Out Of The Closet

And so it begins. 

LGBTQ+ folks weren’t the only people hiding in closets. There were plenty of people with white sheets in those closets, and those people are emerging–this time, without the sheets. 

I recently posted that Trump’s rhetoric was received as permission, even encouragement, for the expression of bigotry and hatred. Friends who are nicer than I am remonstrated, insisting that not all Trump voters were motivated by racism and misogyny. (That may be true, although there’s a current Facebook meme that speaks to that protest: Question: What do we call the Germans who supported Hitler for reasons other than hatred of Jews? Answer: Nazis.)

The primary motivation for Trumpism is becoming very clear, and voters protesting that they based their choice on “the economy” (which is currently the best in the world) or who offer other, less reprehensible reasons need to face up to the fact that–like the businesspeople who once “went along” with the Klan in Indiana because it was dangerous or inconvenient to oppose it–have enabled the forces of bigotry Those few racists who were still closeted are now coming out in force.

Just a couple of headlines from a day or so ago underscore the point.

The Washington Post has reported on racist texts nationwide.

The FBI and authorities in several states are investigating racist text messages sent to Black people nationwide this week saying they would be brought to plantations to work as enslaved people and pick cotton.
 
People in at least a dozen states and D.C. have received the messages according to authorities and local media. The texts have spread alarm in the aftermath of a presidential election marked by President-elect Donald Trump and his campaign’s use of inflammatory language against minorities.
 
The origin of the messages is unknown, and it is unclear how many people received them. Reports from some states said the messages arrived Wednesday and appeared to target Black students at universities. Some, though not all, of the messages claimed to be from a Trump supporter or “the Trump administration,” according to screenshots shared on social media and local news.

Black people all across the country have reported receiving these messages, which evidently varied a bit in wording. All of them, however, ordered recipients to “report to a plantation and work in slavery.” Several claimed to have been from Trump supporters or Donald Trump or the Trump campaign.

It bears noting that these messages targeting Black people were facilitated by a worrisome lack of privacy protections, and the sharing of personal information–some in the form of lists, and others enabled by the broadcast messaging ability of cellphone carriers.

Closer to home, IU Students reported receipt of similar messages.

Not that it is comforting–far from it– but it is undeniable that the wave of fascism sweeping this country is part and parcel of a global phenomenon.

In Amsterdam, Israeli soccer fans were recently attacked. At least 62 people were arrested in conjunction with football contests, according to police, as a result of clashes that erupted overnight after a Europa League football match.

“In several places in the city, supporters were attacked, abused and pelted with fireworks. Riot police had to intervene several times, protect Israeli supporters and escort them to hotels,” said Amsterdam officials.

Social media platforms were flooded with unverified images purported to be of the violence, but confirmed details of the clashes were few, according to AFP.

The UN called the violence “very troubling” while Germany foreign minister, Annalena Baerbock, said it was “terrible” and “deeply shameful.”

Although nothing excuses the violence, the Israeli fans were hardly innocent victims: unverified video on social media appeared to show some Maccabi Tel Aviv fans chanting in Hebrew: “Finish the Arabs! We’re going to win!”

The human family appears to be devolving into a tribalism that many of us had thought was waning. The prevalence of global populism, the widespread rejection of civilized and humane behavior and the unleashing of old and ugly hatreds threatens to engulf us at a time when the existential threat posed by climate change requires a unified global response. 

To call these times perilous is a serious understatement.

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The Best Analysis I’ve Seen

As I said yesterday, political finger-pointing is utterly beside the point. Harris ran a masterful campaign–unfortunately, she was female and Black, running against a man who encouraged people to vote their misogyny and bigotries.

As I also said yesterday, the election results weren’t political–they were cultural.

The best analysis I’ve seen was from Talking Points Memo.

That analysis began with what we all saw: this was a campaign “fought directly over the issues of democracy, rule of law, basic decency and respect, and protection for the marginalized.” Those were the principles and values that lost–soundly. As David Kurtz wrote, this wasn’t another fluke of our crazy Electoral College.

The dark path ahead was chosen clearly and unequivocally: With 51%, Trump is on track to win a majority of the popular vote. Second, Trump will win without undue reliance on the quirks of our 18th century anti-majoritarian constitutional structure.

There is clarity in that result. This is who we are. Not all of us, but a majority of us. It presents a stark picture of America in 2024, without sugarcoating or excuse. It makes it harder to fool yourself about the task at hand, which is an enormous cultural one more than a political one.

