I want to elaborate on yesterday’s post.
It has been fascinating–and infinitely depressing–to follow the reactions to Trump’s racist rants on Facebook and in the Twitter-verse. I’ve been particularly struck by comments defending him and insisting that his attacks “weren’t racist”–that he was just “expressing his opinion,” perhaps inartfully.
Right.
And Bill Barr’s refusal to indict the officer who choked Eric Garner to death–despite DOJ lawyers’ contrary’ recommendation– wasn’t another not-so-subtle message to Trump’s white supremicist base. Kellyann Conway’s response to a Jewish reporter’s question with a demand to know his “ethnicity,” was just an innocent question. And the troglodytes at Trump’s North Carolina rally chanting “send her back” were just patriotic Americans.
Nothing to see here.
We all know better. Those MAGA caps might just as well say what they have always implied: Make America White Again.
Yesterday, I characterized the upcoming election as a contest for the soul of America. Let me enlarge on that assertion: 2020 will force America to confront the country’s “original sin”–the persistent racism that once allowed some people to own others, that reacted to emancipation with segregation and Jim Crow, and that has responded to every movement toward civic equality by doubling down on racist rhetoric and discriminatory behavior.
With the ascension of Donald Trump, the GOP has stopped denying its “southern strategy,” abandoned its dog whistles, and publicly embraced white nationalism.
Denying Trump’s racism requires deliberately ignoring his long and consistent history of racist behavior, a history that David Leonhardt laid out in a recent New York Times newsletter.
His real estate company tried to avoid renting apartments to African-American tenants. He described “laziness” as “a trait in blacks.” He called for five black and Latino teenagers to be executed — and then insisted on their guilt even after DNA evidence proved their innocence.
He rose to prominence in the Republican Party by questioning the citizenship of the first black president. He launched his presidential campaign by saying Mexican immigrants were “rapists.” His political organization created a television advertisement that Fox News pulled for being too racist.
He frequently criticizes prominent African-Americans for being unpatriotic, ungrateful, disrespectful or unintelligent. He mocks Native Americans and uses anti-Semitic stereotypes. He retweets white nationalists. He said that a violent white supremacist march included some “very fine people.” He regularly appoints people with a history of racist comments.
And over the weekend, he told four nonwhite members of Congress — all citizens, of course, and three of them born in the United States — to “go back” to where they came from.
President Trump doesn’t just make racist comments. He is a racist. He’s proven it again and again, over virtually his entire time as a public figure. His bigotry is a core part of his worldview, and it’s been central to his political rise.
Paul Krugman didn’t mince words either.
In 1981 Lee Atwater, the famed Republican political operative, explained to an interviewer how his party had learned to exploit racial antagonism using dog whistles. “You start out in 1954 by saying ‘Nigger, nigger, nigger.’” But by the late 1960s, “that hurts you, backfires. So you say stuff like, uh, ‘forced busing,’ ‘states’ rights,’ and all that stuff, and you’re getting so abstract. Now, you’re talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you’re talking about are totally economic things and a byproduct of them is, blacks get hurt worse than whites.”
Well, the dog whistle days are over. Republicans are pretty much back to saying “Nigger, nigger, nigger.”
What voters need to understand in the run-up to 2020 is that it isn’t just Trump.
Krugman points to the silence of prominent Republicans in the wake of Trump’s most recent racist outburst, to the administration’s dishonest conflation of immigration and crime, and to a proclamation just signed by the Republican governor of Tennessee honoring Confederate general Nathan Bedford Forrest, a war criminal who massacred African-American prisoners and helped found the Ku Klux Klan. I’ll add the increasing coziness of the GOP with the alt-right, Neo-Nazis, and fellow-travelers like David Duke.
I’ll also reiterate–and update– my son’s analysis, which I shared yesterday.
A vote for Donald Trump or any Republican in 2020 means one of only two things: The voter is a racist, or the voter doesn’t consider the GOP’s thoroughgoing embrace of racism/white nationalism disqualifying.
In 2020, no other issue matters.
If we resoundingly defeat the cancer that is Trump and Republican white nationalism in 2020, we can return to our heated debates about public policy, left versus right, and the proper interpretation of various constitutional rights. If we don’t, none of those things will matter.
In 2020, we will find out whether a majority of Americans are ready to confront –and reject–America’s original sin.
