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When the Reality of Deteriorating Living Conditions Outweighs Demagoguery

As we near the eve of Donald Trump's, in my view, horrifying return to the White House, a return fueled by a campaign of lies, demagoguery and appeals to Christian nationalism, a very long piece in The Atlantic looks at the circumstances of India's Narendra Modi who has used similar approaches in India, substituting Hindu nationalism for Trump's Christian nationalism.  Modi's rhetoric and demagoguery is running into the reality where his promises for a new and better India are at odds at high unemployment, terrible pollution problems and either stagnant or declining living standards for the many while the wealthy few have become exponentially more wealthy. Like Trump, who is packing appointments with billionaires and promising to gut environmental protections to aid big oil and big corporations,  Modi has surrounded himself with a clique of billionaires and relied on demagoguery and appeals to Hindu nationalism as the base for his political support.  As the piece in The Atlantic notes, that template is souring with many in India as schools in some regions are under funded and understaffed and suffer high dropout rates and the promised economic miracle remains elusive.  Given Trump's plans to give tax cuts to the wealthy, cut social safety net programs and allow corporations and the super wealthy to enjoy a new Gilded Age, Modi offers a cautionary tale to Trump and his Republican sycophants.  Here are article highlights:

On a winter afternoon in January 2024, Prime Minister Narendra Modi stood before a podium, gazing out at a handpicked audience of the Indian elite: billionaires, Bollywood actors, cricket stars, nationalist politicians.

Modi had come to the north-central city of Ayodhya, in the state of Uttar Pradesh, to consecrate the still-unfinished temple behind him, with its seven shrines, 160-foot-high dome, and baby-faced statue of the Hindu god Ram, carved in black stone and covered in jewels. He did not mention the fact that the temple was being built on a contested site where Hindu radicals had torn down a 16th-century mosque three decades earlier, setting off years of protests and legal struggle.

Instead, Modi described the temple as an emblem of India’s present and future greatness—its rising economic might, its growing navy, its moon missions, and, most of all, its immense human energy and potential. The temple signified India’s historic triumph over the “mentality of slavery,” he said. This nation of nearly 1.5 billion was shedding its old secular creed and, despite the fact that 200 million of its citizens are Muslim, being reborn as a land of Hindu-nationalist ideals.

Shukla has supported Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party since it rose to power in 2014. He was drawn to Modi’s confidence and his talk of making India an explicitly Hindu country. But in 2024, for the first time in his life, he voted for the opposition, helping deliver an electoral setback late last spring that changed the narrative of Indian politics. Instead of the sweeping victory Modi had predicted, his party lost its majority in the lower house of India’s Parliament—just a few months after that triumphant speech at the new Ayodhya temple. Modi had done everything he could to bend the system in his favor . . . . . Modi would remain prime minister, but with only 240 of the 543 seats in Parliament, he would be dependent on coalition partners.

I asked Shukla why he had lost faith in Modi. One reason, he said, was “animals.” When I looked confused, he pointed helpfully to the street, where a huge cow was meandering down the middle of the road. “Look, here’s an animal coming now.” It took me a moment to realize what he was talking about. The BJP’s preoccupation with protecting cows—for Hindus, a symbol of divine beneficence—was driving people crazy. No one was allowed to touch them anymore, Shukla said. . . . funds have been set up to protect cows, Shukla said, but “the money disappears.”

Shukla moved on from cows to the government’s more basic failures. Small-business owners like him were most affected by the Modi government’s mistakes, such as the surprise decision in 2016 to cancel large-currency banknotes, a misguided effort to curtail money laundering that left ordinary people desperate for cash. The mishandling of the coronavirus pandemic caused staggering losses of life and income. Many small firms folded, and others had to let go of workers. At the same time, Modi’s grand promises about being India’s “Development Man” remained unfulfilled. The schools were a mess. The local hospital was a joke.

India has been living on hype. Its leaders manufacture bigger promises every year: India as an economic titan, a spiritual leader, a world power capable of standing alongside China, Russia, Europe, and America. Modi’s enablers describe him as a “civilizational figure”—someone who stands above politics, who will use his country’s demographic weight to rewrite the rules of the global economy. This kind of chest-thumping is often picked up on in the West, where leaders such as President Joe Biden and France’s Emmanuel Macron have expressed a desire for a reliable and prosperous Indian ally.

But the election results and their aftermath hint at a crack in Modi’s populist facade and a spreading discontent with his economic and political record. India’s growth has been heavily weighted toward the wealthy, who have become exponentially richer on Modi’s watch. Those who have benefited most are a small cadre of billionaire friends to whom Modi has granted special access for years.

