The Ugliness and Hatred That Trump Has Wrought

Being gay, I am used to receiving threats and harsh language.  I was forced from a former law firm for being gay and I've received death threats (all of which came from "conservative Christians"), especially for writing my personal blog.  I've also suffered harassment by the Norfolk police before the Norfolk Police Department adopted an LGBT friendly stance.  While the personal threats have lessened of late, the advent of the Trump/Pence regime has made anti-LGBT animus acceptable again.  Indeed, the rise of Trump/Pence has made hatred in general, especially against those who are "different" or "other," once more acceptable.  Fast forward to today's attempted pipe bomb terrorism effort (with five similar bombs) against prominent Democrats and such rhetoric normalizing violence certainly points to right wing extremist efforts be they the work of a single lone wolf or, worse yet, some extremist group.  The right wing media - think Rush Limbaugh, et al - is alleging that liberals sent the bombs, but I doubt that such is the case.   I may be proven wrong, but statistically, right wing elements are the most frequent to resort to violence.  Either way, Trump has created a dangerous and toxic atmosphere where such efforts have been granted permission by the White House.  A column in the Washington Post looks at the normalizing of hate and violence.  Here are highlights:

What hath Trump wrought?  Rep. Greg Gianforte (R-Mont.) last year pleaded guilty to assaulting a journalist. President Trump last week celebrated the assault.  “Any guy that can do a body slam, he’s my kind of — he’s my guy,” Trump said to cheers.  CNN’s Jim Acosta said one man at the rally then looked at him “and ran his thumb across his throat.”

Wednesday morning, a pipe bomb arrived at CNN’s offices in New York, addressed to former CIA director and current Trump critic John Brennan. Other bombs went to at least five others frequently villainized by Trump: Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, former attorney general Eric Holder, Rep. Maxine Waters and, earlier this week, Democratic financier George Soros.

Trump appropriately denounced “acts or threats of political violence of any kind.” But it’s fair to ask: If a person who assaults a journalist is Trump’s “guy,” might not some unstable person think that, by sending a pipe bomb to a news organization, he, too, is being Trump’s guy?

Nobody but the perpetrator is responsible for this attack. . . . . But one man has done the most to create this climate, whipping supporters to fear and desperation with often violent rhetoric. And only one man can take us back from the brink. Stop the mob, Mr. President.

In the closing days of the 2018 campaign, Trump has revived what worked in 2016, encouraging his mostly white and mostly male supporters to feel besieged by dark-skinned people, immigrants, women, religious minorities and, of course, the media.

Trump recently maligned all the targets of Wednesday’s attack. Thirty-six hours earlier, Trump fired up yet more “Lock her up!” and “CNN sucks!” chants. He roiled the crowd to boo “low IQ” Waters. Trump spread false conspiracy theories that Soros funded the migrant caravan and anti-Brett M. Kavanaugh protesters. 

This moment is particularly dangerous because Trump has turned partisan divisions into a proxy war over race and gender, stoking backlash to the first black president and the first woman to be a major party’s presidential nominee. Those receiving the pipe bombs include three African Americans, two women and a Jew frequently targeted by anti-Semites. These demographics figure prominently among Trump’s favorite targets at rallies, mostly women (Nancy Pelosi, Elizabeth Warren, Clinton), African Americans (Cory Booker, Waters, Obama) and Jews (Soros, Charles E. Schumer, Richard Blumenthal, Dianne Feinstein).

Trump’s latest stump speech portrays these Democrats as violent, lawless and inhuman, responsible for “an assault” on the country, an “angry left-wing mob” on a “ruthless mission to . . . demolish and destroy,” “corrupt power-hungry globalists” who are “not caring about our country” and “want to replace freedom with socialism” and invite people into the country who “carve you up with a knife.” Democrats are “openly encouraging millions of illegal aliens to . . . overwhelm our nation” and have “launched an assault on the sovereignty of our country . . . and the safety of every single American.”
Is it any wonder people might feel desperate?

[O]ne public figure’s [i.e., Trump’s] rhetoric has been more violent than all others, and he has the biggest megaphone. He encouraged supporters to “knock the crap out of” protesters and offered to pay attackers’ legal bills. He expressed his wish to punch a heckler in the face. He urged police not to “be too nice” to suspects. He shared a doctored video of himself attacking CNN in a wrestling match. He suggested supporters could use guns to stop Clinton judicial nominees and fantasized about Clinton’s security detail being taken away. Most recently, Trump hesitated to criticize Saudi Arabia for Saudi operatives’ killing of Post contributing columnist Jamal Khashoggi as the president keeps up his attacks on journalists as enemies of the people.

