Obama Implores Americans to Defeat Trump

As I have noted both on this blog and on Facebook, the 2020 presidential election is a stark choice between (i) morality - i.e,. anyone other than Trump - and (ii) immorality as embodied in Donald Trump, a malignant narcissist whose stock in trade is endless lies, hate and bigotry and an utter disregard for the best interests of the majority average Americans. There truly is no middle ground, some my Republican friends will be confirming whether or not they are moral and decent individuals or not based on how they cast their vote come November.

 While Barack Obama made mistakes while president (we are all mortals after all), overall I believe he stands for morality, the rule of law and the U.S. Constitution.  That is certainly the feeling I got the one time I was up close to him and heard him speak at a campaign event in 2012.  Trump, as noted, is the antithesis of morality, equality under the law, and constitutional government.  Indeed, in my view, Trump is nothing less than evil. Hence why Obama is now beginning a series of campaign appearances for Joe Biden and other Democrat congressional candidates.  A piece in the Washington Post looks at Obama's message to Americans.  Here are highlights:

Joe Biden’s campaign has long viewed his partnership with former president Barack Obama as one of his chief assets in running for president. He spoke often of “my buddy Barack” during campaign events. . . . . But for the past year and a half, there has often been a critical piece missing: Obama.

That began to change in April, when Obama endorsed Biden. On Tuesday, it went a step further, as Obama and Biden made their first joint appearance in years, the former partners allied as they attempt to defeat President Trump.

Obama was the main draw at a virtual fundraiser for Biden, raising more than $7.6 million from 175,000 individual donors, according to Biden’s campaign.

“You’re all feeling a sense of urgency, the same kind of urgency I’m feeling right now,” Obama said near the start of the fundraiser. “I’m here to say: Help is on the way.”

Obama launched into an in-depth criticism of Trump, without mentioning him by name, and said that while his own administration inherited problems, “the foundation stones, the institutions we had in place, were still more or less intact.”

“My predecessor, who I disagreed with on a whole host of issues, still had a basic regard for the rule of law and the importance of our institutions and democracy,” he said.

“What we have seen over the last couple of years is a White House enabled by Republicans in Congress and a media structure that supports them . . . that suggests facts don’t matter, science doesn’t matter,” Obama said. “That suggests that a deadly disease is fake news. That sees the Justice Department as simply an extension and an arm of the personal concerns of the president. That actively promotes division. And considers some people in this country more real as Americans than others.”

[T]his is serious business. Whatever you’ve done so far is not enough . . . We have to do more,” Obama said. He warned Biden supporters of Trump’s strength, and not to underestimate his ability to harness his supporters.

“We can’t be complacent or smug or say it’s so obvious this president hasn’t done a good job,” Obama said. “Look. He won once.”

Obama also turned toward Biden, touting his work with “our presidency” and saying that the tragedies in the former vice president’s life allow him to better understand the lives of average Americans. “This is somebody who has been touched by tragedy in a direct, profound way and as a consequence has enlarged his heart to embrace other people who are undergoing tragedy,” he said.

The event marked a new phase for Obama, who is expected to increase his campaigning not only for Biden but also a full slate of Democrats aiming to preserve the House majority and win back the Senate.

Obama is seen as vital to energizing elements of his coalition with whom Biden has struggled, including young black voters and liberal voters who have distrusted the former vice president, who built his career as a moderate who could work with Republicans. He appeared to target one of their disconnects with Biden when he directly addressed his age.

“I’ll be honest, and hope Joe doesn’t take offense,” he said. “Joe’s been around a while. Sometimes what happens is we take that for granted.

“There’s a tendency to always look for the new and shiny object. But for my money, one of the things that counts the most is to have somebody, whatever mistakes they’ve made or hardships they’ve gone through, have they shown the kind of character that stands up,” he said. “And my experience with Joe Biden is that’s who he is.”

After Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) suspended his campaign in April, Obama released a lengthy video endorsing Biden. In the video, he reflected on the shifts within the party he once led and called for more assertive action.

“To meet the moment, the Democratic Party will have to be bold,” Obama said. “I could not be prouder of the incredible progress that we made together during my presidency. But if I were running today, I wouldn’t run the same race or have the same platform as I did in 2008. The world is different. There’s too much unfinished business for us to just look backwards. We have to look to the future.”

Trump can use opposition to Obama to mobilize his supporters — on Tuesday, his campaign sent out a fundraising email with sirens and the subject line “BARACK OBAMA” — but Obama is generally viewed favorably by most Americans. A recent Fox News poll had Obama with a net favorability of 28 points, compared with minus-12 points for Trump.

Obama has recently shed some of his reluctance to engage in national politics, sharply criticizing Trump’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic last month by calling it “an absolute chaotic disaster” during a call with a network of former staffers and supporters.

On the call, he also criticized the Justice Department’s decision to drop charges against Michael Flynn, who served as Trump’s first national security adviser, saying that it was “the kind of stuff where you begin to get worried that . . . our basic understanding of the rule of law is at risk.”

Obama is expected to ramp up his campaign activities over the coming months, with those close to him pointing to his 2018 involvement as a template: He spent the summer raising money before doing two rounds of endorsements and stumping in 11 states as Election Day neared.

