I’ve read a lot of right-wing rhetoric in my time. From Newt
Gingrich to Paul Ryan and on and on, I’ve gone through quite a bit of
it. After all this time, I can conclusively say that I haven’t read any
right-wing arguments that didn’t have a lie and a delusion hiding in
the heart of it. Sometimes several lies.
So somehow I stumbled upon this responding DesMoines Register op-ed from Iowa Rep. Steven Holt. Now, it’s a thing. If I get through it and find something true, I’ll be stunned.
I read with amused frustration Rekha Basu’s Oct. 8 opinion piece in which she spoke of the parallel universe she felt she was living in, seemingly oblivious to the reasons that 52% of Donald Trump supporters favor seceding from the Union.
Wherein Mr. Holt attempts to explain to poor uninformed Ms. Basu
exactly why more than half of Trump supporters are basically ready to
give this entire "America" thing up much like their essential
inspiration from 160 years ago — the Confederates — previously did.
Rekha, those 52% understand what America once was and what it is
becoming. They cherish their freedom and liberty, they understand the
importance of our founding values, and they see the destruction of those
values taking place before their eyes. They fear for the future of
their children and grandchildren as America becomes increasingly
unrecognizable. Almost everything about America that would previously
have been thought to be unthinkable is now taking place.
“They cherish their freedom and liberty.”
I think this is absolutely true (Shocker), they do cherish “their
freedom and liberty,” however, what they don’t cherish and treasure is my liberty and freedom
or for that matter, your liberty and freedom. They want what they
want, they want it when they want it and they don’t much care who they
have to take it from.
They are essentially selfish and myopic. Entitled.
They don’t want to wear masks because they're uncomfortable; they
don't care that it not only protects them from a deadly virus, it
protects me and you from a deadly virus. They don’t want to be
vaccinated because they don’t trust the NIH or the CDC; they don’t much
seem to care that about the evidence that 200 million Americans have
already been vaccinated and they’re doing just fine, while those who are
unvaccinated are dying by the thousands. They want the freedom for
their votes to be counted, but they don’t much care for the liberty and
freedom of other people — mostly black and brown people —- who voted in
Detroit, Philadelphia, Atlanta, Phoenix, Houston and Austin. They are
highly energized by “Critical Race Theory” which in actuality merely
discusses the fact that systemic racism is not just predicated on the
negative action of certain bigoted individuals, but is actually the
result of a larger system which has bias designed into its core.
Case in point: Black and White people use and sell drugs at similar
rates, however, it is largely black and brown people who are arrested,
prosecuted and convicted for drug crimes to the point that they
represent over 60% of those in prison on those charges. That is not the
result of a set of strategically placed biased individuals, that’s the
result of a biased system. It's not that every cop or judge is a
bigot, it's that they operating in a system that was specifically
designed, during the post-Civil War era, to work this way. It's doing
what it was made to do. It needs to be severely reformed.
“...they understand the importance of our founding values, and
they see the destruction of those values taking place before their
eyes.”
Which values are those exactly? Are we talking about the “values” of
the declaration of independence which proclaimed “all men are created
equal” or the reality of compromise reflected in the founding version of
the Constitution which only valued certain citizens as only worth
3/5ths of others and implemented the Fugitive Slave Clause which
required Free States to do the dirty work for the Slave States? Which
didn’t value women at all. Which actually only valued monied white men
who owned property?
“...they see the destruction of those values taking place before their eyes.”
Yes, actually — they do (Shocker again) because in reality and fact
those were essentially the values of white power and white supremacy.
This country was indeed founded on those values and they are slowly
being destroyed. Bit by bit, brick by brick. I understand fully that
this terrifies Trump voters. It should.
“They fear for the future of their children and grandchildren as America becomes increasingly unrecognizable.”
You mean increasingly brown. Filled with black people, filled with
Latinos, filled with Muslims. Yes, things will be unrecognizable, if
you look at them entirely through paranoid white eyes.
This section of his op-ed reads like platitudes toward freedom and liberty, but in fact it is only liberty and freedom for some, certainly not all. It’s a paeon to White Identity Politics.
Trump supporters of course reject the idea that they are motivated by
racism, bigotry and fear. But then again the Pew polls indicate that
they are some of the least empathetic to the struggles of minorities and women.
