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Thoughts in the Time of Trump
Before the presidential election a few months ago I mused about whether it is more upsetting to live in a country where Donald Trump was president or in a country where people would elect a Donald Trump to office. I have decided that it is the latter. The election of Donald Trump reveals that my fellow citizens are not only desperate, racist, and selfish, but they are incredibly ignorant of how things work in America. I am not talking about the 1% who have a rational interest in Trump because he will protect and advance their interests. The ideological conservatives who argue that government needs to be as small as it can be, that government should be run like a business, and that it needs to be fiscally responsible so as not to inflate the national debt, do not understand the purpose of government. The middle and lower class who believe Trump will work in their interests do not understand that Trump works mostly in the interest of himself and those like him. The interests of the middle and lower classes will be way down the list in his imperial presidency. When push comes to shove he will throw them under the bus like in the health care bill. Those who claim they are self made and resent assistance given to the “undeserving” or “lazy” poor are not only selfish, they usually do not understand or acknowledge how much help they may have received along the way to their so called self sufficiency. They also do not understand how late capitalism with its automation and concentration of wealth has produced and continues to produce poverty until it reaches their doorstep. When it does they still worship those who are strangling them, blame immigrants or non-whites, resent those who are doing better than they, and refuse to unite across racial lines with those who are in similar straits
Even the racists will find that America cannot run (and never has) without people of other races. Farmers fear that their Mexican farm workforce will be diminished by immigration policies; medical facilities would be hamstrung without foreign doctors; entertainment or sports would be far different without people of different races, and the list goes on and on. America’s diversity is its strength not its weakness. The religious zealots who espouse their own self-serving brand of Christianity want to impose it on the government. They are no better than the Taliban and want nothing more than a Christian sharia. It is fine to hold your own religious beliefs, but to impose them on others or the government, especially in such a multi-religious place as the U.S. is directly counter to the reason this nation was formed and the Constitution. This is ignorance unbound.
Our failing educational system has left them not only ignorant, but willfully ignorant of the true nature of the world around them. The medical system has left them dependent on opioids and now changes in the health care system threaten to withdraw even that. Neither the Democratic or Republican parties have offered much real relief to those who elected Trump. They have sold out to corporate interests instead of serving the people they supposedly represent. I read somewhere that when the people act stupidly it means their leaders have failed them.
The real question is “how do we get out of this mess we are in?” We are certainly not going to do it with the two political parties we currently have. The Republican party has abdicated care of their constituents in favor of an ideological commitment that says “damn the torpedoes, (and even the loss of lives) full speed ahead.” They are even willing to swallow clear Russian involvement in our electoral system if it gives them an opportunity to pursue their agenda. The Democrats aren’t much better. At best they provide a thin shield and ragged opposition to the Republicans. They refuse to see that success involves a wholesale change to a people centered outlook and content themselves with small piecemeal changes that have been and will continue to be ineffective. We are left with two alternatives. We either start a new party or seize the controls of the Democratic Party. It is very difficult to start a new political party in the United States and the odds are stacked against it. No such party has emerged dominant since the birth of the Republican party in the 1850’s. It took a Civil War to do that. The second option has also been unsuccessful so far. The Democratic Party has rebuffed the challenge of Bernie Sanders, kept the leadership of the party in party hack hands, and, as seen in the Jon Ossoff election, not learned its ways. Still this seems like the best of the bad options we face. It might take Democratic failure in 2018 and 2020 to accomplish it, but it looks like the only viable alternative.
W.E.B Du Bois said in 1906 that “either the United States will destroy ignorance or ignorance will destroy the United States.” I fear we are in the midst of watching the latter.
The narrow approval of the House of Representatives to repeal the ACA and replace it with a new health care act that will ultimately leave millions without health insurance, is an act so callous and cruel that I struggle to understand why the congresspeople did it. A New York Times editorial savages it: (https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/04/opinion/obamacare-house-vote.html?smid=tw-share ) Yes there is a large money saving element to it and it will probably pay for a tax cut that will benefit the wealthy most. However that is not all there is to it. The conservative argument is based on the idea that health care is a private good like all others and should be allowed to follow the rules of the free market. Let those who need the most of it (the old, sick and infirm) pay more and those who need little of it (the young, healthy and active) pay less. Other supporters have expressed the view that one’s health is the result of a choice of lifestyles. Why should I pay for the poor choices e.g. smoking, drug use,lack of exercise etc. of others that result in poor health. Others came on board because the health care act leaves each state free to decide many of the rules it wants to follow. This has led to ignorant quotes like “There is a group of people that just don’t want health care and aren’t going to take care of themselves.â€( https://thinkprogress.org/roger-marshall-poor-people-do-not-want-health-care-obamacare-repeal-b49325664fd9).  In other words there are deserving and undeserving sick.