Denial of original sin is the breakfast of champions and the last supper for self inflicted genocide of white supremacy.
There was no racism in this country on September 11, 2001; there was no religious or ethnicity or sexual orientation required to be helped by first responders or asked of those first responders in the following days. This country has always come together as Americans, as human beings, as those needing help or those offering help at the very worst of times. Now; we find ourselves at the worst of times due to our own government, led by one man, supported by his cronies and their White Nationalist followers in the worst of times we have seen since the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960’s and 1970’s. Some of those surviving victims now sit in our government still fighting for civil and human rights for all Americans. Will it take a disaster to break the racist stronghold on America? Will the disaster come from within as physical violence in our streets or from one of the enemies Trump has antagonized to take to war levels due to his bigotry and threats of violence? Or will it be “an act of God” such as the increasing number of natural disasters such as earthquakes, wildfires and the unnatural weather patterns we are struggling to survive?
As for the current debate on continuing to provide for the surviving 9/11 first responders, who continue to die from their efforts to save the lives of others on that terrible day; where is Rudy Giuliani? He cannot vote on this issue but he can speak to it as one of the first responders who was was at ground zero and later attended literally hundreds of funerals for his city’s lost heroes. But sadly, he is now one those fighting FOR the White Nationalists.
As for the now open racial divide based on skin color; in 1976 my then father-in-law, Earl Kennedy, Sr., bestowed on me the title of “Honorary Nigger”. Anybody out there want to attack me based on my race?
“In 2020, we will find out whether a majority of Americans are ready to confront –and reject–America’s original sin.”
We must begin the 2020 presidential confrontation being FIRST RESPONDERS by voting in the 2019 November elections across this divided country.
Even if we do elect a liberal government to run this country and all of Trump’s policies and rules are overturned, what then? We will still be saddled with a large percentage of the population that is racist to its core. We thought we were free of this original sin when we elected Obama only to find ourselves facing neighbors, co-workers and family members who now show us who they really are, and it is an ugly sight to be sure.
We can win in 2019 and 2020… what then do we do with those we now know to be bigots and racist?
As I’ve stated many times, we needed Donald Trump in the White House. The KKK is no longer hiding in barns but they serve in the highest places and attend rallies everywhere out in the public. Now we know its significance/influence.
Bernie Sanders has been condemning Trump’s racism and so have other progressive leaders. If elected POTUS, racism will suffer a great defeat.
Personally, I’m glad Trump has exposed our racist problem…it’s not the only character defect we suffer with but it is the most disgusting. We need leaders with zero tolerance.
During the 2nd world war, my uncles, all 5 of them who were left alive, fought in various branches of the service. The Army, the Navy, the Seabees, and merchant Marines. My uncle Al, said that after they marched into Germany, and the surrounding areas, they saw the carnage of the concentration camps. I remember him talking about those days, he said that when they went into the local German or Polish towns, closest to the concentration camps, they grabbed the local population and brought them into the camps to start burying bodies and picking up the piles of clothing, teeth, glasses, hair, prosthetic devices, and toys. The people complained and said that they had nothing to do with what was happening at these camps. Some were extremely disturbed and tried to refuse, others were agreeable with what happened and went about their business doing what they were ordered to do. My uncles were of African slave, Native American and English Heritage. One of the most egregious and stupid things that were going on at that time, many of the white soldiers were telling the Europeans, at midnight, the black soldiers would grow tales and horns. Amazingly, people would stand around and wait to see this transformation. Uncle Al also said even the most bigoted of his fellow soldiers, cried at the sight of these camps. Obviously it didn’t stop the bigotry once they got back to the United States.
They found the graves of French African soldiers who stayed in Germany after the 1st world war and married German women. They were buried with their children. Their wives were used as comfort women for German soldiers. My uncle Al and his brothers were on my mother’s side of the family. Ironically, my father’s father was an immigrant from Germany. And I recall as a small child, my grandfather loved Adolf Hitler! My father actually had half brothers and sisters in Germany which he had never met until he joined the military. My father fought in Korea and would argue with my grandfather about the evils of Nazi-ism. My father met his family in Germany when he was appointed to the honor guard in Germany guarding the general. At that time, he told me when I was younger, he didn’t like his family, and they had no regrets for what happened. They felt that in the long run Germany would come back stronger and more pure racially and ethnically.