Donald Trump’s win isn’t the product of a constitutional quirk. It’s not the result of a poorly conceived or executed campaign by Kamala Harris. It’s not a messaging failure or a tactical error or a strategic blunder. Other broader dynamics at play – like a post-pandemic revulsion toward incumbents or an anti-inflation backlash – are too limited in their scope and specific in their focus to account for the choice that was made: Donald Trump. It would be a category error to ascribe our current predicament to a political failure.

If politics is merely a reflection of culture, then we get to see that reflection clearly and sharply as the sun comes up this morning. If you don’t like what you see, don’t blame the mirror.

There’s a lesson here: don’t expect politics to fix a cultural problem. Kurtz isn’t counseling us to ignore politics–although he also reminds us that we are at risk of losing the mechanisms for achieving political results – the threats to free and fair elections, majority rule, and the rule of law itself will make politics much harder. What he is doing is reminding us that what needs to change is the culture.

For those of us who believe in the rule of law, a pluralistic society, and standing up to unkind people who engage in hurting others as public blood sport, we’re going to have to take a long view toward promoting those principles in all aspects of our culture so that they are ultimately reflected in our politics in a way they simply are not now. I recognize that many of us have already been doing this slow and steady work, which makes the overnight result even more discouraging. It remains an enormous, decades-long task, but it is something each of us can engage in without uprooting our lives or changing professions or moving abroad.

With respect to the political tasks we face, he reminds us that marginalized and the disenfranchised folks are always hurt first and that it will be worse this time because hurting them has been advertised as the point.

The challenge before us is enormous. It is not a challenge any of us signed up for. It’s been foisted upon us. The past decade has felt like a detour from the lives and aspirations we had hoped to have. I feel a special empathy for those who came of age in the 1960s at the peak of Great Society reforms and have spent their adults lives witnessing their erosion. Those of us with an act or two left, and especially those with their whole lives still to dedicate to making America better than she is presenting right now, owe it to those whose time is ending to summon our essential optimism, roll up our sleeves, and get to down to the hard work that our current predicament demands. That may sound like a rallying cry, but I’m also trying to convince myself.

The first step to finding  a solution to any problem is to define it accurately. Blaming campaign errors or systemic electoral issues just keeps us from recognizing the (very ugly) truth: a majority of American voters are unhappy with social changes that confer civic equality on people they consider inferior. They are unable to recognize the multiple ways those social changes actually benefit them, and they want to “return” to a time that existed only in their imaginations.

Good people have work to do.

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Hubbell Cuts To The Chase

We are now seeing the “Chattering Class” carping and criticising and offering convoluted reasons for America’s descent into fascism–aka, the election of Donald Trump. Harris should have gone more to the Left, no, she should have gone to the Right, the problem was Democratic elitism, etc. (Interestingly, very few media pundits have addressed the very real role played by the media environment, very much including a mainstream press which failed repeatedly to call insanity insanity, instead normalizing aberrant rhetoric and behavior that formerly would have been consider shocking and disqualifying.)

Almost all of those smug analyses are efforts to avoid the truth–refusals to face what really happened. Robert Hubbell, however, was clear-eyed:

Just as the media normalized Trump before the election, there is a wholesale effort to “normalize” the election results. Pundits are claiming the election was decided by voters’ concerns over inflation, immigration, or crime. Those issues are post-facto rationalizations offered by voters to conceal their real reasons for voting for a convicted felon and adjudicated sexual abuser over an eminently qualified candidate.

Kamala Harris lost because Trump’s supporters were motivated by racism, misogyny, and white supremacy. They voted for a felon and against prosecutor/senator/vice president because she is a woman of Black and South Asian ancestry. All of the remaining explanations are camouflage to conceal the real motivations of those who voted against Kamala Harris.

We will learn nothing if we accept pollsters’ dog-and-pony show to explain the election with exit polls and crosstabs in spreadsheets that have nothing to do with the real motivations of voters. Do not conflate data with information. Do not mistake information for knowledge. Do not confuse knowledge and understanding. Do not accept percentages and cohorts in response to the simple but profound question, “Why?”

Racism. Misogyny. White supremacy. Occam’s Razor.

Hubble is exactly right. H.L. Mencken predicted this years ago, locating the problem precisely in the defects of We the People:

As democracy is perfected, the office of the President represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. On some great and glorious day, the plain folks of the land will reach their heart’s desire at last, and the White House will be occupied by a downright fool and a complete narcissistic moron.”

Well, we’re there.