At the same time, eight in 10 Indians live in poverty. Extraordinary numbers are out of work; one estimate puts unemployment among those ages 15 to 24 at more than 45 percent (though other estimates run lower). Instead of moving from farms to seek employment in cities, as people in other developing countries have done, many Indians—unable to find factory or service jobs—are making the trek in reverse, even as farm income stagnates and drought turns fields into deserts. Modi often says he wants India to be a developed country by 2047, a century after it gained its independence from Britain. But by several key social measures, it is falling behind neighbors such as Bangladesh and Nepal.

Many Indians appear to be tiring of Modi’s showmanship and growing frustrated with his failures. They may be proud of India’s fabled economic growth, but it hasn’t reached them. During the weeks I spent traveling in India last year, I detected levels of frustration and anger that were noticeably different from what I’d heard on earlier visits—about lost jobs, failed schools, poisoned air and water.

India is—among many other things—an experiment, the largest such experiment in the world, and one with urgent relevance for many other countries. The Modi years have made India into a testing ground for the following question: What, in the long run, exerts greater sway on the electorate—the lure of demagoguery, or the reality of deteriorating living conditions?

Back in 1992, Modi was a party worker in the RSS, India’s first and most influential Hindu-nationalist group (the acronym stands for Hindi words meaning “national volunteer association”). The RSS was founded in 1925 in an effort to overcome the Hindu weakness and disunity that had, its founders felt, allowed India to be colonized by the British and other invaders over the centuries. . . . A central part of that nationalist ideal was the exclusion of Muslims, who were tacitly cast as latecomers to and usurpers of a Hindu realm.

On February 27, 2002, a train carrying Hindu pilgrims home from Ayodhya caught fire in the western state of Gujarat. Fifty-nine pilgrims were killed, and rumors quickly spread that Muslims had caused the fire. In the pogroms that followed, more than 1,000 people were butchered, most of them Muslim. Modi had just become the chief minister, meaning governor, of Gujarat, and he was accused of telling the police to stand back and let the rioters teach the Muslims a lesson. . . . His defiance in the face of pressure for his removal by opposition politicians made him a hero among many Hindus and gave him a national political profile.

Modi’s timing was impeccable: India’s old order had been crumbling for years. . . . India’s leaders had already begun appealing to either Hindu or Muslim communal feelings as a way to get votes. A new capitalist ethic was rising, a consequence of the 1991 decision to embrace the free market and abolish the “license Raj”—heavy-handed economic management by government bureaucrats that had stifled Indian business for decades. The elite had become richer and more isolated from the rest of the country, putting added strain on the old Gandhian ideals of austerity and simplicity.

Modi became prime minister in 2014 amid a popular movement against corruption, saying he would clean house and fulfill India’s great economic promise. Many liberals were receptive, despite their unease with his triumphalist Hindu rhetoric.

Three years ago, India became the world’s fifth-largest economy, surpassing its former colonial master, the United Kingdom. Yet by early 2024, even as Modi was declaring the dawn of a glorious new era, unsettling rumbles could be heard. Foreign direct investment in India had dropped by an astonishing 43 percent in the preceding year, partly thanks to high borrowing costs and unease about the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East. Out-of-work men could be seen trekking along the brand-new highways, part of the movement from cities to farms that began during the pandemic. The magnitude of the unemployment problem could not be hidden.

Much of this story arc would have been familiar to anyone who had taken a close look at the “Gujarat model.” . . . Modi focused on big companies, but small and medium-size enterprises, which make up the backbone of India’s economy, did not fare as well. The obsession with growth appears to have masked a neglect of health, literacy, and the environment.

According to India’s Annual Status of Education Report, an independent analysis, most 14-to-18-year-olds in rural regions were still struggling with basic division in 2023, and about a quarter of them with basic reading. Some 30 percent of all students appear to drop out of high school. . . . . One of its recurrent themes is the disparity between India and East Asian societies, which have seen mass primary education as a precondition to industrial growth and large-scale employment.

The schools have only gotten worse. Modi’s educational priorities appear to be mostly ideological. History textbooks have been rewritten to include more Hindu-nationalist figures, praise Modi’s own initiatives, and minimize contributions by Indian Muslims. In 2023, India cut a number of science topics from tenth-grade textbooks. You won’t find Darwin’s theory of evolution, the periodic table of elements, or the Pythagorean theorem.