My mother’s uncles had 4 of their brothers murdered by whites because of their ethnicity. My cousin on my mother’s side was hung in a Texas jail because he shot a white man burglarizing his house. As a young child walking to school in Chicago, I would have to walk through a mostly German neighborhood. These areas were started by a program of bringing German men to the United States after the war. They would work for 15 or 20 years, then go back to Germany if they desired and collect their Social Security pension checks. It was supposed to be part of the rebuilding process over there. Because I was and still am dark skinned, I had to endure insults from these German immigrants. I remember my father confronting 2 of these Ex or supposed Ex- Nazis, it was something I will never forget. We moved out of Chicago to a suburb which was mostly white north of the city. I was the only dark skinned child in my entire grade. The teachers humiliated me for my ability to read at a much higher level than the other kids, they told me that I thought I was smarter than everyone else. They locked me in a janitors closet every day for the entire school year with my books. I was so ashamed I didn’t tell my parents for 2 years. I could go on and on and on, one more thing though, my son. My wife is Nigerian, we’ve been married for 39 years. My 12-year-old son walking home from school, was accosted by self-described Nazis on the way home. He was slapped around and insulted pretty severely.
I was so angry, I grabbed my old Winchester lever action 10gauge and went hunting. When I ran across the group, I came out of my truck and they ran in the house. This old lady came out and claimed that she was upset about her son hanging with these guys. I told him next time they wouldn’t see me coming. This is how the United States is, and it parallels Germany. It will not change! Folks felt that when Barack Obama was elected president, their work was done. The only thing that was accomplished there, was that it kicked the effort to make America white again into high gear. When Barack Obama said elections have consequences, (Supreme Court) he was warning everyone, his warning went unheeded!
Theresa; and where will the money come from to fight them in our state and federal courts, courts with so many Trump appointees because McConnell defied the Constitution for 8 years refusing to even hold required hearings on President Obama’s nominees? If cases get to court; what will the outcome be…what we have seen resulting from the Republicans appointing Trump’s nominees on all levels even after disastrous hearings?
This country will be paying for the Republican/Trump disaster for decades after you and I are long gone.
I believe there is much more at stake in the 2020 elections than race. Our environment (pollution and climate change)and and a woman’s right to control her own body are just two of many important things that voters should consider at the ballot box.
While racism is a very important issue we must be sure to emphasize many more issues that will personally affect all voters.
The next election cannot be just about one issue.
JoAnn, the United States is already had its Night of the Long knives when McConnell took up the birtherism mantle with Trump and gerrymandered the Supreme Court. We are now in the middle of Kristallnacht! Can it be stopped? I doubt it, too many divisions.
The first thing we need to do is to understand how we could have elected an “asshole” like Trump.
That’s a long story and we better stop burying the fact that anti-Semitism is at a DEEPER LEVEL than the racism or we won’t get anywhere without the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.
Why is it that no one mentions the fact that Trump “jump-started” his presidential campaign with anti-Semitism? Have we all forgotten MOVE ON’S failed attempt at a boycott?
I’m a fan of Paul Krugman. However, in the past, he has apologized for discounting the effect of racism. In the U.S., anti-Semitism and racism go hand and hand. It’s been that way for at least 50 years.
We can’t just win the coming election. If it’s a narrow victory, it’ll be Bush vs. Gore all over again and we’ll get 4 more years of 45. Four more years of 45 will mean the end of our Constitutional Republic. We have to send the strongest message possible. We also have to flip the Senate. The GOP has to be made to understand that there is a higher price to pay for their complicity in the destruction of the rule of law than they ever thought possible.
John Sorg,
You have written about a childhood and family viewpoints that I cannot imagine growing up in. Thanks for sharing those insights.
I live in an extremely rural farming area of northern Indiana. Everyone here is and always has been caucasian. People here don’t speak about racism because it has never affected our lives. However, those of us who do recognize the existence of racist opinions among our neighbors, family and friends happen to be Democratic voters. We are very aware of the local population that votes against their own interests due to having been thoroughly indoctrinated by their parents to vote republican no matter what. They also happen to be Fox Noise viewers.
This statement in today’s blog is just the kind of extremest talk we should NOT endorse:
“A vote for Donald Trump or any Republican in 2020 means one of only two things: The voter is a racist, or the voter doesn’t consider the GOP’s thoroughgoing embrace of racism/white nationalism disqualifying.”