Pete Buttigieg: The Benefits and Burdens of Being Gay

There was a time when I viewed being gay as a curse, tried to "pray away the gay" and even tried to end my own life because of the vicious fallout I experienced.  Now, to no doubt the surprise of some, I see being gay as a gift.  True, life might be easier in someways if I was straight, but in so many ways being a part of an often oppressed - even hated - minority has given me a much wider perspective when it comes to empathy towards others, understanding the importance of minority rights and even being better able to view those who are different as fellow humans. This is not to say that all gays experience or benefit from these expanded perspectives (in my view, these benefits are utterly lost on white, gay Republicans, many of whom seemingly believe their skin color and socioeconomic status protect them from the woes of other gays and other minorities).  All of this brings me in a very round about way to Pete Buttigieg and how his sexual orientation brings both pluses and minuses to his presidential campaign effort.  A piece in the New York Times - by a gay columnist - looks at Buttigieg and also speculates as to whether America might once again surprise and elect someone whom some say is not electable by virtue of who he is.  Here are excerpts: 

Pete Buttigieg vaulted into the top four of a crowded Democratic presidential field because he has an agile intellect, is fiercely articulate and both espouses and embodies a fresh perspective that many voters of all stripes crave.

He also got there because he’s gay.

He’d be the first to acknowledge that. In fact he did acknowledge it when we spoke last June about the state of L.G.B.T.Q. rights in America. Referring to his sexual orientation and his marriage to another man, he told me, “It’s safe to say that it led to there being more interest and attention early on.” He stood out among the dozens of Democratic aspirants, each desperate to do precisely that.

But there’s a big difference between winning over enough Americans to land in his current position — he placed second, behind Elizabeth Warren, in one survey of Iowa voters last week — and having an appeal broad enough to nab the party’s nomination, let alone the White House. Is being gay an insurmountable obstacle on the path to those prizes?

Anyone who answers with an unequivocal yes or no is just guessing.

The question is now being asked more urgently than before, as the primary contests draw closer and many Democrats simultaneously assess the risks of the two front-runners, Warren and Joe Biden, and survey the field anew, wondering if anyone in the tier of candidates just below them might be a better opponent for Donald Trump. Their gazes invariably fall on Buttigieg, but their apprehensions include whether America could really elect a gay president.

Obama’s candidacy always held the promise of extraordinary support from a crucial Democratic constituency that has thus far been cool to Buttigieg — and could well remain so.

“Among a significant segment of African-American voters who are socially conservative, he’s not polling well,” Axelrod said, noting a frustration of Buttigieg’s campaign that my colleague Trip Gabriel explored in a recent article in The Times.

It’s complicated. While there’s a history of resistance to gay marriage at many black churches, other factors could explain Buttigieg’s lack of success with African-Americans, some of whom surely look at him and see what many white critics of his also do: a charmed 37-year-old on the kind of glide path to greatness (Harvard, a Rhodes scholarship, a stint as a consultant with McKinsey) that defines privilege.

In a Gallup poll published in May, 83 percent of Democrats — and 82 percent of independents — said that they’d be willing to vote for a gay presidential candidate. That leaves a significant percentage who wouldn’t. A Reuters/Ipsos poll published the following month showed that among all voters, 34 percent were less likely to vote for a gay candidate. But that figure was lower than the 48 percent who said they were less likely to support a candidate over 70 — as Trump, Biden, Warren and Bernie Sanders will all be in November 2020.

Buttigieg’s fund-raising haul of more than $51 million through Sept. 30 places him behind only Sanders and Warren.

And while being gay obviously disqualifies him for a sizable group of Americans — 36 percent of whom, according to Gallup, still oppose the legal recognition of same-sex marriage — what fraction of them were likely to vote for a Democrat, anyway? Besides, didn’t Trump’s election prove that many voters could and would overlook elements of a candidate’s personal life if he gave voice to matters they cared about?

Could the ranks of the Buttigieg-resistant be offset by Americans eager to send the kind of message about their values and their desire for change that a vote for Buttigieg would? Obama benefited from that impulse. When a candidacy seeks to make history — as Buttigieg’s does and Obama’s did — it can stir extra excitement.

Buttigieg told me that when fans approach him at campaign events, “it’s not unusual for someone to be in tears just because the fact of our candidacy is so unbelievable to them as something they would see in their lifetimes.”

For all its potential drawbacks, Buttigieg’s sexual orientation can be woven into his personal narrative to powerful effect, humanizing him, making him more approachable rather than less, forging a bridge to other minorities, establishing a familiarity with struggle and thus a capacity for empathy. All of that hinges on how deftly he integrates it into his remarks.

His sexual orientation is indisputably a challenge, but one that’s surmountable if opponents stumble, if voters’ mood is just so, if his personality sparkles, if his message sparks. We’re a country of deeply ingrained prejudices. But we can also be open-minded and openhearted, and our need for a savior outweighs any interest in what he or she does in bed.

Having heard Buttigieg speak in person, he is an amazing speaker and perhaps the closest to Obama of any of the Democrat field of candidates.   Should he win the nomination and defeat Trump, it would be a huge f*ck you to Christofascists and evangelicals - just the thought of their shrieks and lamentation brings a smile to my face. . 

Complacency Will Be the Death Of American Democracy

I have been politically engaged and - in my view - informed for decades.  Sadly, many Americans cannot say that as evidenced by the over 40% of registered voters who could not be bothered to vote in last year's presidential election.  This indifference - complacency, if you will, is having dire consequences on the viability of America's democracy, not to mention the rights of minorities.  The phenomenon is not new, but seems to have intensified in the run up to the 2016 presidential election and even afterwards as some minority communities, the LGBT community in particular. If one is a student of history, one knows that the Founding Fathers were (i) educated individuals, and (ii) believed that citizens have an obligation to educate themselves on issues and be politically involved.  Stated another way, an obligation of citizenship is political involvement and staying fully informed on matters. This latter concept was and is essential to maintaining and protecting democracy.  Compare this concept with the proverbial soccer moms who fixate on PTA issues and children's' sports yet remain clueless on pressing political issues and all to often either fail to vote cast their votes in utter ignorance.  I use soccer moms as but one example.  The problem is replicated across many groups in society, including the LGBT community where a minority seems to be engaged and informed while others remain clueless and often fail to support community organizations from which they receive benefits.   Excuses the "I'm too busy" or "I don't like politics" simple are not acceptable and are a default of fulfilling one's duty as a citizen.  History has shown us time and time again of what can happen when the citizenry falls into complacency.  Two pieces look at the consequences of complacency, one by Michelangelo Signorile directed at the LGBT community and the other on remarks made by Barack Obama.  First, these highlights from Michelangelo's column:

Inside the U.S. Supreme Court this week for the oral arguments for Masterpiece Cakeshop, Ltd v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission I couldn’t help but look at Justice Neil Gorsuch and imagine how things would be if Merrick Garland were rightly sitting in that chair. 