Of the world’s 100 most polluted cities, 83 are in India, according to 2023 data from the environmental group IQAir. . . . .India’s environmental problems are among the most serious on the planet, but they have not been high priorities during Modi’s decade in power. He has shown occasional interest in the condition of the Ganges, India’s most famous river, which is sacred to Hindus. It is also one of the most polluted rivers on Earth, with stretches that are ecological dead zones.

Modi’s reputation is built partly on stage presence. His rallies have drawn as many as 800,000 people. On giant screens, his magnified image towers over the crowd. People who have been in a room with him sometime speak of an overpowering aura, as if he were a rock star or the pope. . . .Almost as impressive is Modi’s ability to deploy—or inspire—an entire industry of social-media fans and public-relations professionals who get the message out on a daily basis, telling Indians how Modi has made them respected in the world and defended their Hindu faith from attack by Muslims, “sickularists,” and “anti-nationals.”

But the south [of India] has not been receptive terrain for Brand Modi. . . . . The south’s priorities are the inverse of Modi’s, PTR told me. They are rooted in decisions made a century ago, when southern leaders—even before India’s independence—began passing progressive reforms including compulsory education for both sexes, women’s right to vote and hold office, and affirmative action for members of historically disadvantaged castes. The motives for those reforms may have been political, but the effect was to create a springboard for greater prosperity, as in Singapore and other East Asian countries. While northern India has pursued a zero-sum model of growth, the southern states have tried to ensure that “the pie grows because everybody is vested in the system,” PTR said. “Everybody’s got access to the basic things,” such as jobs, decent schools, and health care.

Will Trump and Republicans take note?  I doubt it.  Meanwhile those in the working and middle classes best prepare themselves for a declining standard of living and declining schools as Republicans seek to divert public school funding to private "Christian" schools. 

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Texas Has an Infant Abandonment Problem

I have long maintained that those among the "Christian Right" - who are neither morally right or truly Christian - and the Republicans who prostitute themselves to such people are not "pro-life."  They may engage in a form of fetus worship and seek to force women to give birth, but once children are born, they oppose and would defund programs that actually provide care and support to infants and their mothers.  Their true motivation is to inflict their archaic religious beliefs on all and punish women who reject being subservient to men and surrendering control over their own bodies.  (LGBT individuals also are deemed deserving of punishment by these people and their political whores inasmuch as we reject their 12th century beliefs on human sexuality).  Nowhere is this phenomenon more true than in Texas with its draconian abortion ban that is depriving women of needed medical care, literally killing women in some instances, driving OB-GYN doctors from the state, and increasing infant mortality.  Indeed, the GOP controlled state government has refused to investigate the increase in maternal and infant mortality that has stemmed from the Christofascist/GOP jihad to punish women.  A piece in Salon looks at the ugly reality playing out in Texas which much of the GOP wants to make a nationwide problem:

Abortion bans don't just kill women. They kill babies. This is evident in the data, which shows a dramatic rise in the state's infant mortality after Texas banned abortion. As the Washington Post documented last week, it's also happening in a viscerally disturbing way, as the number of newborns found abandoned to die has spiked, as well. Babies, mostly dead, are being found in ditches and dumpsters throughout Texas, traumatizing the people who find them and the emergency workers who are called to help. 

Only the biggest liars in the anti-choice movement — and to be fair, there's stiff competition for that award — would deny that the state's abortion ban is the main cause of the sharp increase in dead, abandoned babies. The Washington Post also notes that Republicans have repeatedly cut funding for prenatal care and family planning services. In addition, draconian approaches to illegal immigration have led to undocumented women avoiding medical care, for fear of being deported. The result is what one Texas law enforcement official called "a little bit of an epidemic" of infant abandonment. 

One would think that the "pro-life" movement would be alarmed by all the dead babies, moving heaven and earth to make sure pregnant girls and women in desperate circumstances have safe alternatives to giving birth in secret and throwing the baby away. But that would only be true if anti-abortion activists were, in fact, "pro-life." Instead, the reaction of anti-choice leaders and Republican legislators so far has been a collective shrug, if they bother to acknowledge the problem at all.

There's one telling detail in the Post report that underscores how much Republicans don't care the slightest if babies die because of their abortion ban. As Molly Hennessy-Fiske reports, "Republican leaders who control state government have long declined to fund an awareness campaign so that new mothers know where to turn should they decide that they cannot keep their baby." 

Texas has a so-called safe haven law that allows women to relinquish babies to the authorities, no questions asked. For years, it was trendy for Republicans to pass these laws to create the illusion of concern for infant life, and to bolster their false claims to be "pro-life." But it was never a sincere effort to allow women in dire circumstances a chance to save a baby's life without getting into legal trouble. The programs are underfunded, barely advertised and subsequently barely used.