Biden supporters say it is a lot more difficult to be Black than
White, while a smaller majority of Clinton supporters (57%) said this in
2016. Among Trump supporters, there has been virtually no change since
2016. Currently, 9% say it is a lot more difficult to be Black than
White; 11% said this four years ago.
[...]
The survey by Pew Research Center, conducted July 27-Aug. 2 among
11,001 U.S. adults (including 9,114 registered voters) on the Center’s
American Trends Panel, also finds growing divergence between the two
camps on attitudes about gender and family: Biden voters today are now
somewhat more likely than Clinton voters were to say women
continue to face obstacles that make it harder for them to get ahead
than men, while Trump supporters are now somewhat less likely to say this than they were in 2016.
[...]
Among Biden supporters, 79% say women still face significant
obstacles that make it harder for them to advance; a smaller majority of
Clinton supporters (72%) expressed this view in 2016. By contrast, a
somewhat smaller share of Trump supporters express this view today (26%)
than did so four years ago (31%).
[...]
Only about a third of Trump supporters (32%) say immigrants do more
to strengthen society, but this is a 13 percentage point increase from
19% in 2016. Biden supporters are more likely than Clinton supporters
four years ago to say the growing number of newcomers strengthens
society (84% vs. 71%).
[...]
Most Trump supporters (72%) continue to associate Islam with
violence, though the share saying this has declined 8 points since 2016.
An even larger majority of Biden supporters (74%) than Clinton
supporters (63%) say Islam does not encourage violence more than other
religions.
In each of these areas, black people, women, immigrants and Muslims,
Trump supporters are largely in opposition to the rise and growth of all
these groups. They see them all as a “threat”, not as their fellow
citizens.
Under the Biden administration, America has abandoned its allies in
Afghanistan, left Americans behind to face the bloodthirsty Taliban and
allowed 13 brave American military personnel to die unnecessarily.
This is an entirely unfair argument. As has been often stated this
withdrawal was negotiated and planned by Trump and there was nothing in
his plan to remove any civilians. Period. When the Afghan army
collapsed we were indeed caught flat-footed, which was unfortunate, but
it also should be noted that the US Army stepped up and performed a
heroic airlift pulling over 123,000 of our allies out of the nation.
No, they didn’t get everyone, but the State Dept continues to bring
Americans and our allies out. This is an ongoing story — and I have many
frustrations with how the State Dept, which was deeply gutted by Trump,
has handled things — but it’s not over.
We have an invasion on our southern border as hundreds of thousands of immigrants come into America without authorization.
An “invasion?” And here I was under the impression that immigration
is how most Americans got here in the first place. Here’s the thing
that most Trumpsters don’t understand. It is perfectly legal to come to
the border, and even cross the border, in order to petition for asylum. This has been the law for 50 years.
8 U.S. Code § 1158 (a) Authority to apply for asylum
It was never a requirement to enter through “an approved point of
entry.” That’s a nicety. Now, once someone has entered and applied for
asylum, things get complicated and only about 30% are ultimately
approved, but this is the legal process. This is the law.
Biden has indeed raised the Asylum Cap from 15,000 back to 125,000 but that doesn’t mean that the border is "wide open.” Not hardly.
And also, as a point of fact, removals under Trump in 2020 decreased by over 30% due to Covid.
CE ERO conducted 185,884 removals during FY 2020, a 30 percent
decrease from FY 2019. This decrease primarily resulted from a sharp
decline in CBP apprehensions at the Southwest Border due to the use of
authority under 42 U.S.C. §§ 265 and 268 to expel noncitizens from the
United States to prevent the introduction of COVID19, though it was also
impacted by a decline in ICE ERO interior arrests. The vast majority of
ICE ERO’s interior removals – 92 percent – had criminal convictions or
pending criminal charges, demonstrating ICE ERO’s commitment to removing
those who pose the greatest risk to the safety and security of the
United States. Additionally, despite the overall decrease in removals,
ICE ERO assisted CBP with 17,000 air charter expulsions under Title 42,
and also saw increases in removals to several countries that were
previously uncooperative with removal efforts.
Frankly, the number of immigration removals and returns by the Obama Administration were far greater than Trump during his entire tenure, not just his final year.