Had Republicans not stolen that seat, refusing a vote on President Obama’s nominee for almost the entirety of his last year in office and allowing Donald Trump to put Neil Gorsuch ― an ideologue on the issue of “religious liberty” ― on the court, we would not be in this dangerous predicament.

[M]any progressive legal observers are concerned ― some very much so ― and the general consensus among journalists who cover legal issues is that it will come down to Kennedy, and that he, by his own history, could side with the baker. It’s often forgotten that on another gay rights decision, Boy Scouts of America v. Dale, Kennedy joined the majority in a 2000 ruling that the Boy Scouts could ban gay scouts and scoutmasters on First Amendment grounds. 

In my 2015 book, It’s Not Over, I wrote all about what I’d termed “victory blindness,” a phenomenon in which minorities who are discriminated against become seduced by big wins ― like the Obergefell ruling ― and think they’ve achieved full equality in society. Victory blindness, I argued, overcame many LGBTQ people, who let their guards down or dismissed some anti-LGBTQ actions, not realizing that the anti-equality forces were organizing fiercely, and that the backlash would be intense and could roll back LGBTQ rights while we’re celebrating or not paying attention.

Victory blindness often prevents us from seeing how tenuous our wins are and how all minorities must continue to fight for their rights because the political winds can shift very quickly.

Donald Trump’s election and presidency did a lot to shake us from it, forcing us to become energized and to vow to fight. This week at the Supreme Court, no matter how the case eventually is decided, should serve to do the same.

The second piece goes well beyond the confines of the LGBT community and looks at how complacency can give rise to authoritarianism.  It has happened before throughout history and Donald Trump and today's GOP seemingly hope to allow it to happen again.  Here are highlights:

American democracy is fragile, and unless care is taken it could follow the path of Nazi Germany in the 1930s.

Mixed in with many softer comments, that was the somewhat jaw-dropping bottom line of Barack Obama last night as, in a Q&A session before the Economic Club of Chicago, the Chicagoan who used to be president dropped a bit of red meat to a hometown crowd that likely is a lot closer to him than the man whose name never was mentioned: President Donald Trump.

Obama moved from that to talking about a nativist mistrust and unease that has swept around the world. He argued that such things as the speed of technical change and the uneven impact of globalization have come too quickly to be absorbed in many cultures, bringing strange new things and people to areas in which "people didn't (used to) challenge your assumptions." As a result, "nothing feels solid," he said. "Sadly, there's something in us that looks for simple answers when we're agitated."

Still, the U.S. has survived tough times before and will again, he noted, particularly mentioning the days of communist fighter Joseph McCarthy and former President Richard Nixon. But one reason the country survived is because it had a free press to ask questions, Obama added. Though he has problems with the media just like Trump has had, "what I understood was the principle that the free press was vital."

The danger is "grow(ing) complacent," Obama said. "We have to tend to this garden of democracy or else things could fall apart quickly."

That's what happened in Germany in the 1930s, which despite the democracy of the Weimar Republic and centuries of high-level cultural and scientific achievements, Adolph Hitler rose to dominate, Obama noted. "Sixty million people died. . . .So, you've got to pay attention. And vote."

Trump's "Hitler Youth" Speech to Boy Scouts

Most American presidents are invited to the Boy Scout National Jamboree, but while many attend the event and speak, a significant do not.  Would that Donald Trump, a/k/a Der  Trumpenführer, had passed up the invitation.  What ensued when Trump addressed the Scout gathering sounded more akin to Adolph Hitler addressing a gathering of Hitler Youth members.  Rather than being uplifting and talking about good citizenship and living by the Scout Law, Der  Trumpenführer attacked the mainstream news media, sought to illicit boos against Barack Obama, and made the speech into a political case of verbal diarrhea aimed at harming anyone not swearing fealty to "Dear Leader." While cheers were heard on the audio of Trump's rant, many in attendance and others with strong ties to the Boy Scouts were not happy and the supposedly non-partisan non-profit organization felt compelled to distance itself from Trump's political and personal attacks.  Coverage in the Washington Post looks at this vile and inappropriate screed by a man who sounded more like a peevish child that the president of a global super power.  Here are highlights: 

Trump’s speech at the Jamboree in Mount Hope, W.Va., broke with years of tradition — presidential traditions and Scouting traditions both. Past presidents had used these moments to extol American exceptionalism and civic virtues — such as service and honesty — that have long been pillars of the Boy Scout ethos.

Trump did a little of that before veering into a speech about his own exceptionalism.
“It pivoted to essentially a typical Trump rally. And it was not a campaign-rally audience. It was an audience of young boys and young men, who’ve come from around the country to celebrate Scouting,” said Robert Birkby, a former Eagle Scout who wrote three editions of the Boy Scout Handbook. “He did not share in the event. He shared of himself.”

By Tuesday, Trump’s speech had prompted a backlash from many current and former Scouts and their families, who say it was not only inappropriate but also undermines efforts to diversify and modernize the century-old organization.