Those of us who live in a kinder, less hateful world misunderstood the effects of Trump’s out-and-proud racism. We thought his horrific Madison Square Garden rally damaged him–as it certainly did with the nice, normal people who weren’t going to vote for him anyway. What is now clear, however, is that Trump’s supporters don’t share the reactions of nice, normal people. For them, it was a welcome endorsement of their bigotries, a reassurance that their resentments are valid, and an explicit permission to express them. It was a rejection of “political correctness” (aka civility), and a validation of the public expression of invective and meanness.

We all need to recognize that the inhumanity, the bigotry, the misogyny isn’t a bug–its a feature. Indeed, it is the feature. It isn’t a distasteful aspect of the Trump campaign that voters nevertheless overlooked–it is what a majority of our fellow-citizens voted for.

Living with that understanding is hurtful, to put it mildly.

But there’s a semi-silver lining. There’s a biblical adage to the effect that “the truth shall make you free.” Now we know. And when those who are working to build a better, kinder, more inclusive society know what they are up against, they can fight for that society more effectively.

We are about to see some very dark years. The theocrats and autocrats and ignoramuses will attack the foundational premises of America, and they will do considerable damage. Meanwhile, the rest of us need to step back and consider whether we want to defend a status quo that has morphed and ossified in unfortunate ways–a status quo with serious systemic flaws, economic unfairness, overly-complex and under-inclusive social programs…the list is long. The insecurities generated by the gaps and injustices undoubtedly contributed to the frustration and hate. Our jobs, during the dark days, will be to consider what we will build when the edifice built on racism, misogyny, homophobia and nationalism collapses.

Because it will. And we need to be ready to pick up the pieces–ready to replace both the dark side and the considerable flaws that preceded and enabled it with a better, more humane, more just version of the American Idea.

We need to resist the worst that will come. We must try to protect the objects of Trumpers’ animus. But we also need to plan for what will come after.

We have work to do.

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Where The Real America Must Go

We’ve just had a crushing blow to our belief in American goodness. Like many of you, I am frantic not for myself–I’m 83, and my likely duration in the Dark Ages won’t be long. But I have children and grandchildren, who are suddenly faced with a world far more precarious than the one we all thought we occupied.

I’m fortunate that one of my sons lives in Amsterdam, and one of my granddaughters lives in England. While the wave of fascism that is sweeping the globe will undoubtedly affect them to some extent, and the global consequences of electing an ignorant lunatic as U.S. President will be significant, their prospects aren’t as bleak as they would be here over the next years.

Or as daunting as the landscape that faces the rest of the family.

My youngest son–parent of the younger two grandkids–has taken what I believe to be the only rational position available to those of us who still occupy a sane and humane America.  With his permission, I’m sharing the message he sent to his son and daughter, both of whom are currently in college, and both of whom were blindsided by the (previously) unthinkable results of the election.

Kids, I’m still struggling to process the election results and to contextualize it in a way that is not entirely negative. I keep coming back to a handful of facts and themes. First, WE (our family) are likely to be OK. While we are psychologically traumatized by the implications of the election — and the thoughts of how bad Trump might be for vulnerable people, minority communities, and non-citizens — our daily lives are unlikely to be directly or irreparably affected by Trump’s election. In saying this, I am not discounting the genuine risk to women — particularly young women of childbearing age — but WE are fortunate enough to have resources and options that likely mute those direct threats.

Second, and really based on the first point, WE now also have a greater obligation to help those who aren’t as fortunate as we are. I don’t know how or in what ways those opportunities will present themselves, but we have an obligation to help those who are going to be attacked or adversely impacted by Trump and Trumpism in the years to come.

Finally, as horrible as many people have shown themselves to be, know that OUR community is still OUR community, and made up of all the same loving, caring, funny, positive-values-holding people. I am trying to focus on these facts in the days, weeks, and years ahead… OUR community will help us weather the dark storms ahead, and we must do our part to help our family and friends weather it as well.

I love you! We will be OK, even if we are currently suffering deep psychological wounds from this election and its implications.

I can’t add to that.

I think that message sums up both the challenge we face and the obligations we must now assume. The challenge is a concerted effort by a cohort of people who believe Hitler “had some good ideas” to remake the United States into a 21st-Century fascist state. There are far more people in that cohort than most of us recognized or still want to believe.

