended to cloak MAGA’S racism, misogyny and anti-Semitism with neutral language, to pretend that efforts to address systemic inequalities are the problem, not the inequalities themselves.
Ironically, in voting their fears and bigotries, MAGA folks voted to retreat from the foundational principles that really did make America great.
Thank you for these words, Professor. Thank you.
No one who paid attention throughout the presidential campaign, all THREE of them in 2024, should be surprised at anything going on today. Throughout Trump’s expanded MAGA campaign you saw and heard his promises (actual THREATS) to do each and every inhumane Executive Order he has written and action he has had his administration carry out.
This is NOT American politics in action; this is inhumanity vs. humanity and inhumanity is currently ahead. IF his threats to end democracy as we have known it are empty threats or cannot be carried out; he is still terrorizing the majority of this country’s citizens. Will Trump’s “final solution” be the deportation of his “enemies” to El Salvador followed by any and all who have spoken publicly against him. Is that why there is no longer fact finding on Facebook; so people like myself will speak our full truths about the current government, are we being added to his future deportation lists?
Paranoia, maybe yes maybe no, but paranoia does not mean they are not out to get us.
I agree with Sheila, except for her addition of anti-semitism to the list of others the right-wing despises. That’s not the case today. Trump has elevated Israel to a protected class. We can criticize our government, but we cannot criticize Israel.
Apparently, we can even be deported for pointing out their genocide, which has only gotten much worse under Trump. Bibi isn’t even hiding the plan of eliminating all the Palestinians so they can occupy and take over the oil and gas interests. The United Nations keeps ordering Israel to stop bombing, cutting off food and water, and ordering Israeli occupiers to get out of Gaza. Israel, the US, and Europe ignore the international community.
Dear Leader ordered Harvard to eliminate DEI in hiring and admissions, among other orders, in their five-page letter to Harvard’s president. Within a short period, Harvard’s response was go fu*k yourself! Dear Leader yanked billions.
Listening to the administration trying to defend Trump’s deportation and Bukele’s orchestrated response on X was one of the worst displays I’ve ever witnessed to date (that will probably change tomorrow). I believe the media used the words “Maryland man” to describe Abrego Garcia, who’s innocently stuck in a terrorist prison in El Salvador held by a corrupt president. Stephen Miller and Bondi were screaming about Garcia being called a “Maryland man” and insisting he is MS-13 even though the administration has already admitted they picked up Abrego Garcia by accident – “it was an administrative error.”
They both got tens of thousands of likes on X despite questions from independent journalists asking them for proof or evidence of an apprentice sheet metal worker being a violent gang member.
With egomaniacs, it’s not about being proper or correct; it’s about who can yell the loudest. However, if the highest volume is reached, the winner is declared. I believe even dogs behave this way.
The good news is that China is preparing to put Trump in his place with their trade and economic policies pivoting to other countries, liquidating US bonds, and withdrawing from holding US dollars. The bad news is that American consumers and workers will suffer tremendously. MAGATs will blame China for hurting Americans.
Just a side note: in China, only the most intelligent are allowed to elevate within the ranks of the government. Xi Jinping is brilliant, and so are most of the politburo. Compare that to the ignorant racist assholes assembled by Trump, and it’s not even a fair fight. #kakistocray #kleptocracy #autocracy #broligarchy
I must disagree with Professor Kennedy on a major point. The 2024 GOP ticket for Pres/Vice Pres, did not win by a plurality, even one so miserably razor-thin. trump acknowledged it the night before the inauguration. An admission by a “party opponent” is particularly damning.
Todd @ 7:45
You are confusing support for Israel (actually, for Netanyahu) with animus toward Jews. They are two very different things. Indeed, according to survey research, a majority of American Jews oppose Israeli actions under Netanyahu–and oppose him. So does a significant portion of Israeli society. All Americans aren’t responsible for Trump, and all Jews aren’t responsible for Netanyahu. It is actually anti-Semitic to fail to distinguish between Jewish persons and Israel.
I have the distinct feeling that the majority of those who failed to exercise their sacred right to vote in 2024 were on the Democrats side of the equation, or at least on the moderate and intelligent side, and I put it in the category of the greatest disasters this country has experienced in its nearly 250 years in action. We are just beginning to realize the effects of their decision, and it definitely has the ability to end the Great Experiment, with all its many warts alongside an unparalleled and unabashed excellence. RIP, USA?
Sheila; thank you for setting Todd, and maybe a few others, straight on the Israel/Netanyahu situation facing the U.S. and the middle east today. Trump is NOT confused by the Israeli issue or the El Salvadorian prison issue; he is hand-in-glove with both leaders who reign on hate and racism.
Of course my comment should say “…should NOT be surprised by”, poor editing again; my apology again.
It’s easy to spot the flaws from childhood among the Ruling Triumvirate. They all came from highly dysfunctional families. Trump, the primary headline stealer, was born to be an NYC con man like his father and grandfather, is just one example.
They are pulling off the theft of the most influential country in today’s world. They’re repurposing it from the land of opportunity for we, the people, to the land of the con.
This has emboldened the con men to believe they can expand their operations and become world rulers. Even the Kings of olde weren’t that ambitious.
Those of us opposed to the orange hairball’s policies, behavior and comments might want to start learning Spanish. Obviously, with Bondi telling us that the courts have no jurisdiction over the executive, we’re all in danger of being deported on the Stephen Miller train to oblivion.