I would argue that health care is not like the other private goods that the free market is supposed to regulate, that health is not just the result of life choices, and that it calls for a national rather than state by state approach because it is a public good not a private one. Think about national defense for just a minute. No one would argue that it is something that should be left to the states rather than something the country as a whole should address. That is because “defense of the homeland” is thought of as a public good. We should think of health care the same way. Not just a Center for Disease Control to stop “invading” illness like Ebola, but also to stop the spread of diseases like cancer or to prevent birth defects. These diseases “attack” the country  because they limit the country’s productivity, shorten lifetimes of people who could be contributing to society,  and in the case of communicable diseases threaten our citizens. Even if the one percent may try to segregate themselves from the ill they are not immune. They should want excellent health care for people who care for their children, work in their homes, are employed by their businesses, and serve in their country clubs. How many of the ill are because they worked in mines or other dangerous businesses owned by the 1%? How about veterans who are suffering illness caused by their service or even people who just lived near where nuclear weapons or waste was stored?
I will not try to argue that some diseases are not the result of lifestyle choices. My father died of heart disease at 58, my mother of lung cancer at 69, my only sister of a stroke at 53 and all were heavy smokers. I do believe that smoking contributed to shortening their too short lives. We can argue how much of their smoking was individual choice and how much was insidious advertising, the corporate greed of Big Tobacco, governmental support of the industry, and outright lies about the safety of smoking. My point here is that rather than condemn them for their choices or point fingers at who is responsible, they would have been better served by the health industry working to extend their lives to make them longer-lived contributors to society. Although they all died too young, each of their lives was extended for a few years by medical care. Imagine a health industry that got from the federal government even a tenth of what we are spending on the military. Imagine a health care industry actually devoted to preventing disease as much as treating it. Imagine a health care system devoted to delivering health care to all rather than one priced so only the wealthy can get adequate health care or that is priced higher for those who need it most. All of these would be the result of changing our thinking about health care to considering it a public good rather than a private one. This health care “nirvana” is not beyond our resources or capabilities; at this point it is only beyond our will.
Every day it seems that Donald J. Trump reveals some new level of ignorance that boggles the mind. Each day it may be ignorance or misunderstanding of history, the Constitution, diplomacy, the workings of government, non-whites, grammar, the presidency, or the majority of the American people. Liberals gloat and point out his shortcomings while his supporters stoutly defend him from those elitists who rely on so-called facts or science. They say his critics get too hung up on of the literal meaning of his words or that he gets a date or fact wrong, while it is his policies that will ultimately matter. Just as they are willing to forgive his sexism, racism, nepotism, and gorging at the public trough in hopes that it will eventual result in better lives for them, they are willing to overlook his gaffes. Indeed they also might not know the fact that Frederick Douglass is no longer alive or that Andrew Jackson died before the Civil War or one of the other facts he has gotten wrong or lied about. All they know is that Obama, for example, with his refined speech, big words, and complete sentences did not improve their lives. Most of the other presidents with their so-called knowledge have not done enough for them, so it is time to try something else. They reason that Trump has a fortune so he must be a good businessman who has said time and time again that he will work for them.
To them Trump’s first 100 days have been a success. The stock market has responded positively, the economy is still growing, some large employers have said they will keep some jobs in the the country. In a flurry of activity he has signed more executive orders in his first one hundred days than any of the the presidents in the last 50 years. He has already started streamlining government by firing or not replacing hundreds in his administration and his cabinet secretaries all seem devoted to dismantling their departments. He claims credit for all of these things and his supporters give him credit. All of this is of course nonsense. The economic gains he touts were all done under Obama; most of the executive orders he has signed have been plans to make plans rather than actual actions, the cuts in government he has made are a mere drop in the bucket. He has not had any major legislative victories. His plans to build a wall have come to naught so far. Obamacare is still the law of the land because it has been impossible to pass a new healthcare bill. His first budget proposal was a general outline rather than a real budget and it was dead on arrival when it reached Congress. Although deportations have increased, the courts have moved to thwart his immigration policy.