Meanwhile, the Biden Administration has increased expedited removals.
Asylum and other legal migration pathways should be readily available
to those who need them, and this Administration is committed to fairly
and efficiently considering asylum claims. Those not seeking protection
or who do not qualify will be promptly returned to their country of
origin.
Consistent with that approach, the Department of Homeland Security
today resumed expedited removal flights for certain families who
recently arrived at the southern border, cannot be expelled under Title
42, and do not have a legal basis to stay in the United States.
Families apprehended by Customs and Border Protection were removed via
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Air Operations to their home
countries of Guatemala, El Salvador, and Honduras.
The expedited removal process is a lawful means to securely manage
our border, and it is a step toward our broader aim to realize safe and
orderly immigration processing. By placing into expedited removal
families who cannot be expelled under Title 42, we are making clear that
those who do not qualify to remain in the United States will be
promptly removed.
As we saw with the migrants from Haiti, despite their suffering from a
devastating Earthquake and the assassination of their President
recently, these people were largely and forcibly returned to their
country by the Biden administration — not simply allowed to “walk across
the border.” The border remains fraught with difficulties but the
evidence of “invasion" is quite weak.
As hard-working Americans face forced vaccinations or the loss of
their livelihoods, thousands receive government assistance with no
demands for vaccination, and some of them likely spread the COVID-19
virus to places they are taken.
So we’re blaming the spread of Covid on people who receive
unemployment, food stamps and Medicare? Because we should “test them”
before they get government assistance just like the states that attempt
to drug test the poor first? That didn’t go well.
In 2017, states spent more than $490,000 to drug-test 2,541 people
who had applied for Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF)
benefits, which yielded just 301 positive tests.
[...]
The screening method is deeply flawed. The questions typically ask
people to volunteer information about their own illegal drug use, and
the questions vary widely between states. The vast majority in all but
one state still tested negative, even after they were given screening
questions, raising serious questions about the efficacy of these
screening processes.
“This is not an academic survey and it’s not a clinical tool that I’m
doing for somebody at a treatment facility,” said University of Chicago
professor, Dr. Harold Pollack, who’s studied
drug testing in public assistance for more than a decade. “It’s a
series of intrusive questions that I’m asking someone who is in economic
need and has approached a public agency looking for assistance.”
The fact is that Covid had been spreading because of the unvaccinated who overwhelmingly were Trump supporters.
Trump and many of his Republican colleagues have allowed a virulent
anti-vaccine/anti-masking/anti-social distancing campaign to spread
among their voters, reinforced by Fox News. The campaign gained strength
just in time for the emergence of a new and more contagious COVID
variant: the Delta variant. Polling has shown that the anti-vaccine
message is especially popular among Republicans. Kaiser Family Foundation data indicate that Republicans are the group most likely to say they will “definitely not” get a vaccine:
Yeah...
We are a nation of immigrants who came to America for freedom and a
better life, but that 52% recognize immigration must be done legally,
and that with no border we have no country. Even President Barack Obama has acknowledged that the situation on our border is unsustainable.
We are a nation of who? When you say “we came to America for
freedom and a better life” why does that suddenly not apply to those who
are trying to come to America right now? Many problems in other
nations, crime, violence, war, climate change, natural disasters and
corruption are driving people from their countries to here where they
are attempting to build a new, safe home. There are arguments and
issues as to whether we can handle this challenge, and this is why Vice
President Harris has gone to the Northern Triangle to try and address
these problems at the source, yes, the situation is “unsustainable” but
your side of the argument isn’t offering any viable solutions, only more
platitudes and bigoted paranoid rhetoric. And a wall that fell down in the first stiff wind.
America was once a nation that embraced the concept of equal opportunity and achieving the American dream through hard work.
When exactly was that? No, seriously — when did that happen? During
the 60s as Watts burned? Did it happen in the 70s while Nixon and
Hoover implemented COINTELPRO? During the 80s when Reagan was railing
about “Welfare Queens” and implemented the War on Drugs? Was it when
Clinton put “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” into place? When was this golden age
of meritocracy? When exactly was the period when White Male Hetero
Christian Power didn’t supplant all? Enlighten me. Truth is, you can't
find a period of “American Greatness" where that wasn’t the case.