Texas Republicans show no interest in educating people about safe haven laws, however. Instead, as Hennessy-Fiske reports, they allocated $165 million to "alternatives to abortion," mostly so-called crisis pregnancy centers. The goal of a crisis pregnancy center is not to help women in crisis. It's to do whatever it takes to keep her pregnant until it's too late to get an abortion, including through lies, threats, bullying, shaming, and false promises of help. The goal is not "life," but punishing the young woman for perceived sexual transgression, either because she had consensual sex or because she "tempted" a man into raping her. 

Because the goal is punishment, there's no reason for Republicans to invest in safe haven laws, which shield young women from legal consequences for abandoning a newborn. . . . Given a choice between living babies or imprisoned women, Republicans pick the latter. Even the Republican who wrote the state's safe haven law, Rep. Geanie Morrison, explained that she has no interest in making it easier for women to use it.

The reaction to the Washington Post article from anti-abortion activists has been muted. The holidays are a busy time, yet many of them continued to post about what they do think matters. "Fornication and masturbation are self-abuse," wrote Lila Rose, an anti-choice leader and outspoken proponent of the Texas abortion ban, on the day the Post report came out.

From top to bottom, the Christian right's view of womanhood is a grim one. Even if a woman follows all their rules about waiting for marriage and eschewing birth control, her "reward" is being lectured about how it's immature to want sexual satisfaction within marriage. The vast majority of women take one look at this prescription of a life of thankless service to men and patriarchy and take a pass. That's why the GOP is so focused on abortion bans and other restrictions on sexual health care. If they can't get women to volunteer for lives of meaningless drudgery, at least they can punish them for trying to have something more fulfilling. 

The unwillingness to prevent infant abandonment is in line with the recent Texas decision to suppress investigations into maternal mortality after the abortion ban went into effect. Such investigations could result in a better understanding by doctors of how to treat pregnant women in a medical emergency, rather than letting them die. But in the GOP-controlled state, they're fine with a passive form of the death penalty for being a sexually active woman. It's unlikely there will be much investigation into the rising number of infant deaths, either. The torture of bringing a baby to term, only to watch it die, is also within the Republican realm of acceptable punishments for women. 

Saturday Morning Male Beauty

 

Post Key West Reflections

The husband and I returned on New Year's Day from a week long visit to Key West.  It was my 15th trip to Key West since 2009 and approximately my 10th stay at the Equator (pictured above), an all male, gay guesthouse/resort that later this month will change its name and become "all welcoming."  Indeed, the reason for the trip was to have one last hurrah, if you will at the Equator where we have made friends (mostly couples of varying age brackets) from around North America and Europe.  With the end of the Equator, only two gay guest houses will remain in Key West, the Island House up Fleming Street four blocks from the former Equator, and the Orleans House on Duval Street, both of which historically have catered to younger, often single travelers, and are far more open to hookups and the like.  Neither are really what the husband and I enjoy, which leaves us with the option of staying with friends who live in Key West or finding a different get away destination. 

What has happened to gay guesthouses in Key West that once numbered close to a dozen in some ways mirrors what has occurred with gay clubs in cities across America.  Locally, in Tidewater Virginia, only three gay clubs survive, down from twice that number or more a dozen years ago.  Part of what has happened is due to younger gays being more widely accepted socially and at other venues.  Part may be due to the wider public acceptance of gays and same sex marriage.  Frighteningly, with Donald Trump on the verge of returning to the White House with a circle of anti-LGBT extremists surrounding (and who seemingly now control the Republican Party), the need for gay clubs and gay guesthouses may be about to increase significantly if non-discrimination laws and public accommodation protections are stripped away under Trump 2.0.  Worse yet, if Project 2025 proponents surrounding Trump and the extremist cabal on the U.S. Supreme Court seek to end same sex marriage, the situation may become dire indeed. 

Here in Virginia with statewide elections in November - we never have a break from elections - we (I, the husband and other LGBT Virginians and our allies) will work hard to insure that a Democrat again occupies the Executive Mansion and that Democrats control the General Assembly so as to blunt some of the horrors that may flow from the White House and/or the the GOP controlled Congress.  Thus, I am not giving up, but the never ending battles do grow tiresome.  At the same time, the husband and I will continue to travel, but I suspect that Florida will not be a future destination. Perhaps Puerto Rico or Mexico or destinations in blue states such as New York and California to name but two. 

Stay tuned for future thoughts and updates.