I am very surprised, Shelia, that you seem to support it. It saddens me to see it in your column and then not surprised to see one of your readers respond with “We can win in 2019 and 2020… what then do we do with those we now know to be bigots and racist?”
“What then do we do with….” How close are we edging to a “final solution” for people we call bigots and racists?
Please don’t forget the original original sin and the massive slaughter and inhuman treatment of indigenous peoples. Why do we always seem to leave this out? There is Standing Rock and the Pocahontas slur to remind us. Go spend time on a reservation to see how racism has played out. I don’t want to take away from the power of this post, just add to it when we talk about origins of racist behavior in this country.
We are mourning the America we were taught existed. It was a lie. What we do have is good people who continue to fight evil. We must continue that fight.
After 11 September 2001, racism DID emerge with the anti-Muslim hate groups. This happened despite George W. Bush’s efforts to mollify the slavering idiots on the extreme right.
Also, watch for the resurgence of anti-communist/socialist rhetoric to mask the racism that lies beneath. The right wing maniacs are hard at work framing EVERY debate with those themes. We thinking people have to frame the truth, because there is no debate if one side claims complete sovereignty of their views.
Yes, defeating the Republican party absolutely is the only thing that will save us. The Trump-ite knuckle draggers are oiling their assault weapons as we speak. They WANT a civil war. The first Civil War hasn’t ended for the racists.
Peggy,
“The GOP has to be made to understand that there is a higher price to pay for their complicity in the destruction of the rule of law than they ever thought possible.”
That’s the answer. And the proof must be communicated now and not later. The Jews haven’t fought back in the diaspora [outside of Israel] for 2000 years. That’s why they are still here. However, that’s not the case for other minority groups, especially, African-Americans.
Anyone following Trump, whether white or black or anything in between, are nothing more than FOOLS, not in the long run, but in the very near future.
Marv, it goes hand-in-hand. Racism is racism! Anti-Semitism is racism, just as segregation is racism. What did, and do, folks say about those of the black race? That they are cursed and descendents of Ham.
A churchman of about 1,500 years ago, Ambrosiaster, applied it this way, saying: “Due to folly Ham, who foolishly ridiculed the nakedness of his father, was declared a slave.” And John F. Maxwell observes in his recent book Slavery and the Catholic Church: “This disastrous example of fundamentalist exegesis explanation continued to be used for 1,400 years and led to the widely held view that Black Africans were cursed by God.” Similar “stories” have been manufactured in modern times. Defenders of slavery, such as John Fletcher of Louisiana, for example, taught that the sin that prompted the curse by Noah was racial intermarriage. He claimed that Cain was smitten with a black skin for killing his brother Abel, and that Ham had sinned by marrying into the race of Cain. It is noteworthy, too, that Nathan Lord, president of Dartmouth College during the last century, also attributed Noah’s curse upon Canaan partly to Ham’s “forbidden intermarriage with the previously wicked and accursed race of Cain.”
So we can see that whites worked hard to find justification for their actions and their opinions and it had its basis in religion. They felt if God justified it, that cleared their own consciences. Judge Samuel Sewall dismantled that thought process in June of 1700 when he stated: “For Canin is the person cursed 3 times over, without the mentioning of ham whereas the Blackmore’s (black race) are not descended of Cain and but of Kush.”
And of course let’s not forget Christian anti-Semitism which had many incarnation throughout the millennia. From the Jews killing Christ, and which Christians forget that Jesus Christ was a Jew. To money lending, and business dealings, and the church putting restrictions on Jewish business transactions. Ursury, or loans with interest. That was considered unclean by Christian societies. So, Jews were left to be moneylenders and bankers. Over time, Jews were hated because of their success, all woes were blamed on Jews. There’s a lot more to it than that, but suffice it to say, the whites, the Europeans, used religion to demonize all who were not like them.
Nancy, thank you very much. I’ve had time to do this today while sitting in front of my wonderful computer my son built for me. It’s so much easier than doing this on my phone, sitting in the car at the train station dropping off my wife for picking her up, LOL. Of course I spend the day with my granddaughters, I am distressed because I don’t see a good world for them to live in, especially in this country. It’s mind-boggling for me to not only witness the level of divisiveness, venom and vitriolic hatred by our fellow men and women, but to live in it every day.
John,
You really know what you’re talking about. I’m with you all the way.