Now, that concept has been replaced by the far left with the demand
for equal result, which is the essence of socialism. It is no longer
about equal opportunity, but rather shared misery under the yoke of a
socialist state. Our social safety net is now a hammock in which
thousands of Americans no longer feel the need to work. This has been
exacerbated by government’s response to the pandemic, leading to
thousands of businesses unable to even operate normally because they
cannot find people willing to work. This is the beginning of our shared
misery, and that 52% see it clearly.
First off, the initial response to the pandemic, which included
multiple emergency bipartisan “rescue” bills — which drove our deficit
to $3.5 Trillion in a single year — was on Trump’s watch. He built the
“hammock.”
Because of those bills, and before Joe Biden came around, people now
have the “freedom” to not have to work for poverty starvation wages.
They realize they have better choices, and most of them actually are
working — just at different jobs. And the argument that extended
unemployment benefits have contributed to people “sitting home,
collecting their checks” has been thoroughly debunked. The reality is far more complicated.
States that withdrew early from federal unemployment programs pushed
few people back to work and fueled a nearly $2 billion cut in household
spending, potentially hurting their local economies, according to new
research.
Twenty-six state governors — all Republican, except one — opted out
of the pandemic-era programs several weeks before their official
expiration on Labor Day. Enhanced benefits were keeping the unemployed
from looking for jobs and fueling a labor shortage, they claimed.
That bet seems to have had a limited payoff so far, according to a paper
authored by economists and researchers at Columbia University, Harvard
University, the University of Massachusetts Amherst and the University
of Toronto. The research was published Friday
The data suggests unemployment benefits aren’t playing a big role in hiring challenges and that other factors are having a larger impact — a similar thrust to other recent research analyzing the policy decisions.
Continued...
America was once working hard to embrace the ideals of the Rev.
Martin Luther King Jr., when he spoke to our hearts and told us that we
should judge one another based not on skin color but rather on
character.
I do enjoy when right-wingers quote Dr. King and completely ignore the work he did for the working poor whom
this guy just disparaged. They argue his “I have a dream” quote but
they don’t fully understand what that dream truly entailed. These days
they’d call it “Socialism.”
Now, that too has been turned upside down as the Marxist ideology of
critical race theory, teaching us to judge not based on character but on
skin color, permeates our universities and even reaches K-12 schools.
Uh, no. That is not Critical Race Theory, and besides law and grad school, it is not being taught in universities or K-12 schools.
If schoolchildren indeed employed critical race theory in any
analytical homework assignment, they would be graduate-level or law
school wunderkinds.
To wit, I am reading “Cruel Optimism” by Lauren Berlant, a professor
and scholar at the University of Chicago who recently died. Berlant
specialized in social and affect theory, so the book critiques the
social-democratic promise of the post-war period of the U.S. Let me tell
you, I have to reread the introduction because the high-level
scholarship stumps me —and I have a master’s degree.
So no, elementary and high school students are not doing this work. Just as physics classes aren’t advising NASA.
I do find it interesting that the fairly arcane academic study of
systems — not people — that perpetuate racial bias has been mutated into
“I should hate white people” by those who frankly haven’t actually read
a single word of it. It seems like this is some form of internal guilt
speaking through them, terrifying them into the idea that if white
people lose sway and power — minorities will start treating them in
exactly the same way that they’ve been treated.
That’s frankly pathetic. It’s dumb and it’s paranoid — but then Trumpsters excel at both.
Try again.
The 52% recognize that what has held us together since the founding
of our nation is the concept of the melting pot, that regardless of race
or creed, from many we become one, and that the Marxist ideology that
teaches we are either oppressor or oppressed will ultimately tear us
apart.
First of all, this nation was founded on oppression. Oppression
built the White House. Oppression built the Capitol Building. Many
fortunes and family dynasties were built upon oppression. It remained
with us through the black codes and Jim Crow for generations. Freedom
was denied for nearly a century after the 13th Amendment supposedly
ended slavery — but actually only transferred it into the criminal
justice system — the 14th Amendment granted citizenship and the 15th
Amendment granted the right to vote. Republicans are implementing
oppression now after having gutted the Voting Rights Act and blocking it
from being restored while erecting more and higher barriers for black
and brown people to participate in the vote. There’s plenty of
oppression to go around.