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Don’t Let Terror Shut America Down

Recent New Year's Eve celebrations were marred by the terror attack in New Orleans  - a city that has ancestral roots for me and which I have visited numerous times - of an apparent ISIS convert that took the lives of at least 15 of the revelers, most of whom were young at the beginning of their adult lives.  The terrorist/murderer - despite the repeated lies of Der Trumpenfuhrer and many on the political right and at faux news sites such as Fox News - was U.S. born and raised and was a U.S. military veteran.  He was NOT an illegal who had "invaded" across the border.  Of course, none of this matters to Trump and his imitators and ass kissers.  Meanwhile, there are calls to in essence close down the country and/or limit public gatherings to deprive future terrorist of targets for their depraved acts.   I condone neither the lies about the perpetrator nor the calls to shutdown and stifle public activities.  The first is morally wrong - as is most of the Trump/MAGA agenda - and the latter hands a victory to terrorists whose agenda is aimed at disrupting the country and instilling fear.  In 2015 following the terror attacks in Paris, the husband and I and three friends traveled to Paris as planned in part because we did not want to give the Islamic terrorist a win.  As a piece in The Atlantic argues, the same mindset is needed now.  Yes, do all possible to minimize dangers by improving security protocols and learning from past mistakes (the New Orleans police definitely made mistakes in not properly blocking access to Bourbon Street), but do not erase rights of public assembly and public celebration.   In short, do not let hate and terror win. Here are article excerpts: 

Despite the devastating terror attack that killed at least 10 people on Bourbon Street in New Orleans in the early-morning hours of New Year’s Day, it seemed at first as though the Sugar Bowl college-football playoff game would continue tonight in the city’s Superdome, less than two miles from the carnage. This afternoon, officials announced they would postpone the game for at least 24 hours.

Getting on with activities as normal, to whatever extent is possible, is the correct approach. Responses to terror or violent attacks need to be based on the specifics of the incident, but the default should always be to remain open. A nation, any nation, must have the capacity to mourn and move forward simultaneously.

The question isn’t whether proceeding with scheduled events is disrespectful to those who have been directly affected by terror. . . . . the decision should be based less on emotion and more on the level of ongoing risk, and the available security, for those who are asked to continue with their lives.

First, can the situation legitimately be described as no longer posing a continuing danger? In 2015 in Paris, a wave of terror attacks over one long night resulted in 130 deaths. The entire country was placed under what amounted to a three-month lockdown, with most public events canceled. That made some sense, given the sophistication and planning behind those attacks, and the fact that a concert hall and sporting venue had been targeted.

In a statement, the FBI identified the [New Orleans] suspect as 42-year-old Shamsud-Din Jabbar, a U.S. citizen from Texas. He was killed at the scene by law-enforcement officers. An Islamic State flag had been located in the vehicle, the FBI said, and law enforcement is working to determine the suspect’s affiliations. Although what additional information might be available to the FBI remains unclear, the unified messaging suggests they are not overly concerned about continuing risk.

Second, if a city chooses to close down or delay events, does it have clear standards for what will allow it to reopen? This was the dilemma after the Boston Marathon bombings on a Monday in 2013 . . . . European cities such as Brussels have faced the same issue after major attacks. It is easy to close down but harder to have metrics for what is perfectly safe, because that is an impossible standard.

Third, can public-safety resources and planning be redeployed or reassessed in light of the terror attack without forcing the city to a standstill? A preplanned sports event, such as the Sugar Bowl, already has in place safety and security protocols that can be amended in just a few hours to allow for more resources from other jurisdictions and changes to vehicle access. Indeed, just a day after Boston’s lockdown, the Red Sox played at Fenway with a ramped-up public-safety presence. The Hall of Fame slugger David Ortiz memorably welcomed the anxious crowd by saying, “This is our fucking city.” He was reflecting a sense that terrorists elevate their cause if they can affect entire populations, and the best response can be an insistent normalcy.

There is no perfect answer to the challenge posed by an attack, but asking the public to stay put can be unnecessary. In Maine in 2023, after the tragic shooting of 18 victims by a lone gunman, the town of Lewiston and areas across southern Maine went into shelter-in-place mode for several days until he was found dead from suicide. Fear and isolation may have been unnecessarily amplified by the lockdown, originally issued for an indefinite period.

After the terror attacks of September 11, 2001, President George W. Bush tried to calm a grieving nation by telling citizens to still “go shopping for their families.” The quote has been mocked as both tone-deaf (the term consumer patriotism was coined) and insensitive, but the for is often forgotten in the retelling. No matter how terrible an attack, we still need to be there for one another—whether that means gathering or grieving or, when the time comes, just watching a football game.

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