Gee Morton, you sure took that the wrong way. Certainly not what was intended. My question was about what to do with those we so strongly disagree with on these matters, not edging toward some final solution although I have heard many liberals expressing a fear that that is what the right is planning for us. That specter is out there as you demonstrate with your reaction to my question.
So I’ll ask again and offer what I see as the only thing I can do with the bigots and racists in my life. I will continue to be polite yet honest and the only engagement I will use is to tell such people when they come at me with their racism, “I thought you were a better person than that.”
That’s it.
Morton – thank you for pointing out again how The Duck and his reign have poisoned us to HATE anyone who is different than we are. “First we came for the Trump voters…?”
All – wish we could harness the energy and brainpower of the contributor to this blog to actually WORK on the 2020 election instead of just talking about it. We at CommonGoodGoverning are at full speed and accelerating….Have tried to recruit you folks before….
Morton,
Racism [including anti-Semitism] is the overriding issue facing America. There are other vital issues of much concern, but none of them can be worked out until RACISM is successfully confronted.
We’re not going to be able to deal with climate problems in the middle of a Civil War. Sheila, as most always, knows what she’s talking about.
Lester,
Aren’t you going a little too far with: “First we came for the Trump voters…?”
Many of us on this blog try to stay in touch with reality, maybe you should try the same.
Dying of Whiteness: How the Politics of Racial Resentment Is Killing America’s Heartland: Jonathan M. Metzl: 9781541644984: Books – Amazon.ca
MAGA = Make America Hate Again
It’s very difficult to focus on RACISM and the 2020 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION at the same time. It’s 15 or 16 months until the latter. Doesn’t it make sense to focus on RACISM now? If we’re successful, the 2020 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION should be a cinch for the Democratic Party.
From another Blog: –
Trump intuitively grasped a painful reality that Norman Mailer wrote about in 1968. Inspired by Richard Nixon’s campaign, Mailer wrote that “political power of the most frightening sort was obviously waiting for the first demagogue who would smash the obsession and free the white man of his guilt [of slavery and racism and their legacies]. Torrents of energy would be loosed, yes, those same torrents which Hitler had freed in the Germans when he exploded their ten-year obsession with whether they had lost the war [World War I] through betrayal or through material weakness. Through betrayal, Hitler had told them: Germans were actually strong and good. The consequences would never be counted.”
Immediately after writing this, Mailer said:
“Now if suburban America was not waiting for Georgie Wallace, it might still be waiting for Super-Wallace.”
Enter Candidate Trump on his escalator, railing against Mexicans as rapists and killers. Stoking fear and bigotry against people of color. He did it, guiltlessly, because it worked. And it proved a balm to so many in his base, who could now vent their racism because a rich White man like Trump had given them cover, permission, even a mandate.
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Mailer wrote in 1968 at a time when the power of the Federal Government was being used to enforce the Civil Right’s Act, at least legally there would have to be a desegregated society.
Nixon’s Southern Strategy and later President Rayguns’s embrace of evangelicals turned the Deep South from Jim Crow Democrats into Jim Crow Republicans.
President Agent Orange and Pastor Pence has given cover to the racists and male dominated authoritarian institutions. The important piece is to continue the empowerment of the 1%. If the 1% can use racism and authoritarian institutions to maintain their grip on America, they could care less about the consequences.
RACISM is Trump’s vulnerability. His primary strategy is based on anti-Semitism, playing Israel against the American Jewish community. AID 4 HATE. A very simple strategy for a “political simpleton.”
His strategy could be unwound in about 15 minutes, if the wherewithal was there. All we have to do is call the SPLC/ADL hand and the game would be over.
what did we expect,we never got past the bigotry before trump. if anyone only sees the lower side of town, and the job market for minorities,and never actully lived in this state, then your just guessing.any and all talk seems to stem from this bigots tone to his tie size. hes a bigot, and his admin is a full monte of like minded assholes. thom hartmans piece the other day setting out the plan wall street has for taking over our government, has now been exposed. if we havent noticed. this in effect will tell the working class as a whole, you now will do this. mmmm no diffrent from what whitey has been tellling everyone for centuries. tired of it? wheres the voice? obviously we are still sitting on our hands as the flip is just a year away.. if you want to believe its not possible, stand in line, its real long. myself, ive seen this since reagan, and its a scam in words to keep the electorate busy guessing, pushing buttons,and doing nothing but pacifying themselves.when they should be reading and taking stock of what is underlining mcconnels world. trump is a product of people who cant cope, and cant get over not being able to kick someone to the curb.. fact,live outside in my world, i see this trash everyday. i was raised in a dark neighborhood, as a white kid, nothing has changed. its just that we now ALLOW bigots to now own the white house,and the greatest nation,(or was) on earth..the whole working class will be reduced to a minority status,and demanded by whitey to submit. and we voted for this…
imagine,every soldier who went to defend our democracy,live,died of was severly hurt,all for the aspect of wall street governing our lives..and the band played on…
We’ve got this “jerk” by the balls. Now is not the time to release them. I hope my feminist friends will excuse my language.