How many of these failures has been due to his ignorance? It is hard to tell, but at least some of it is due to his misunderstanding of the Constitution and Congress. He has called the Constitution an “archaic” document because it limits his power to do things. He has admitted that the job of the president is harder than he thought. Perhaps this is because of his ignorance of the presidency and the checks and balances of the governmental system. The courts have blocked some of his executive orders because they are concerned with his words and their unconstitutionality. How much does this stem from his ignorance of the law and the Constitution? His failure to get significant legislation passed is clearly due to his lack of understanding of how politics work.
Trump is ignorant of many things, but he is not stupid. He was smart enough to win the presidency albeit aided by the Russians, the Democrats, and reality television. Ignorance can be overcome by learning and we are still in the early stages of the Trump administration. He was so arrogant when he came to office that he felt no one knew better than he about anything. Perhaps he will learn from his mistakes and actually get better at implementing the policies he wants. This possibility is frightening because if he is able to overcome his ignorance about process, he will be able to implement his ignorance about other things. Reality is a rough mistress, but if he adjusts then some of the ignorance we mock will become the ignorance we fear.
All around us we see people playing the game of “Comparative Deprivation.” Its signature meme is “Those people don’t have it as bad as (fill in the blank here.)” Some conservatives for example like to point out that poverty in the United States is not “real” poverty such as in underdeveloped countries. Â American “poor” have refrigerators and televisions unlike say all those Syrian refugees. On Facebook recently I entered a conversation when someone mentioned an old quote from sociologist Orlando Patterson that he made in a New York Times op-ed piece defending Clarence Thomas in 1991. He said, “[America] is now the least racist white majority society in the world; has a better record of legal protection of minorities than any society white or black; [and] offers more opportunities to a greater number of black persons than any other society including all of Africa.” This quote is posted by “Praeger University” (which is not a university at all but a conservative web site) and has been used recently by conservative radio host Larry Elder, a black man.
It is an argument rarely made by the poor themselves but by those who have more and are trying to justify it to themselves or to others. This is like being told to eat whatever slop is put in front of you because others don’t have even that. I have to admit from the outset that for some these arguments are objectively true though irrelevant. Deprivation like many things is relative. To be poor in a rich society is quite different from being poor in a poor society. In both types of society however, the poor are at the bottom of the society, lack the rights or opportunities of others, and that is what feels the same.
“Comparative Deprivation” also works another way. In whatever group you define yourself one compares the deprivation of that group to others. This is why it is so hard to explain white privilege to a poor white person. His poverty doesn’t feel like privilege to him. Being a poor white in a society in which there is white privilege and watching a non-white who has more creates resentment. Feeling that the government has done more to help or protect the rights of nonwhites was the basis for much of the Trump support as revealed by a new American National Election Study. In it racism rather than income or belief in authoritarian regimes, played a bigger role among Trump supporters many of who were in the lower class.
Being at the bottom of one hierarchy doesn’t mean that you can’t be higher in another one. White women may be at the bottom of a male privilege hierarchy yet still be above blacks in the white privilege one. Some of the early suffragettes felt it unfair that women were denied the vote while black men sometimes had it. Black men who were at the bottom of the white superiority hierarchy may still have been higher in the gender hierarchy than women. Black women have complained for years that white women may be low in the gender hierarchy but still benefit from the white privilege hierarchy.
Comparing your deprivation to others has for centuries prevented an effective coalition against those who control the political system. Being at the bottom of a hierarchy feels the same no matter which hierarchical system it is. Yes there are different things oppressing us and different tactics needed to combat them, but a coalition of those at the bottom is the best way for all to rise. For that to happen we have to give up what we think is the uniqueness of our identity group’s blues, don’t listen to those who want to mollify or incite us by comparing deprivations, and recognize “someone else’s blues are like mine.” It is a tall order, but it is the way forward.