On social media and in interviews, many said they thought national leaders should have cut short or condemned the speech, which included strong language — “Who the hell wants to speak about politics when I’m in front of the Boy Scouts?” — and a reference to cocktail parties attended by “the hottest people in New York.” Trump at times tried to raise issues more traditionally discussed at Boy Scout gatherings, such as character and perseverance. But he also lingered on his campaign fight against Democrat Hillary Clinton and seemingly joked about firing his health and human services secretary over Republicans’ inability, so far, to pass health-care legislation.

By midday Tuesday, the organization’s Facebook page included hundreds of comments from former Scouts and parents of Scouts, calling for the organization to make a stronger statement condemning the speech. Many threatened to pull out of Scouting.

The controversy comes as the venerable organization, which has promoted civic engagement and character development among children since 1910, strives to stay relevant and appear inclusive. Membership in the Boy Scouts has dwindled by a third since 2000, to just more than 2 million as of 2016.

The organization has sought to reach out to Hispanics through its Valores para Toda la Vida (Values for Life) program. It founded its co-ed Venturing program, which focuses on outdoor exploration for teens and young adults, in 1998 and has opened some of its other programs to girls, though so far not its prestigious Eagle Scout program. The organization rescinded its ban on gay members in 2014 and in January announced that it will allow transgender members.

The efforts have in part been an effort to keep from driving away parents and students in more liberal areas of the country, said Alvin Townley, a Georgia-based author who wrote “A Legacy of Honor,” a history of the Eagle Scouts, who have earned the highest level of achievement in the organization. He suggested that the political nature of Trump’s speech undermines that goal.

“No president has used the Jamboree as a backdrop to advance a political agenda. . . . . And Scouting’s vitality relates directly to its inclusion of people from different backgrounds and different perspectives.”

Trump’s remarks were the last straw for at least one former Scout. Eric Styner, 31, who works in quality assurance at a technology company in Seattle, said Tuesday that he had decided to renounce his status as an Eagle Scout.

Styner said he gradually became alienated from the Scouts, beginning at age 14, when he was rankled by the requirement that a Scout profess a belief in God to pass his Eagle Scout Board of Review. He was further disillusioned when the Scouts held fast to a gay ban even after many states had legalized same-sex marriage. Trump’s speech clinched it, he said.

Some defended the organization, saying that it did the right thing by inviting Trump. The problem, they said, was Trump.

For the record, I was a scout as was my son.  That said, I have become increasingly disillusioned with the Boy Scouts which seems to aligned with Christofascists and pushes an anti-gay, anti-minority agenda.  That Trump was allowed to engage in such an inappropriate and dishonest rant makes me more resolved to make sure that my grandsons are not scouts.  

Down Playing Russia, the GOP's Most Dangerous Game

In some ways one of the most baffling things we are witnessing in the wake of the 2016 Presidential election and the Electoral College's election of Donald Trump in contempt for the popular vote is the Republican Party's continued efforts to down play and/or totally dismiss possible - or, in my view, likely - collusion of the Trump campaign with Russian intelligence and other Russian operatives to throw the election to Trump.  Now, even faced with emails released by Donald Trump, Jr., himself demonstrating an eagerness to collude with Russian and to accept help from the Russian government, the official GOP response is to strive to look the other way.  Of course all of this began back in September, 2016, when Mitch McConnell sought to silence the Obama administration efforts to expose the Russian hacking effort to harm the Clinton campaign.  A piece in Slate ponders how long this GOP effort can continue and at what cost the GOP may ultimately have to pay for deliberate acquiescence to campaign interference by a hostile foreign government.   Here are article excerpts:

Last September, in a classified briefing, the CIA told senior lawmakers that Russia was working to elect Donald Trump president. In that meeting, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell expressed skepticism of the intelligence and questioned its veracity. And he made a threat of sorts. At the time, the Washington Post reported that McConnell “made clear to the administration that he would consider any effort by the White House to challenge the Russians publicly an act of partisan politics.” Put simply, if President Obama spoke out on Russian interference, McConnell would turn it into a partisan football. The president kept quiet. Of the turning points that brought us to our present crisis, this is among the most consequential. McConnell’s stance in that briefing didn’t just enable Russian hacking, it precluded official scrutiny and criticism of that hacking and effectively gave cover to key members of Team Trump as they sought information to use against Hillary Clinton. McConnell downplayed Russian interference for what were likely partisan reasons, with little knowledge of the scope of and even less fear for the far-ranging implications of what he was covering up. And in that, he presaged the response of the entire Republican Party, which didn’t just utilize the hacked and leaked information but has looked the other way at every sign of something untoward involving Donald Trump and the Russian government.

Republicans are still looking the other way, even as that stance becomes more and more untenable. And they are looking away—as well as downplaying the seriousness of the issue—despite the real chance that the truth is more damning than what we know at the present, and that it may damage our country more than we want to believe. This “see no evil” response is especially egregious given recent revelations around Donald Trump Jr. and his efforts to obtain favorable information for his father’s campaign. We now know Trump Jr. responded enthusiastically to what was communicated as “part of Russia and its government’s support for Mr. Trump” . . .

There is a response to this, increasingly popular among Trump’s defenders: Collusion isn’t illegal. But that’s almost beside the point. Democracy is only possible if there is confidence in the process, and foreign intervention—potentially solicited by one campaign—is deeply damaging to that confidence. It threatens the legitimacy of the entire enterprise. For our system of government, the question of Russian interference—and the extent of Trump’s awareness and involvement—is existential.

For our system of government, the question of Russian interference—and the extent of Trump’s awareness and involvement—is existential.   But that fact, and the steady stream of damning revelations, has not kept GOP lawmakers from giving Trump and his team the benefit of the doubt.