“A vote for Donald Trump or any Republican in 2020 means one of only two things: The voter is a racist, or the voter doesn’t consider the GOP’s thoroughgoing embrace of racism/white nationalism disqualifying.”
Morton; I live among those described in that statement; I have them in my family, fortunately have lost them among my former friends. As for what we will do with those considered bigots and racists; we will remove those who sit in places of power over us and seek justice or the victims of those who act on their bigotry and racism. We will not turn our backs or shut our windows to block out the stench; we will return power to those who are actually “Good Americans” and will support them. We will return to democracy, Rule of Law and the Constitution o the UNITED States of America.
“After 11 September 2001, racism DID emerge with the anti-Muslim hate groups. This happened despite George W. Bush’s efforts to mollify the slavering idiots on the extreme right.”
Vernon; George W. led the racism against Muslims; his Muslim “hate group” was our own military which he sent into Iraq to seek out and kill Saddam Hussein (sp) after ignoring his own investigator’s reports that there were no nuclear weapons in Iraq. The report, authored by the husband of Valerie Plame, was the reason Cheney supported “outing” her as a CIA agent, endangering her life and the lives of her family. Bush later admitted receiving the report but chose not to believe it…probably due to Cheney’s urging.
Racism will always be with us; how we deal with it will decide the success or failure of this nation as being united or will we erect a wall through this country as happened in Berlin, Germany after WWII? And where would that wall begin and where would it end?
Why don’t we just make this 1 on 1 and get the game over with? Trump and I are both Penn Wharton School graduates. Trump is 73 and I’m 81, but most everyone believes I’m in my late 60’s or early 70’s. I’ve been extremely fortunate, health-wise.
It all comes down, according to Sun Tzu the great Chinese warrior, to who has the best what might be called: WARNING INTELLIGENCE.
Mine is the best. Why can’t we both be patriotic and do the best for our country without needless bloodshed?
T. Bowers: “We can win in 2019 and 2020… what then do we do with those we now know to be bigots and racist?”
SEND THEM BACK TO WHERE THEY CAME FROM.
While I will vote against Trump and all Republicans for this and many other reasons (as Nancy has pointed out), we can’t vote racism away. We won’t transform a third or half of America by mutual hatred either.
I’m looking for leadership who will begin to end this downward spiral of mutual hate that will engulf and destroy us all.
I repeat:
TPT (Turning Point Tragedy): that’s what it is going to come down to. 1963 and 1968 all over again. Assassinations and street riots, but this time blood will fill the streets. Bible thumpers will mow us down. They are armed and ready.
Where are the liberal armories? Where are the liberal cadres? Where are the liberal generals? The chain of command? Where is the plan, the strategy? Do we splash some red paint on a copy of the constitution and tack it above the entrance of our home? Who thinks that will save us?
Our Liberal “resistance” makes France’s 1940 surrender look like the heroics of Lieutenant Audie Murphy at Ramatuelle.
John and Larry,
I agree with both of you. It can go either way, but John’s position is the only winning one.
John – Kudos – it is really tres simple at a macro level. The devil is where we know it…
John Neal – ditto. We know the problem; now it’s time for leadership and a perhaps long time effort to keep the country together while working on solutions.
“Krugman points to the silence of prominent Republicans in the wake of Trump’s most recent racist outburst,…”
Prominent Republicans were not silent at all. McConnell, backed by his minions in the Senate, stated for all to see and hear that “the President is not a racist.”
Believe what you see and hear with your own eyes and ears, not what the propagandists tell you to believe.
Yesterday, I posted a comment on FB asking if we were heading to a Constitutional crisis or were we already in one. The real question is what do we do about it.