I have to admit I’m a sucker for historical documentaries. I have tried making them myself so I see and appreciate all the work that goes into them. That being said I want to recommend the three part PBS series “The Great War” to any who are interested. Full disclosure: I had a tiny contribution to it in helping them identify a photo I had also used in one of my documentaries, but that is not why I recommend it. There are several chilling comparisons to the present circumstances. On his best days Pres. Trump can’t hold a candle to Woodrow Wilson. Wilson was  smarter, more religious, and had a moral compass; things you can not say about DJT. There was a side to Wilson however, that was just as arrogant, thought he spoke for the people not only of the U.S. but of the world, and was just as authoritarian as Trump. This is not to mention that Wilson was an unapologetic stone cold racist.
World War I invented many of the things that threaten us today. The war itself unleashed the acceptance of civilian deaths, displacement, and the creation of refugees as  collateral damage in war. The “total” war pursued on both sides led to a staggering death toll in the millions. The documentary does not stint on the horrors of war as it demystifies the “heroism” of it. The war ended because the United States had been turned into a “war machine” (in an incredibly short 18 months) that had sent almost a million troops to Europe  by the war’s end, was sending 250,000 more troops per month and had an economy that was producing food, clothing arms and ammunition to support them indefinitely.
This swift transformation occurred because of the success of government curtailment of civil liberties, government propaganda fed to the media, media acceptance of its handcuffs, the equation of support for the war as “patriotism” by a large enough part of the population, and a repression of dissent unprecedented in American history. These are all things DJT has tried, is trying  will try to do or dreams of doing. German immigrants, American citizens of German descent, and German culture were all scapegoated to promote the war effort. Vigilantes attacked and coerced those it labeled “pro-German.” Today just substitute “Islamic” for German and the parallels become clear. The government passed the Espionage and Sedition Acts which made any public utterance of antiwar sentiment a crime. It did not hesitate to convict and imprison its loudest critics like socialist Eugene Debs and suffragist Alice Paul. The Patriot Act, the massive surveillance of the NSA, and a hysteria among even a limited section of the populace make such repression even more threatening today. A”Reichstag fire,” that is, an event which DJT can use to justify war, more curtailment of civil liberties, and more repression of dissent, will lead to a situation that makes Wilson’s repression look like child’s play. Whether this event is a war with North Korea, bombing of ISIS, destabilization of the Assad regime in Syria, or saber rattling with Iran, I cannot say. As Nazi leader Hermann Goering reportedly said, “The people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack patriotism and exposing the people to danger. It works the same way in any country.” It certainly worked that way in WW I and we have to be on the lookout for it with DJT.
It may or may not be true that those who ignore their history are doomed to repeat it. We may be doomed to repeat it anyway because of human nature. The history of the 20th century has been preserved in photographs and film. The PBS series uses them to great effect and I urge you to seek it out. It is a cautionary tale.
The survival of Obamacare rather than a loss for Trump may be the best thing that has happened to him so far. The pundits (the same ones that have been wrong about Trump before) are spinning this as a political failure, the inability of the “master of the the art of the deal” to be able to get his own party in line,  or a civil war within the Republican party. If we look at this from the perspective of a Trump supporter it changes the narrative that most liberals and progressives have of his presidency. For Trump supporters Trump has been a Teflon president for whom charges of ineptitude, Russian illegal activities, enriching himself at the public’s expense, “insane” behavior, unconstitutional actions, and out and out lying, have bounced off and not put a dent in their support of him. Recent polls show that a majority of his supporters believe his lies. For example one poll shows that 59% believe his claim that Obama wiretapped him during the campaign. His supporters can argue that he has tried to keep his campaign promises but outside forces have prevented him from doing so. Courts concerned with the niceties and complexities of the Constitution have prevented him from keeping them safe from Muslim immigrants. He has claimed to keep jobs from fleeing abroad even taking credit for deals that had been decided before he took office. He says that the Keystone and Dakota pipelines he approved will create jobs. How many jobs has been exaggerated and the number of jobs going abroad has hardly slowed, but the headlines for the few that he claims to have saved are what matters to his supporters. His proposed budget tries to cut what he calls the “fat” in the federal budget by eliminating those items that benefit the elite e.g. the National Endowment for the Arts, the poor, other ethnic groups, LGBT groups, and women who want to have abortions (or in most cases health care.) At the same time his budget plans to increase spending by the military and for those keeping us safe from illegal immigrants.