[W]hile other Republicans, like South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham, used harsher language when referring to Team Trump’s dalliances with Russia, there’s no indication that any Republicans have wavered in their overall support for the Trump administration. There have been no calls for an even deeper investigation, no sense from GOP lawmakers that this is an urgent affair. Republicans are playing a dangerous game: covering up a scandal, without knowing the full scope of the offense.

What if future revelations detail actual collusion between the Trump campaign and the Russian government? Though there is currently no proof, do Republicans really believe the chances are zero that this or even worse possibilities—are true? . . . . By allowing the collapse of trust, the Republican Party will have abetted a wholesale subversion of American democracy.

[T]he institutional indifference to foreign intervention is something different. It signals a dangerously zero-sum attitude, where any price—including subversion from outside forces—is worth paying if it clears a path to partisan and ideological victory. Perhaps the worm will turn and Republicans will join Democrats in demanding real answers from President Trump and his associates. For now, at least, we have a Republican Party that values its success above the integrity of our system.

Upholding American Dignity on Independence Day

I probably have not been this depressed on the 4th of July since the early years of my coming out saga when every holiday that was associated with family gatherings sent me off the deep end notwithstanding the anti-depressants I was taking.   Things looked bleak to me and the future seemed frightening and uncertain.  Fast forward fourteen years and those feelings likely apply to many Americans who remained shocked and appalled that we have a vulgar, mentally unstable, narcissist in the White House who is rapidly making America a worldwide embarrassment (at least outside of his circle of knuckle dragging supporters).   Yet there is reason for optimism: Virginia may well remain under Democrat gubernatorial control after the November, 2017 elections; despite the efforts of Christofascists, a majority of Americans do not subscribed to a perverted version of Christianity dominated by greed and hatred of others - in fact, roughly a third of Millennials have walked away for religion - and so far the federal courts have reined in a number of Trump initiatives. A piece in the New Yorker reminds us to buck up and strive for the best ideals of America while continuing to battle the forces of ignorance and hate that embody the worst attributes of America's past.  Here are highlights:

More than three-quarters of a century after the delegates of the Second Continental Congress voted to quit the Kingdom of Great Britain and declared that “all men are created equal,” Frederick Douglass stepped up to the lectern at Corinthian Hall, in Rochester, New York, and, in an Independence Day address to the Ladies of the Rochester Anti-Slavery Sewing Society, made manifest the darkest ironies embedded in American history and in the national self-regard. “What, to the American slave, is your 4th of July?” Douglass asked:

I answer; a day that reveals to him, more than all other days in the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim. To him, your celebration is a sham; your boasted liberty, an unholy license; your national greatness, swelling vanity; your sounds of rejoicing are empty and heartless; your denunciations of tyrants, brass fronted impudence; your shouts of liberty and equality, hollow mockery; your prayers and hymns, your sermons and thanksgivings, with all your religious parade, and solemnity, are, to him, mere bombast, fraud, deception, impiety, and hypocrisy—a thin veil to cover up crimes which would disgrace a nation of savages. There is not a nation on the earth guilty of practices, more shocking and bloody, than are the people of these United States, at this very hour.

The dissection of American reality, in all its complexity, is essential to political progress, and yet it rarely goes unpunished. One reason that the Republican right and its attendant media loathed Barack Obama is that his public rhetoric, while far more buoyant with post-civil-rights-era uplift than Douglass’s, was also an affront to reactionary pieties. Even as Obama tried to win votes, he did not paper over the duality of the American condition: its idealism and its injustices; its heroism in the fight against Fascism and its bloody misadventures before and after. 

Donald Trump, who, in fairness, has noted that “Frederick Douglass is an example of somebody who’s done an amazing job,” represents an entirely different tradition. He has no interest in the wholeness of reality. He descends from the lineage of the Know-Nothings, the doomsayers and the fabulists, the nativists and the hucksters. The thematic shift from Obama to Trump has been from “lifting as we climb” to “raising the drawbridge and bolting the door.” Trump may operate a twenty-first-century Twitter machine, but he is still a frontier-era drummer peddling snake oil, juniper tar, and Dr. Tabler’s Buckeye Pile Cure for profit from the back of a dusty wagon.

Trump’s vows of solidarity with the struggling working class, with the victims of globalization and deindustrialization, are a fraud. He made coal miners a symbol of his campaign, but he has always held them in contempt. To him, they are luckless schmoes who fail to possess his ineffable talents. “The coal miner gets black-lung disease, his son gets it, then his son,” Trump once told Playboy. “If I had been the son of a coal miner, I would have left the damn mines. But most people don’t have the imagination—or whatever—to leave their mine. They don’t have ‘it.’ ”

Trump is hardly the first bad President in American history—he has not had adequate time to eclipse, in deed, the very worst—but when has any politician done so much, so quickly, to demean his office, his country, and even the language in which he attempts to speak? Every day, Trump wakes up and erodes the dignity of the Presidency a little more. He tells a lie. He tells another. He trolls Arnold Schwarzenegger. He trolls the press, bellowing “enemy of the people” and “fake news!” . . . .  The President’s misogyny and his indecency are well established. When is it time to question his mental stability?

Trump began his national ascendancy by hoisting the racist banner of birtherism. Since then, as candidate and as President, he has found countless ways to pollute the national atmosphere. If someone suggests a lie that is useful to him, he will happily pass it along or endorse it. This habit is not without purpose or cumulative effect. Even if Trump fails in his most ambitious policy initiatives, whether it is liberating the wealthy from their tax obligations or liberating the poor from their health care, he has already begun to foster a public sphere in which, as Hannah Arendt put it in her treatise on totalitarian states, millions come to believe that “everything was possible and that nothing was true.”