As you can see with the Trump family discrimination lawsuits of the
70s to the emails of Jon Gruden the bigotry and racism that fueled that
oppression did not magically disappear with the passage of the Civil
Rights and Voting Rights Acts.
Except for the actions of people like the Klan, It went underground.
It went behind closed doors, it went from the shouted N-word and a
burning cross to the sniggering whispers about big lips and fat asses
behind the back. People do it, people say it but they constantly deny
what they’ve just done and what they’ve just said. Police are called on
people for having a bar-b-que, selling water on a corner, when they
haven’t taken someone else's cell phone, for trying to go to a pool
party, sitting in the lobby of their own apartment building or bird
watching, rental properties suddenly become “unavailable” when a brown
face shows up, job opportunities suddenly vanish when the applicant's
name is “Shaniqua” or “Tyrese” — always with the ever-present denial —
“I called the police on this black person for not doing anything
remotely illegal but I‘m not a racist!” Sure, you’re not honey
— that was the other racist person who was screaming epithets and
called 9-1-1 for no good reason. You can sit down now.
It has gone from front of mind, to back corners of our collective
subconscious, like an itch we can’t scratch and a knee-jerk automatic
reflex we can’t quite stop ourselves from. It has greatly changed since
the Civil Rights Era, it has become far more circumspect, far better
disguised, far less obvious — which sometimes leads to people “finding’”
hidden racism where it may not exist — but it certainly has not gone
away. Making theft and murder illegal didn’t make those go away, why
would we think the Civil Rights Act would make racism totally go away?
It made it a crime, it made it a civil liability — it didn’t make it
disappear.
However, unlike the Marxist idea that this oppression is inherent and
unyielding many of us who oppose the Trumpsters believe that it can be
defeated, it can be removed, it can be excised. It is not permanent or
ever-present. It’s a choice.
You speak of this nation as being a “melting pot.” That’s a fairly
cavalier view to have when one is an immigrant, when your language,
cuisine and culture originated in some other land, on some other soil.
You can pick and choose how much of the “old country” to retain and how
much to let fall away as you assimilate — as you melt yourself — into
the composite, hybrid, homogenized culture of America. Immigrants make a
choice, they decide they want the freedom and liberty of this land, and
their willingness to sacrifice the old ways in exchange for that
benefit.
But what if your culture, language and cuisine doesn’t come from
elsewhere. What if it comes — from here? How are you to “melt” if you
are a Native American? If you don’t speak your own native tongue, no
one will.
Kevin Costner actually ran smack dab into this problem while filming Dances with Wolves. The
native Lakota Sioux who he hired to play their own ancestors didn’t
know their own language. He had to resort to firing the lot of them to
get them to take learning their lines seriously. But then if you look
back and the Native American Boarding Schools
which were designed to "beat the savage out” of their children for
generations, you might better understand how they were “melted.”
What if you are a Latino/a, and your family and culture has roots in
America that go back to 1600 when the Spaniard Conquistadors settled
what ultimately became the western states? Part native Mestizo, part Aztec, part Inca, part Espania
do you retain any of your native culture and language — or do speak
that language of the Conquerors? Do you worship your own gods or is it
the God of the Catholics? Or do you enjoy a hybrid culture that includes
Old America as much Dias De Los Muertos of Mexico, as much of El Salvador, as much of Honduras, as well as that of Spain?
As an aside I think it’s fairly ironic whenever I hear one person
demand another speak English rather than Spanish, they’re demanding they
use the language of one colonizer instead of another
colonizer. Neither of which are native languages to THIS country.
Chances are that if you were to track through the native heritages and
languages of everyone in the conversation — they wouldn’t lead either to
England or to Spain.
Another thing: about this “Replacement Theory" idea. People who are undocumented can’t vote. I know you Trumpsters have been told differently,
but it's not true — they can't legally vote. And as you should know
there currently is no path to "legality" available to them, so for all
intents and purposes, they will never be able to legally vote. People
who’ve been granted asylum can't vote. People who are here under TPS
(Temporary Protective Status) and Green Card holders can't vote. You
have to be a citizen to vote and it takes years on average to become
naturalized, which you can't do if you are undocumented. So the
super-secret dastardly plan of the Democrats is to have open-door
immigration that brings in millions of people who still can't vote.