The one campaign promise that might have rattled the cage of his supporters was dismantling Obamacare. This would have affected his base by taking away some of the benefits that actually had an impact on the lives of many of them. His attempt to change it and its failure due to Republican Party politics was actually the best of both worlds. The president was seen as honestly trying to keep his campaign promises, but being prevented by others. At the same time none of his supporters lost actual benefits. It is a double win for him. Of course he is not out of the woods yet. The investigation into Russian collusion with his campaign may yet turn up a smoking gun. At this stage however to his supporters it is all innuendo and “fake news” of interest only to the liberals and their media. Those outside the Beltway do not pay close attention to what the media says about politics. Â They are more concerned with actions rather than the process itself. Budget cuts may eventually affect his supporters but as long as the actualities of the actions do not affect them personally they do not pay attention to the stories being told.
The gloating and celebration of liberals and progressive ignore the long road ahead and the many battles to come. Future success will depend on the mobilization of our forces not the erosion of support for Trump. Even when he loses a battle it just strengthens his support.
I know it is early but here are some questions Trump supporters should ask regularly. “How will this improve my life?” He cannot get rid of corrupt politicians because you have re-elected them. His bans on immigrants do not keep you safer because few immigrants commit crimes against Americans. Immigrants pay more in taxes than they receive in benefits. Immigrants didn’t take your job automation did and will continue to do so. The few jobs he prevented going abroad (and there is great controversy over how many that is and whether he had anything to do with it) do not mean that your job or town will be saved. His administration is made up of non politicians sure, but they are the same bankers, corporate CEO’s and billionaires who have been corrupting the politicians. He has simply cut out the middleman leaving the 1% in control.
What about the plans coming down the road? I heard a heart rending story about how a person could not afford the health care for his mother and she died while immigrants were receiving benefits from the government when she did not. He was therefore all for restriction of immigration. Your mother didn’t die because of immigrants, she died because of her lack of access to health care and insurance. It is the Trump and Republican plans to repeal the Affordable Care Act that you should be fighting. Plans for non taxed health accounts simply means that your savings may have to be spent on health care and one catastrophic illness will clean it out. Block grants for Medicare or Medicaid to the states mean that access to health care will vary from state to state and yours may or may not improve your health care. Privatizing Social Security puts your future at risk and is dependent on the ups and downs of the stock market.
His initiatives do not curtail government involvement in your life, they expand it. He wants the government to know your religion, intrude into women’s personal health decisions, and to initiate costly projects (e.g. the wall, increased immigration policing, expanded vetting) If you couple this with his tax cuts that will save the middle class taxpayer a couple of hundred and the 1% millions, this will explode the deficit. As Bill Clinton (the only president in the last 25 years to balance the budget) said “arithmetic.” As conservatives will tell you Trump is not a true conservative.
As comedian Lewis Black once said Democrats versus Republicans is “the party of no ideas versus the party of bad ideas.” For the prospect of actually getting their “bad ideas” passed Republicans have been willing to: weaken ethics enforcement, overlook Russian involvement in our election, ignore Trump’s love affair with Putin, look the other way about his vindictive “tweets,” discount his threats to reinstate immoral and ineffective torture, pooh-pooh his “shoot from the lip” diplomatic style, and take no notice of the sinking esteem in which the world hold the United States. It will be up to Republicans to grow some cojones and stand up for the country rather than the party. We must choose between living up to our professed ideals or just hiding a monster behind them.
What should you watch for? Watch for his attempts to muzzle the media. No other president has tried to do as much as Trump to see that even respected media outlets do not tell the truth about him. What will be the reaction of the rest of the world? Will other countries (e.g. Iran and other Muslim countries) ban Americans from travel or will other countries raise protective tariffs on American made goods to retaliate against Trump’s? Will we send more troops to fight and die abroad? We are certainly the biggest bully in the world, but there will be times when cooperation rather than conflict will be needed. Will foreign policy now be guided by the interests of major corporations rather than the American public. Will he use some incident to get you to willingly curtail your civil liberties and strengthen his powers?
Being POTUS is very different from being a CEO. For a CEO what you say goes; for a president you have to negotiate much through a Congress to pass laws or through a bureaucracy to execute policy. Â I predict that Trump will try to change the system that has lasted since 1781 so he can behave more like a CEO. Eyes open and we shall see see what we shall see.