Frederick Douglass ended his Independence Day jeremiad in Rochester with steadfast optimism (“I do not despair of this country”). Read his closing lines, and what despair you might feel when listening to a President who abets ignorance, isolation, and cynicism is eased, at least somewhat. The “mental darkness” of earlier times is done, Douglass reminded his audience. “Intelligence is penetrating the darkest corners of the globe.” There is yet hope for the “great principles” of the Declaration of Independence and “the genius of American Institutions.” There was reason for optimism then, as there is now. Donald Trump is not forever. Sometimes it just seems that way.

    

World Regard for America Plummets Under Trump

Trump, the ugly America (and not just due to a fat ass and tiny hands)

Not surprisingly, Donald Trump, a/k/a Der Trumpenführer, a man who based his campaign largely on racism, Christian extremism and xenophobia is very unpopular in the rest of the world outside of America.  What is surprising is how quickly the image of America itself has plummeted.  Electing an ignorant, lying, vulgar narcissist has rightly made many, especially in Europe, think poorly of Americans themselves.  It will be interesting to see reactions in early August when the husband and I will be in London.  Back in 2004 while I was in Canada, many Canadians expressed sorrow for Americans, saying that we deserved much better than George W. Bush, a/k/a the Chimperator.  Frighteningly, the Chimperator looks relatively good compared to Der Trumpenführer - if nothing else, he wasn't mentally ill.  A piece in the Washington Post looks at America's plunging image abroad.  Here are excerpts:

President Trump has alarmed citizens of the nation’s closest allies and others worldwide, diminishing the standing of the United States in their eyes, according to a wide-ranging international study released Monday.

But in the survey of 37 countries, Russia is a bright spot for Trump. As beleaguered as the president is at home, a majority of Russians say they have confidence in him. And Russians’ attitudes toward the United States have improved since Trump took office.

Elsewhere, though, and with remarkable speed, Trump’s presidency has taken a toll on the United States’ image abroad.

The international survey by the Pew Research Center found that favorable ratings of the United States have decreased from 64 percent of people across all countries surveyed at the end of Barack Obama’s presidency to 49 percent this spring. The new figures are similar to those toward the end of the George W. Bush administration.

The president himself has fared even worse: A median 22 percent are confident that Trump will do the right thing in global affairs, down from 64 percent who had confidence in Obama.

From Chile to Italy, from Sweden to Japan, majorities consider the president arrogant, intolerant, unqualified and dangerous.  What is surprising, said Frank G. Wisner, a former diplomat who served under Democrats and Republicans, is the degree to which Trump has scorned principles the United States has not only long espoused but also helped to define in the previous century. These include democratic governance, free markets, collective security, human rights and the rule of law — commitments that together, Wisner said, delineate the liberal international order. Global popular opinion matters, Wisner said, in part because it defines how foreign leaders engage with American interests.

The depths of disapproval registered abroad suggest that Trump has undone the progress Obama made in burnishing the American brand. It took Bush eight years, and the quagmire in Iraq, to notch such dismal ratings overseas, according to Pew. It has taken Trump six months. 

Among other world leaders studied by Pew, German Chancellor Angela Merkel receives relatively high marks. The share of people who report little or no confidence in her, a median of 31 percent across 37 countries, is less than half that for Trump, at 74 percent. The survey found that 59 percent lack confidence in Russian President Vladimir Putin and 53 percent in Chinese President Xi Jinping. Germans hold some of the most negative opinions of the United States, with 62 percent viewing the country unfavorably and 87 percent lacking confidence in Trump.

Trump Lies and Claims Obama Wire Tapped His Phones

Apparently the ongoing disclosures of a large network of contacts between his campaign officials and other henchmen with Russian agents is beginning to unsettle Der Trumpenführer who let loose with tweets claiming the Barack Obama had Trump's phones wire tapped.  Of course, in typical fashion, he offers no proof backing up his allegations which are seemingly yet another attempt to distract the media and change the political topic of conversation.  It's yet another example of Trump's use of the Nazi propaganda playbook. Sadly, Trump's base will eat it up since their racism inclines them to believe anything negative about the nation's first black president.  This bigotry combined with the alternate universe spun by Fox News will no doubt have the right wing fringe foaming at the mouth.  Here are highlights from the New York Times on Der Trumpenführer's campaign of lies:

President Trump on Saturday accused former President Barack Obama of tapping his phones at Trump Tower the month before the election, taking to Twitter to call his predecessor a “bad (or sick) guy.”

Without offering any evidence or providing the source of his information, Mr. Trump fired off a series of Twitter messages claiming that Mr. Obama “had my ‘wires tapped.’ ”

A spokesman for Mr. Obama, Kevin Lewis, issued a statement dismissing the claims. “A cardinal rule of the Obama administration was that no White House official ever interfered with any independent investigation led by the Department of Justice,” he said. “As part of that practice, neither President Obama nor any White House official ever ordered surveillance on any U.S. citizen. Any suggestion otherwise is simply false.”

Officials from the Obama administration called Mr. Trump’s accusation shocking and untrue. They pointed to longstanding laws and procedures intended to ensure that presidents cannot wiretap a rival for political purposes.

Mr. Trump’s decision to lend the power of his office to such a claim — without offering any proof — was remarkable, even for a leader who has repeatedly shown himself willing to make assertions that are false or based on rumors.

It would have been difficult for federal agents, working within the law, to obtain a wiretap order to target Mr. Trump’s phone conversations. It would have meant that the Justice Department had gathered sufficient evidence to persuade a federal judge that there was probable cause to believe he had committed a serious crime or was an agent of a foreign power, depending on whether it was a criminal investigation or a foreign intelligence one.

