chriscan64
chriscan64's JournalDavid Brooks, flat out wrong on recommendation to bar Trump from office.
Usually, when David Brooks says anything on his Friday night appearance on the PBS Newshour I take it with a mine of salt, and move on. Last night he came out against the January 6th Commission's recommendation that Trump be barred from future office. The jist of it was, "We have a way to bar office holders, with the vote". I read the report. Trump has proven that he won't let "the vote" stop him. No "politician" with such disregard for the results of elections should be allowed to participate in one. Trump would attempt to turn his next presidency into a lifetime appointment by and for himself. Hitler never ran a reelection campaign for dictator. That is what we are up against.
The part about these comments is toward the end of the video.
Random assortment of things NOT being said by republicans about call to terminate Constitution.
"I will do anything in my power to prevent him from being the nominee for my party."
"If he is the republican nominee, I will actively campaign against him."
"Anyone who supports him after this is not welcome in our party."
"Someone who says something like this can never be allowed near the levers of power again."
Summary of things we ARE hearing:
"Homina homina homina"
A little sprout of hope takes root.
The 2016 election surprised the professionals who did not think that Trump would be nominated, much less elected. What happened? Trump personified the perfect candidate for right wing radio and TV consumers who only had tepid support for McCain and Romney. He tapped into previously disaffected voters who came out of the woodworks. What gives me that little bit of hope is that last night's election makes it appear that the woodworks have been emptied out.
I have zero hope that any individual Trump voter could be converted, but I do have hope that they can simply be outnumbered. A mid-term election during a time of inflation (whether it's the president's fault or not) should have been a more obvious drubbing for the incumbent's party. The fact that it wasn't gives me a little hope for the future.
Just finished watching the rebroadcast of Freedom Summer on PBS
I was born in New Orleans at the end of 1964, so I was in the womb during these events happening a short distance away. As I gained awareness of race and race relations in the early 70's, I received a different education on the subject than other whites from the 60's and before. The two main reasons for this were that my parents never did buy into the prevailing white supremacy of the south, and secondly that the freshly earned achievements of the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act gave me the sense that I was born into a new world finally free from the long icy shadow of slavery and jim crow. It did not take long to realize that I was naive, but it took longer to realize that I was still naive and why.
However insidious you think racism is, double it. It no longer needs to actively create economic disparity, educational inequality and segregated communities, it has these already built in from centuries past and simply has to use these conditions as a base of operations to halt further change and reverse it where it can. This reversal which I never thought I would see is beginning to take shape in the form of voting restrictions. These restrictions are not the direct brutal kind seen in Mississippi in the 60's. They take a more devious form, one that seeks to reduce the black vote by creating a bottle neck on the times and number of places where voting occurs for black voters and white voters who would vote beside them for the same candidates. A few technical hurdles like voter ID and citations for giving slices of pizza to voters in line are thrown in for good measure. They are not taking your vote away, they are attempting to create the conditions whereupon you take your own vote away to avoid inconvenience.
If that was the only problem, it could be overcome with numbers, but a more sinister issue is the machinations to control the counting of the votes giving rise to the once unthinkable scenario of the will of the people being overturned in legislatures. This might still be in the pipe dream stage but be wary.
What gives rise to all this bullshit? Abolitionist newspaper offices were burned, a war was fought to keep slavery and the descendants of slaves were terrorized for a century and more after that: why does racism have such staying power and viciousness? I think that for too many, equality is a concept that does not compute. Race is zero sum, "we're over them or they're over us". This is passed down to children generation after generation. Education is the key here, so here come the book bans and restrictions on teaching actual history. The only thing that gives me hope is that they have to work harder and harder for diminishing returns, so maybe the pendulum of history really is moving.
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