To paraphrase something I read recently, “Idealists mature badly. If they can’t outgrow their idealism, they become hypocrites or blind. Trump supporters and sympathizers have chosen blindness, fixating so much on the system’s flaws that they believes those who oppose it must be paragons. That it’s not perfect says nothing about our opponents.  As it turns out, they’re mostly bad. Bad enough that Trump’s rule is a cataclysm, but that doesn’t mean they don’t have some good points about the system. It doesn’t mean that every fool who works for them is evil. It simply means they have to be stopped.”
The marches and demonstrations against Trump have been successful and they should continue, but what else should we do. If the outpouring of concern stops with the marches we will not have effectively resisted Trump. Remember the Occupy movement. We must take continued action to either rebuild the Democratic Party to get back to its FDR concerns for the common man, or we need to build a new party that will. As our guiding vision I think we need to go back to Martin Luther King Jr.
Martin Luther King Jr. preached concern for others and standing up for what you believe is right, but he did more than that. He espoused the creation of a beloved community in which there would be no poverty because society would support all at a basic level of existence; there would be no racism because each would see the other as a brother or sister; there would be no war, not because people would live without conflicts, but because they would find non-violent ways to settle them. This beloved community was not some pie in the sky utopia for King, but an achievable goal if enough people adopted his belief in nonviolence.
Over the last few weeks I have been collecting the ideas of others as to what to do going forward. A friend of mine recently wrote me:
“The difficulty of convincing Americans that this [MLK’s beloved community] is possible presents a challenge that has stalled social change in our country. I don’t see it as utopian at all, but it is beyond the recent or living experience of many. It is also contrary to the ideologies and social logics of Lockean liberal individualism, Social Darwinism, Ayn Rand, neoliberalism, and machine politics. [It is] incompatible with the reward-your-allies-screw-your-opponents politics that Congressional leaders have often practiced, encouraged by … cycles of gerrymandering that replaced competitive legislative districts with safe ones often represented by extremists who pay little attention to the views or wishes of constituents outside their party.” (Patrick Inman)
“What to do, you ask? It begins with the first step of awareness and commitment. Just go forward. Engage. Don’t despair.” (Ken Burns)
Educate yourself. The Trump presidency will operate on misinformation and misconceptions. You need to investigate each claim, analyze each move, and find out the facts. Trump says we need more law and order, but crime is actually down. He says we need more jobs but unemployment is lower than it has been in several years. Trump says immigration from Mexico is a problem; this immigration has been dropping for years. Apply your critical thinking skills to examine the assumptions, evidence, and reasoning of the new administration.
“Expecting marginalized people to educate you isn’t being an ally, it’s being lazy and expecting others to do the work for you. Being an ally also means actively doing your part and learning more about the inequalities that certain people face on a daily basis. At this point, there are endless resources that we all can use to learn more about a variety of issues – from racial inequalities to transphobia. While it is beneficial to hear how people have personally been affected by injustice, Google is always free and there to find you resources of all kinds.” (Christopher Lawrence )
“You should find like minded people — not just from your social circle, but everywhere. Change the opinions of others, not with ridicule, but reason.” (Ken Burns) Social media is not the place for this, it demands face to face interaction. We can respond in a number of ways. “Assuming the main issue is misinformation, science about climate change and data analyses on the feasibility of various proposals including mass deportations, border walls, and registries can be brought forth. Assuming the main issue is dialogue, friendly conversations can be pursued. Assuming the main issue is fake news, more real news can be circulated. We must understand that those people who did not vote as we did are not our enemy. In fact, true engagement is walking into the heart of that constituency, offering shared stories and real solutions rather than narratives that are calculated to divide. We should offer fellowship and unity, where fake news has helped stoke tribal angers.” (Daniel Jose Camacho)
These are only starting methods to bring about King’s ideas. The problem is that the opposition to King’s dream has a particular vision of the world supported by people with the power to carry it out. “This kind of political project can’t be fact-checked away. As the profoundly undemocratic conditions in the state politics of North Carolina have recently proven, conciliatory attempts to compromise with this project are absorbed and outmatched by those wielding power. In such cases, our American value of bi-partisanship is exposed because there are certain things that cannot be met halfway and there are times when both parties fail us.” (Daniel Jose Camacho)