Speculation online quickly turned to the possibility that Mr. Trump had been reading an article on the Breitbart News site or listening to the conservative radio host Mark Levin; both have embraced the theory in recent days. 

Ben Rhodes, a former top national security aide to Mr. Obama, said in a Twitter message directed at Mr. Trump on Saturday that “no president can order a wiretap” and added, “Those restrictions were put in place to protect citizens from people like you.”

It has been widely reported that there is a federal investigation, which began during the 2016 presidential campaign, into links between Trump associates and the Russians.

Mr. Trump’s mood was said to be explosive before he departed for his weekend in Florida, with an episode in which he vented at his staff. The president’s ire was trained in particular on Donald F. McGahn, his White House counsel, according to two people briefed on the matter.

Mr. Trump was said to be frustrated about the decision by Jeff Sessions, his attorney general, to recuse himself from participating in any investigations of connections between the Trump campaign and Russia. Mr. Trump has said there were no such connections.

 As I said, he doth protest too much.  Let's hope the intelligence agencies come up with conclusive proof of collusion with the Russian very soon so that Trump can not only be impeached but also face treason charges.

Obama Administration Rushed to Preserve Intelligence of Russian Election Hacking

The New York Times is carrying a piece that ought to concern truly patriotic Americans.  It concerns the issue of Russian efforts to throw the 2016 presidential election to Der Trumpenführer and the steps taken by the Obama administration to protect information on possible treason so that it would not be destroyed by Der Trumpenführer's henchmen once they took over control of the executive branch.  The risk remains, of course, that Republicans in Congress will kill any meaningful investigation to get to the truth about Trump/Putin ties.  To far too many Republicans, political party now takes precedence over the good of the nation.  As often noted, I have little doubt that Trump would have rejected Russian assistance.  The man is a dangerous narcissist who throughout his career has deemed himself above the law and willing to engage in corrupt and illegal practices to further his interests. Why anyone would expect him to change is dumbfounding.  Here are article highlights:

In the Obama administration’s last days, some White House officials scrambled to spread information about Russian efforts to undermine the presidential election — and about possible contacts between associates of President-elect Donald J. Trump and Russians — across the government. Former American officials say they had two aims: to ensure that such meddling isn’t duplicated in future American or European elections, and to leave a clear trail of intelligence for government investigators.

American allies, including the British and the Dutch, had provided information describing meetings in European cities between Russian officials — and others close to Russia’s president, Vladimir V. Putin — and associates of President-elect Trump, according to three former American officials who requested anonymity in discussing classified intelligence. Separately, American intelligence agencies had intercepted communications of Russian officials, some of them within the Kremlin, discussing contacts with Mr. Trump’s associates.

Then and now, Mr. Trump has denied that his campaign had any contact with Russian officials,  . . . .Mr. Trump’s statements stoked fears among some that intelligence could be covered up or destroyed — or its sources exposed — once power changed hands. What followed was a push to preserve the intelligence that underscored the deep anxiety with which the White House and American intelligence agencies had come to view the threat from Moscow.

As Inauguration Day approached, Obama White House officials grew convinced that the intelligence was damning and that they needed to ensure that as many people as possible inside government could see it, even if people without security clearances could not. Some officials began asking specific questions at intelligence briefings, knowing the answers would be archived and could be easily unearthed by investigators — including the Senate Intelligence Committee, which in early January announced an inquiry into Russian efforts to influence the election.

At intelligence agencies, there was a push to process as much raw intelligence as possible into analyses, and to keep the reports at a relatively low level of classification to ensure as wide a readership as possible across the government — and, in some cases, among European allies. This allowed the upload of as much intelligence as possible to Intellipedia, a secret wiki used by American intelligence analysts to share information.

More than a half-dozen current and former officials described various aspects of the effort to preserve and distribute the intelligence, and some said they were speaking to draw attention to the material and ensure proper investigation by Congress.

Some Obama White House officials had little faith that a Trump administration would make good on such pledges, and the efforts to preserve the intelligence continued until the administration’s final hours. This was partly because intelligence was still being collected and analyzed, but it also reflected the sentiment among many administration officials that they had not recognized the scale of the Russian campaign until it was too late.

But it wasn’t until after the election, and after more intelligence had come in, that the administration began to grasp the scope of the suspected tampering and concluded that one goal of the campaign was to help tip the election in Mr. Trump’s favor. In early December, Mr. Obama ordered the intelligence community to conduct a full assessment of the Russian campaign.

Beyond leaving a trail for investigators, the Obama administration also wanted to help European allies combat a threat that had caught the United States off guard. American intelligence agencies made it clear in the declassified version of the intelligence assessment released in January that they believed Russia intended to use its attacks on the United States as a template for more meddling.

“We assess Moscow will apply lessons learned,” the report said, “to future influence efforts worldwide, including against U.S. allies.”

#NotMyPresident

Obama Rejects Trump Immigration Orders, Backs Protests

With the Trump/Pence regime embarked on a campaign that makes a mockery of what most decent moral people view as American values and likely appeals only to white supremacists and Christian fanatics, former President  has finally released at statement that (i) condemns Trump/Pence's anti immigrant actions, and (ii) applauds ad encourages the large scale protests taking place across the country.  No doubt Der Fuhrer will launch a twitter rant against Obama, but thankfully Obama is saying what needs to be said.  It is crucial that decent moral Americans begin to shout in one huge voice that Trump/Pence is NOT acceptable and that the majority of us condemn them and their policies. Despite his delusions of grandeur, Trump lost the popular vote and the vast majority of Americans did not vote for him.  He has no mandate and he is not above the law or the U.S. Constitution.  NBC News has details on Obama's statement.  Here are excerpts:

Breaking his silence only 10 days after he left office, former President Barack Obama backed nationwide protests against President Donald Trump's executive order on immigration Monday.