This has an effect. A man was arrested for threatening to shoot Boston Globe employees this summer, calling the paper the “enemy of the people.”

After the bombs were discovered Wednesday, Trump offered a soothing message: “We have to unify. We have to come together.”  Amen. But at Monday’s rally, Trump ridiculed almost those exact words, mocking Clinton’s campaign for having “some stupid slogan like ‘stay together.’ ”

I truly worry about the future and America's democracy.  History can and does repeat itself when the populace fails to pay attention and ignores the warnings from the events of the past.

Trump and U.S. Extremists More Dangerous than Foreign Ones

This blog has often looked at the growing threat of domestic terror rising from right wing extremist groups, many of who label themselves as "patriots" and view themselves as "real Americans" who are pitted against those deemed "other" based on race, religious faith, sexual orientation and other differences that make them debased and/or less than   The Southern Poverty Law Center ("SPLC") has details on the growing number of such groups:

The SPLC found that the number of hate groups operating in 2015 was 14 percent higher than in 2014. Anti-government “Patriot” groups – armed militias and others animated by conspiracy theories – also grew 14 percent during the same period. . . . . Hate groups increased from 784 groups in 2014 to 892 last year. Anti-government “Patriot” groups grew from 874 in 2014 to 998.

Fueling this rise is the demagoguery of the Republican Party and, most notably, Donald Trump, who is giving legitimacy to hate groups and falsely named "patriot groups."  A piece in the Washington Post looks at this growing danger.  Here are excerpts. 

           Take America back from those who have stolen it.
           Protect America from those who want to destroy it.
           Restore the principles that these usurpers betrayed. 

These are the messages that have defined the GOP presidential race. They have been used for the past eight years to justify obstruction of the Obama administration, and are now being used to paint the democratic candidates as dangerous. In the late stages of the GOP primary as the rhetoric became increasingly xenophobic, they were applied to increasingly broad swaths of the American population as well.

Years of constant repetition by members of the GOP have given them an appearance of legitimacy, now strengthened by Donald Trump’s victory in the GOP primary contest and the party’s growing embrace of him as their standard-bearer.

Unfortunately, the Republican Party isn’t alone in using these messages.

Right-wing extremist groups use them as well, and to very specific ends: to define the conditions under which anti-government violence becomes legitimate in their world view.

I have seen rhetoric like this used to mobilize violence in countries like Iraq and Kenya.  This same dynamic, I argue, is taking shape within American society now. If it continues, it represents a greater threat than anything we face from terrorist groups outside our own borders.

The GOP has spent many years mobilizing both (sometimes tacitly and sometimes actively), in the form of anti-Muslim, anti-immigrant, racist and anti-government sentiment. This strategy has secured them votes from the white, Christian, male and ideologically extreme demographic needed to offset the party’s growing distance from an increasingly diverse and progressive American society.

This has typically been done in code, a practice that’s come to be known as “dog whistle politics” – but this election has brought it into the open.

Trump has built his candidacy on the idea that America is sick, broken and misled, and “making it great again” depends on taking it back and cutting out the cancer.  His campaign rhetoric has a common thread with that of extremists. It emphasizes betrayal and theft. It tells Americans that things are bad because of it, and then points a finger and places blame.

Every violent group in history describes its own violence as the legitimate response to a threat that was forced on them.

The constantly repeated themes of theft and betrayal from the GOP suggest to the patriot militias and to supporters who feel angry and alienated that the push has already happened. Trump has on many occasions claimed that America is “lost” to the American people. Given his hostility against immigrants and Black Lives Matter protesters and short-lived nomination of a white nationalist as a delegate in California, it seems clear he means white Americans.

Recent years and the 2016 race aren’t the first time we’ve heard this kind of language from Americans within the patriot movement.

The following words were spoken by Timothy McVeigh, in an interview explaining why he destroyed the federal building in Oklahoma City in 1995.

Those who betray or subvert the Constitution are guilty of sedition and/or treason, are domestic enemies and should and will be punished accordingly. It also stands to reason that anyone who sympathizes with the enemy or gives aid or comfort to said enemy is likewise guilty.

The blame for these rifts and the likely consequences neither begin nor end with Donald Trump. He simply used an existing trend for his own gain. His praise of violence and embrace of racism and political extremism, however, goes past even what the GOP has already made commonplace.

Mainstream GOP rebuttals were too little too late. . . . this strategy for winning elections isn’t just divisive. It’s creating a risk of violence that has already outgrown the threat it’s supposed to be a shield against.