You should contribute to organizations that will press the agenda you support. We can no longer count on the federal government to press King’s issues for us. “Give to organizations such as the American Civil Liberties Union, the Anti-Defamation League, or to the Sierra Club, and Planned Parenthood. Making a donation to help someone else is no substitute for individual and collective mobilization, but it is one thing we can do. In any liberal democracy, the ultimate guardian of decency and civil liberties is an active civil society, which can push back against efforts to mislead the public, flout accepted norms, and centralize power.” (John Cassidy)
We should support civil society. “What is civil society? In addition to big national organizations, such as labor unions, the A.C.L.U., and the N.A.A.C.P., civil society comprises countless local groups, including charities, environmental activists, church groups, think tanks, reading groups, peace campaigners, parents’ associations, and youth groups. It encompasses any group that mediates between the individual, the government, and the market, and whose goal is promoting the common good. The thing to do is to pick an organization that reflects your personal interests or an issue that motivates you, get involved, and stick with it.” (John Cassidy)
We should support independent journalism. For all the power of Twitter, fake news, and the social-media echo chamber, real news can still break through all the noise. “We must understand too that we have also been betrayed by the so-called “mainstream media,†who fawned for months over one candidate, giving him billions of dollars of free media. We have been betrayed by cynical executives more interested in a buck than the facts of the matter. We have been betrayed by the lazy paid pundits more interested in protecting their own “brands†than in the well-being of the Republic they pretend to serve.” (Ken Burns)
We should contact your congressman and senator and tell them to stand up for King’s ideas. “For good or ill, the first line of defense the will be the U.S. Capitol. It will be up to legislators in both parties not to cut deals that target the weak, encroach upon civil rights, or enrich the new first family. Thanks to the Internet and a growing number of apps, it is now very simple to find your elected representatives and let them know what you think. Surprising as it may be to some skeptics, elected officials do listen to their constituents, especially when they get in touch with them personally in large numbers by telephoning their local or D.C. offices.” (John Cassidy) You can also contact Congresspeople and Senators in other districts who take the proper stands, to let them know they are not alone and their courage is appreciated.
We should support local initiatives. “Democratic lawmakers in California, put forward a series of measures designed to protect undocumented immigrants in the state from deportation.” (John Cassidy) Anthony Rendon, the speaker of the State Assembly, said “We are telling the next Administration and Congress: if you want to get to them, you have to go through us.†(Anthony Rendon) Jerry Brown, California’s governor, vowed to fight any efforts from the incoming Administration to rollback efforts to tackle climate change. Reacting to a suggestion from one of Trump’s advisers that Trump could eliminate NASA‘s earth-science programs, Brown said, “We’ve got the scientists, we’ve got the lawyers, and we’re ready to fight. . . . If Trump turns off the satellites, California will launch its own damn satellite.â€(Jerry Brown)
We should support electoral reform. “In still relying on the Electoral College, we are beholden to the prejudices and interests of an eighteenth-century ruling class that was white, landed, and dedicated to preserving the prerogatives of their individual states. With the winner of the popular vote having lost two of the last five Presidential elections, you might think there would be a movement to change the system—and there is. It’s called the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact, and it’s an agreement among a group of states to award all of their votes in the Electoral College to the candidate who wins the popular vote. The beauty of this scheme is that it doesn’t require a constitutional amendment to insure a truly democratic outcome. But it does need the support of states with two hundred and seventy electoral votes between them, and so far only eleven states, representing a hundred and sixty-five votes, have signed on.” (John Cassidy)
We must organize, organize, organize. Organize wherever you are so that actions taken are the work of a group not just an individual. “We must try to remember that the tactic of demonizing whole groups of people, nearly always backfires, that real change will come when middle class whites, Hispanics and blacks realize they share more in common with each other than those in whose interest it is that they stay divided. This has been a successful strategy for generations in this country: why not blame the other, who might take your job, rather than blame the boss who laughs all the way to the bank.” (Ken Burns)
We must engage the business sector — “corporate America will play a huge role in helping maintain our equilibrium, either by applying pressure to retrograde political forces or facing the pain of consumer boycotts. We must try to point out that even with a progressive president who taxed the wealthy, the gap between the haves and have-nots has grown; we can be assured now that this gap will only grow, not shrink.” (Ken Burns) However, Henry Ford paid his workers well because he wanted them to be able to buy his cars. We just have to convince businesses that paying workers well will result in high sales and profits in the long run.