The only people who are automatically citizens are the children of
immigrants who are born in the U.S. — so our real grand plan is to bring
in undocumented immigrants so that their children will be able to vote
in 18 years? Do you think people in Congress and the DNC are planning
18 years ahead? Do you think they’re planning for what's gonna happen in
3 months? Next week? It's absurd on its face.
And what if you are African-American? What if your ancestors had
their native culture and language forcibly ripped away from them — while
at the same time they were prohibited from learning to read English and
from participating fully in the larger American culture at every turn?
Do you imagine that such people — banned from fully joining the
American party inside the house — would simply sit patiently outside on
the porch until they finally had their chance to participate in America,
or would they instead construct a party of their own right where they
were? Did not African-Americans, shunned by the “melting pot”, develop
their own modified version of the language using it to surreptitiously
pass messages which would be seen as “merely gibberish” by the
overseers? Some now call it Ebonics. Did they not adapt remnants of
African cuisine into a rich array of Southern culinary traditions? Did
they not transfer the grief and horror of their condition into joyous,
melancholy, raucous music of Gospel, Ragtime, Honky Tonk, Jazz, Blues,
R&B, Rock ‘n Roll, Funk and Hip Hop? Have they not become
international cultural leaders in sports, fashion, and entrepreneurship —
largely despite and in spite of their ostracization from mainstream American culture?
How exactly would you propose they now “melt” themselves into the pot?
The entire “melting pot” metaphor is deeply flawed. It presumes that
the “newcomer” to the culture must limit and remove parts of themselves
in order to “fit” comfortably with the proverbial larger — homogenous,
generic, watered down, sanitized, safe, non-confrontational — culture.
For those who essentially have nothing left to lose, whose original
culture lives on elsewhere, that is an easy decision to make.
Less so for some others, as I have described.
We are not a melting pot, I prefer the analogy that we are more of a
salad bowl. Flavor and elements mix and combine, but they do not “melt”
— they are not, and should not be damaged or destroyed in the process.
Some elements may clash, some may contrast — such as Islam and
Judaism. But then again, if we are open to the possibilities if we are
open to new combinations and new flavors these combinations can create
something new — as we have seen between Protestants and Catholics. As
we saw when the original Quakers and Puritan Separatists who fled the
oppression of the Church of England to land on Plymouth Rock — we may
gradually build a new hybrid culture, endlessly growing, endlessly
changing.
When you get past the myriad paranoid delusions and hoaxes of the
Replacement Theory, Qanon Adrenochrome Fantasies, Critical Race Theory,
Rampant (Invisible) Voter Fraud, False Antifa Riots, Immigrant Caravan Terror, Ivermectin Madness, Tentacle Monsters,
Mask and Vaccine panic — you are left with a group that is essentially
scared spitless of change. They are frightened out of their wits that
America is changing into a country that they no longer have primary
influence over, where they are no longer able to call all the shots,
where they may be asked to — gasp — adapt and accommodate to the
preferences and will of others.
They just might, maybe, have to stop demonizing people and show some tolerance of other ideas, other cultures, other religions, and other people instead of the melting pot where the responsibility is entirely on those others to adapt and change to suit the prevailing majority.
Frankly, it’s a two-way street. Everyone has to adapt, everything has
to go through changes. A culture, a language, a cuisine, a religion, an
ideology that does not change — is dead. Like Latin, it can be studied
in the abstract — but it does not live and breathe.
Trumpsters want to freeze their lionized version of American culture—
which again, never, ever really existed — in a jar of amber and put it
on a shelf somewhere, away from everything else, away from outside
influence. Isolated. Alone.
They want to run away and hide.
That’s why they want to secede. They want to repeat what the
Confederacy attempted to do — to resist the influence of others, to
resist adapting to the changing moral values that said Slavery was
wrong. Well, oppression is wrong, discrimination is wrong, bigotry is
wrong — and mark my words, all of that is the dark core that Trumpism is
built upon — and you guys are going to have to adapt or ultimately your
remnant of culture will die from your own hand.
Your choice.
Of course, Texas will be one of the first states to secede and become part of The Goober States of Trump.