I don’t think we’ve even begun to see the evil that this administration has to offer the world. Stay tuned. The bottom is not yet in sight.
well if it takes money,take it away. the billionaires expect the riches off our loses. boycott the big ones. amazon,e bay,apple, etc. yea we.ll put a hurt on some already on the charts to fail. but take away the profits of bezoz lunacy of space flight to whateverthatment yesterday. flailing families are not on trumps mind,nor small buisnesses that now have their future locked up in a warehouse in china. but his buddies are ganging up on him,and hes listening to,them… the people have a choice, stop spending except for needed items. and let the public market shrink as a voice of were not gonna take it either. boycott. its shows now how thiel, bezos and the rest became your new godfather of takeover of your hood,the working class hood,all of it…trump is laughing at us. he cant fathom the working class dumping on him. were too spoiled and to faithful. but when the end is this decisive. react. we dont have much else,the courts have no teeth,and the DOJ/Magat congress is ignoring us all together.shove some pain their way..money,is now the only game.
No Todd, Trump is certainly an anti-semite, he just uses Israel, and anti-semitism when it suits his bigger purpose.
Vern, there is no bottom with these folks, it’s bottomless all the way down.
Do the White Christian Nationalists…white men…realize that they have always been led by a JEWISH boy? I’m sure they would deny it emphatically.
@Sheila 8:04:
I still disagree. Do Bibi and his right-wing party members fund AIPAC and ADL, or do American Jews fund it?
In both books I’m reading about corruption in the US, Jewish Americans played a significant role, just like the Italians and Irish, etc. There are no favored or protected classes in this country.
On social media, the rift in MAGA is between those who are pro-Israel and those who are holding them accountable for genocide. And yes, Jews are split too. And, apparently, so are Democrats.
There is lots of propaganda floating around, and the Jewish people are caught in the middle. I don’t think Trump’s insistence that Jews are a protected class in this country is helping most Jews at all—quite the contrary. Who do you think is bending Trump’s ears on giving Jews an elevated status?
If all that makes me anti-semitic, so be it. You can add racist and sexist if you like because I have opinions about feministas and Mexican’s work ethic being far superior to Americans. 😉
For anyone who thinks the US isn’t to blame for the death and destruction in Gaza, let me assure you that every thousand pound bomb dropped on a hospital or an encampment was stamped “Made in the USA”. I think we need a law that prohibits the sale of offensive weapons to other countries. Allow sales of defensive systems to anyone.
If you want to know why so many Democratic voters stayed home on November 5th, know you know how that happened. I can’t think of any of my friends from the middle east who weren’t upset about that. I told them that not voting or voting for a third party candidate would elect Orange Jesus (OJ) and that would be terrible for the Palestinian people. OJ only likes middle eastern countries that would give him money or power. That’s why he’s so cozy with Saudi Arabia.
Now we have people, students in particular, who are either green card holders or
are here on a student visa, using rights provided in the First Amendment, being swept up and removed from their homes taken to Louisiana. Louisiana is conveniently in the US 5th District. The judges there are reliably right wingers and will likely give the administration anything it wants.
This is the most direct route to deportation for anyone who has the audacity to speak up. There are currently at least eleven of these cases in the works. To my knowledge none has promoted violence in speeches nor in writing. They are accused of anti-Semitism. OJ can’t be anti-Semitic if he’s deporting these people, can he? Yes, he can. He’s using the Jews as a cudgel to eliminate a perceived enemy. God help us!
Todd. Thanks for owning up to your contempt for certain groups of people. Since you live in a (currently) free country, you can air your views and I support your right to do so even as I conclude you are an ignorant ….
TODD, I share your exact view,
IN the 2nd one, you posted.
Let me also make a note of how voter suppression and troll farms/ai have had and will increasingly have an effect on any possible future elections allowed.
There are a lot of misguided people in this country. Will there be a way to correct it? Looks more doubtful every day.
Let’s demonstrate while we can
Todd, you have never been shy about expressing your antisemitism, so why start now, even when presented with evidence. Caren, clearly you are also a blatant antisemitic troll.
HCR reported that a report from the southern border control efforts is due to Trump by April 20th. That’s the day after the national protests on the 19th. It’s expected the report will call for reinforcements and that trump will take the opportunity to call out the Insurrection Act. That way he will be in charge of army and national guard in all states. It’s imperative that the protests on the 19th stay peaceful, but it would not be surprising if behind the scenes Trump incites his proud boy types to be locked and loaded. Violence that day would bolster his claim for the need to take control with peaceful demonstrators scapegoated.
Also, it was reported the Biden would speak today about all the insane turmoil at 4p.m. It’s balm for the soul to hear voices of reason at this time.
What is the number of voters who were DISENFRANCHISED? Those voters are lumped in as those who “did not bother to vote “. There were huge voting roll purges in a number of red states. And I’m guessing purges of lesser extent that were not noted or I missed. A lot of this particular shame pointing is completely misguided.
The info was/is out there. But apparently missed or ignored by most. The GOP’s ramped up efforts ahead of the 2024 election are apparent in the drop in turnout; and the disgust is all aimed at voters instead of where some/most of it belongs.
Todd,
Judging by the years I’ve read your comments, I don’t believe you’re anti-Semitic. I think your anti oligarch, anti broligarch, anti good old boy, doesn’t matter race color or creed. I don’t always agree with your particular sentiments, and obviously you don’t agree with mine, but you’re definitely not an evil Nazi-esque coward who claims to be something else and snipes from the bushes. All voices of reason are necessary!