In a strongly worded statement issued through a spokesman, Obama said he was "heartened by the level of engagement taking place in communities around the country."
"Citizens exercising their Constitutional right to assemble, organize and have their voices heard by their elected officials is exactly what we expect to see when American values are at stake," he said.

Shortly afterward, Acting Attorney General Sally Yates — a holdover from the Obama administration — sent a memo to Justice Department lawyers ordering them not to defend the executive order against several legal challenges that were filed over the weekend.

The former president rejected Trump's contention Sunday that his executive orders restricting travel from seven predominantly Muslim countries were "similar to what President Obama did in 2011 when he banned visas for refugees from Iraq for six months."

The 2011 order did not ban visas for refugees, who by definition don't travel on visas. It tightened the review process for citizens of Iraq and for refugees from the six other countries, while Trump's is a near-blanket order applying to nearly all residents and citizens of all seven countries.

It should be obvious by now to any sentient individual that if Trumps lips are moving, he's lying.   

Frighteningly, LGBT Rights Are All Too Easily "Reversible"

Many "friends" who voted for Der Fuhrer and forever linked themselves to Hillary Clinton's aptly described "basket of deplorables" who made up Trump's core base continue to deliberately close their eyes to what they have done to their LGBT friends and family members.  Whether or not they can bring themselves to be honest about the consequences of their vote, LGBT rights are now very much at risk.  At least for a number of years until the aging angry white voters of the GOP base die off and are replaced by LGBT-friendly Millenials and the younger generations that follow them.  A piece in The Daily Beast looks at why I and many others are fearful of the future and have even had thoughts of emigrating (the husband and I have not ruled this option out).  Here are article highlights:

On Wednesday, Washington Blade reporter Chris Johnson asked President Obama a question that’s on many LGBT Americans’ minds: What’s going to happen to our rights under President Trump and his cabinet? . . . . In response, the outgoing president put a brave face on—but maybe too brave of a face.

“I don’t think it is something that will be reversible because American society has changed; the attitudes of young people, in particular, have changed,” Obama said.

He went on to predict that “there are still going to be some battles that need to take place,” particularly around transgender rights, but that pro-LGBT attitudes among “young people of Malia [and] Sasha’s generation” would ultimately carry the day.
 But how much has American society really “changed” during his tenure?  At the press conference, the president referred to a “transformation that’s taken place in our society” around LGBT rights. But was it an irreversible “transformation” after all? Not quite.

There’s plenty of evidence to suggest that anti-LGBT sentiment will be an enduring feature of the American cultural and political landscape. And there are no guarantees that the progress the Obama administration has made cannot be turned back.

According to Gallup, just under 30 percent of Americans still believe that same-sex sexual relationships—not even marriages, mind you—should be illegal. Over a third oppose same-sex marriage and 37 percent maintain that “gay or lesbian relations” are “morally wrong.”

Transgender bathroom rights nearly divide the country in half. Taken together, those statistics show a fairly stable cohort of homophobic and transphobic voters who will continue to shape electoral politics for decades to come, even with a rising generation of more tolerant young people entering public life.

[P]olitical advances in LGBT equality don’t necessarily translate into social acceptance.  As The Daily Beast has previously reported, several key measures of anti-LGBT bullying in U.S. high schools only fell by about 2 percent per year between 2005 and 2015, per data from the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network.

According to annual polling commissioned by GLAAD, nearly 37 percent of non-LGBT respondents said in 2015 that they would be uncomfortable with their child having an LGBT history lesson in school.

When a shockingly large percentage of Americans still can’t even handle a same-sex couple kissing on the cheek, it’s hard to buy into the notion that there’s been a radical “transformation” of our society since 2008. And although certain of Obama’s pro-LGBT changes would be easier to retract than others, none of them are written in stone.

Undoing marriage equality would be an ordeal—and it would be hugely unpopular—but it’s still possible if President Trump follows through on his Supreme Court picks and the right cases come along.

By contrast, pro-LGBT protections enacted through executive orders—like anti-discrimination protections for federal contractors—could be quickly and easily eliminated.

Correspondingly, attacks on LGBT rights—such as the ratification of the First Amendment Defense Act—could be easily initiated as The Daily Beast’s Tim Teeman and Jay Michaelson have reported.

Military milestones could crumble as well. Trump’s Secretary of Defense Pick General James Mattis notably did not send any signals that he would undo the Obama administration’s reversal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” which banned lesbian, gay, and bisexual people from serving openly in the military.

But in response to a question about the recent advances in transgender military service, Mattis’ future Commander-in-Chief Donald Trump said last October that the military is getting “politically correct” and it’s “ridiculous.

With Mike Pence as Vice President, Republicans in control of both houses of Congress, and several more Supreme Court vacancies on the horizon, a Trump administration will only be limited by its own restraint when it comes to LGBT issues.

But even though LGBT advances are all too “reversible,” President Obama was spot-on about one thing: the vast majority of young people support full equality. Last April, a Reuters/Ipsos poll found that Americans aged 18 to 29 support transgender rights by a two-to-one margin, with Americans over 60 opposing them by the same margin. And according to Pew, over 70 percent of millennials support same-sex marriage.

The only catch is that millenials aren’t voting where it counts and older voters are. . . . . that means that LGBT progress might only be inevitable because death is also inevitable. But unlike death, LGBT advances are definitely reversible.

Let's hope many of the anti-LGBT whites who voted for Trump and Republicans find themselves without healthcare coverage and they will have unwittingly hastened their own demise and indirectly assisted in protecting LGBT rights.  That would be ironic justice.