Our obligation is twofold: first, to resist that transformation with every fiber of our beings, with every tool we can muster, with every grassroots organization we can create or support; and second, for those of us who are privileged, who are fortunate that our circumstances (or religions or skin colors) buffer us from the full effect of authoritarian animus, to work wherever and whenever we can to ameliorate the adverse impacts on those less fortunate.

Speaking of community: I’ve been doing this blog for several years, and have been gratified by the genuine sense of community that has grown up among the regular commenters, few of whom know each other personally. With the exception of a couple of trolls who weigh in now and then, you disagree with civility, share your knowledge freely and offer each other–and me– much needed moral support. You are one of the communities my son referenced in his text to my grandchildren.

Like many of you, I am still in shock. But when we emerge, we need to figure out how to save our world–how to gift our children and grandchildren with an America that is recognizable and future worth inhabiting.

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What It Was All About

Those of us who have taken the American Idea seriously have to face what has previously been unthinkable: the racism, anti-Semitism and misogyny weren’t bugs–they were features. As sick as it makes me to confront that truth, it’s inescapable: the bigotry (and the accompanying ignorance) were what most Trump voters were endorsing. 

In case there is any doubt, Project 2025 will be the roadmap to a second Trump administration. In addition to what that will mean for women’s rights, for LGBTQ+ people and people of color, let me remind readers of its major “promises”–promises that will affect the entire world, not just the United States.

A  Trump administration will ” Restore warfighting as the military’s sole mission” and end what it calls “the Left’s social experimentation in the military” by halting the admission of transgender individuals. It will increase the Army by 50,000, bring overseas troops home, grow the Navy and Air Force, and triple the number of nuclear weapons—while withdrawing America from all arms reduction treaties, and from NATO.

In other words, Trump will make the entire world unsafe (except, of course, for Putin and other autocrats).

 USAID will defund women’s rights provisions in foreign aid initiatives, withdraw from all multi-lateral trade agreements, and stop providing financial aid to Ukraine, which will be gift-wrapped for Putin.

Trump wants to institute 60% tariffs on Chinese goods and 10% on all other imports. (Every reputable economist—conservative and liberal—has pointed out that tariffs are a tax on Americans, and that imposing them would cost American families thousands of dollars a year and throw the country into recession. The economy that President Biden has made the envy of the world will tank.

In order to destroy America’s fidelity to the rule of law, Trump plans to replace 50 thousand civil service employees with Trump loyalists. The Heritage Foundation is currently “vetting” individuals in order to facilitate that replacement. 

The media has reported on the proposal to eliminate the Department of Education, Head Start, Title 1, & school lunch programs. The less-reported portions of their “education” policies are equally regressive: they would eliminate all diversity, equity and inclusion efforts, post the Ten Commandments in all school classrooms and eliminate any books addressing race or gender from the nation’s classrooms.

RNK, Jr isn’t the only medical moron likely to be dictating “health” measures; Project 2025 proposes to withdraw federal funding from any school requiring vaccinations. (Not sure how they’re going to remove flouride from the nation’s water supply, but reality hasn’t been a big part of Rightwing ideology.)

Kiss goodby to Medicare (they’d privatize it), the EPA, OSHA, the EEOC and the FDIC.

But it’s with the bigotries that we really see the animating message of the worldview. 

Trump has echoed the Project’s promise of immediate mass deportation of (dark-skinned) undocumented persons, a massive effort that would wreak havoc with the economy. (Think groceries are high now? Watch what happens when there’s no one to pick crops.) The Project proposes internment camps and limiting lawful immigration to 20,000 annually. They’d also deport all the Dreamers (who came as children with their parents, and most of whom have never known another country. They want to ban Muslims and Haitians from entering the country, roll back gay rights, invalidate same-sex marriages, and outlaw both transgender rights and no-fault divorce.

Then there’s the effect on the already precarious environment.

Authors of the Project say—and I quote– the “climate is not changing and schools are not to teach that it is.” Since climate change is just a liberal myth, they would eliminate climate and environmental protections, eliminate the regulation of greenhouse gases, and defund FEMA. They’d dismantle the National Hurricane Center and the Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research, halt all climate research, revoke the Global Change Research Act of 1990, withdraw the U.S. from the Paris Accords, halt research into electrical vehicles and revoke tax incentives for clean energy.

That’s just a small part of what the bigots have voted for. Of course, courts would once have declared much of that roadmap blatantly unconstitutional, but Trump’s appointment of rogue Justices has removed that pesky impediment.

And of course, his election will allow the first convicted felon to be elected President to escape accountability for his crimes.

Welcome to the new Dark Ages.

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