It’s left to the GOP to decide whether American security or winning an election is more important to them.

A Christian's Confessed Change of Mind of Gay Rights and Marriage Quality

I have often said that the best justification for not wanting to call one's self a Christian is the behavior of those loudly embracing that title - especially those in "conservative" denominations.  Instead of love for others, kindness and good works, the hallmarks of such Christians is hate, bigotry, judgment of others, and hypocrisy that would the Pharisees of the New Testament.  I have in many ways ceased to think of myself as a Christian because the word carries nothing but negative connotations.  The exodus of the under 30 generations from organized religion demonstrates that I am not alone in this feeling.  I happened across a piece in DailyExtra by a former conservative - ultra-right wing might be a more apt description - Catholic that explains his conversion on gay rights and his need to leave the Roman Catholic Church, especially after the way his was treated by the "godly folk" when he began to question their hate and animus based beliefs. Here are excerpts:

Pigs flying overhead, hell freezing over and any other clichés you can come up with to describe shock, incredulity or even horror: Michael Coren, writing an article for Daily Xtra! If it’s any comfort, until around two years I also would have thought the idea preposterous. I say it with no pride, and more than a little shame, that for the longest time I was considered an opponent and even an enemy of the LGBT community. That changed, or I changed, after a set of events and experiences in early 2014, which I chronicle in my new book, Epiphany: A Christian’s Change of Heart and Mind over Same-Sex Marriage.

The entire process is too long and multi-layered to explain in a column, but the origins were in then foreign minister John Baird’s entirely justified and vital criticism of Uganda’s proposed legislation to make homosexuality a capital crime.

I suppose the door had been opened. Shortly after this, World Vision, an international Christian charity group, announced that people in same-sex relationships were welcome to work for them. Within 24 hours, however, pressure from Christian groups and churches had forced them to backtrack. They had threatened to withdraw their funding. In other words, fire the gays or African children will die. Christ must have been weeping. 

I certainly did. This was not the faith I had embraced so many years earlier. I spoke out against Christian homophobia, called for a new conversation, pleaded that we listen rather than shout. Which led to a campaign of abuse, threats and insults that I have never encountered in a long journalistic career that includes time in Northern Ireland, the Middle East and war zones.

I was seeing a new, deeply disturbing face of Christianity . . . . In June 2014, I wrote my syndicated Sun column — in a dozen newspapers — apologizing for any pain I had caused gay people. I didn’t even mention marriage at this stage, but offered contrition for my actions and words. Believe me, it wasn’t easy.

What happened next changed my life. The waves of love and warmth that came to me from gay people all over North America and even Europe broke my heart. I was also fired from columns, lost numerous speeches and was labeled an adulterer, a thief and someone who was mentally ill. People wrote to my wife, claiming that I was having an affair with another man; my children’s Facebook pages were trolled and they were in turn accused of various crimes.

If the desired effect was to change my mind, it worked. It radicalized me, obliged me to read, think and pray harder and to soon realize that I had been wrong on marriage — to be candid, I think I knew this anyway but lacked the courage to say it. So I did indeed come out, as it were, and declared my support for equal marriage. I also knew I couldn’t remain in the Roman Catholic Church any longer and retain self-respect. I could not lie, could not pretend. I no longer believed in the Catholic Church’s moral teachings.

Yet all of this was product not of a weaker belief, but of a deeper Christian faith, and a belief in a Jesus who accepted everyone and who personified not judgment but love; a man who never even mentioned homosexuality but did scold those who condemned others, and who assumed that only they were pure and righteous.

I joined the Anglican church, where I have never been happier. That move was made public by some right-wing Catholic bloggers and the attacks were multiplied. I was dismissed from more columns and had more speeches cancelled — and while money and career aren’t the issue here, I probably lost half of my income — which is ironic, as one of the attacks on me was that my move was motivated by money!

Now comes a book and, I am sure, more darkness from those who dance in its shadows. But my only regret is that this didn’t happen earlier. Let me say again, even though I have said it countless times: I am sorry for any pain or harm caused. I can’t expunge that, but I can make sure that what years I have left are devoted to what is true, good, noble and liberating. Thank God for my epiphany.   

Few are more mean and vicious than the "godly" conservative Christians.  Like Islamic fundamentalists, hate and mistreatment of others are their main fruits of their religious belief.  The sooner society at large recognizes this reality and the sooner journalists and politicians cease giving deference to such foul people, the better off the world will be.  In my view, the death of Christianity - especially conservative strains - would be a net positive for the world.