We must protect the vulnerable whether this includes Muslims, immigrants, women, or the LGBT community. I read just today about a petition organized by actor George Takei. (You might remember him as Sulu on the original Star Trek) As a child he and his family were put in a Japanese internment camp. He has vowed to fight anything that would lead to that for others. His petition is against the formation of the Muslim registry that candidate Trump proposed.
In the end the important thing is to keep our eye on the power we do possess and the various avenues by which we can resist. Don’t let anybody steal your power by convincing you that you don’t have any. What can resistance look like? Not everyone can do all of the things on this list, but everyone can do some of them. As Trump represents all that is bad about America, let us be all that is good about it.
Martin Luther King would have been 88 years old this year. Next year will mark 50 years since he left us. We should ask are his methods and strategies still the right ones? King was a man of great optimism and faith in human beings. His strategy reveals that. King’s method had two components. The first was an appeal to white moderates. His tactic was to bring the violence inherent in systems of oppression down upon himself and fellow demonstrators, to make it visible. Such examples of undeserved suffering and dramatization of the problem, would convince people to make a change. Those who watched the Birmingham police turn dogs or water hoses on unarmed protesting men women and children on the nightly news, those who saw those images transmitted abroad damaging American foreign policy interests, and those lawmakers who just felt “this has got to stop,†pressured the federal government to enact new laws.
This brings us to the second part of King’s strategy. He depended on the federal government to step in when local government and police were failing to protect the rights of black Americans. The Supreme Court, federal troops, federal courts, the FBI, federal marshals, and the U.S Attorney General’s office all stepped in at key moments to enforce federal laws and presidential decrees. Congress passed the laws I mentioned before. The Supreme Court ordered schools desegregated and said interstate travel facilities could no longer have separate “colored†and white waiting rooms or bathrooms. Crimes against an individual’s civil rights could be tried in federal courts. Federal courts and the Supreme court monitored voting rights violations and could strike down laws or order state agencies to rectify problems. Federal marshals escorted children who were desegregating schools. Federal courts could order busing to achieve school integration.
In a few days, we will be in the time of Trump. Sixty million people voted for him either because of his avowed views or despite them. Many of them feel that the pendulum has swung too far and that people of color, women, and immigrants have taken something away from them. They feel that Trump will somehow restore to them that which was taken away.
His list of nominees and future appointees have taken dead aim at some of the keystone achievements of the civil rights era. His attorney general nominee has opposed enforcement of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. The Supreme Court has already said that some of the restrictions placed by the Voting Rights Act of 1965 should be removed and Trump will have the chance to appoint at least one Supreme Court justice and many federal judges. His nominee for the Housing and Urban Development Department has already said he disagrees with the Fair Housing Act of 1966. Trump’s nominee for secretary of education does not believe in supporting public schools and has no experience as an educator, student or parent in one.
Given this opposition by the electorate and the incoming executive branch we need to ask whether King’s strategy is still appropriate. That strategy was to rely on white moderates and the federal government to see that local resistance was overcome, federal laws were implemented, and the rights of minorities were protected.
The first thing to look at is that although he won the election, only about 25% of eligible voters voted for him. More voters voted for Clinton than Trump and many more voted for neither. There was also a clear division by age. Most voters under 45 voted for Clinton. Some of the people who voted for Trump were the same people who had voted for Obama in 2008. These people were voting for change. When it didn’t happen for them under Obama they voted for something new. If Trump fails to deliver for these people, they too could be won over to a new vision. This means that there are many voters to which to appeal and under the right circumstances King’s first strategy, appealing to white moderates, could still work.
The second part of King’s strategy is more problematic. Although his choices for cabinet positions are at this point still nominees, we should assume that they or others with the same views will eventually be appointed. Does this mean that all federal assistance for King’s issues will not be forthcoming? Here I would answer “not necessarily.†The laws that King fought so hard to see adopted, the Civil Rights Act, the Voting Rights Act and the Fair Housing Act, are still on the books as are past Supreme court rulings. Although the foot-dragging of the Republican Congress has left over 100 federal judgeships for Trump to fill, there are still many federal judges who will enforce the laws. However, these cases must still make it to court and I would not count on this administration’s aid to bring them there. In an ironic reversal, we now must count on local municipalities to protect us from the federal government. Many are doing it. For example, from Anchorage, Alaska to Miami, Florida, hundreds of municipalities have declared themselves sanctuary cities for illegal immigrants.
So, I think King’s methods and strategies could still work today. I am calling for a return to the true spirit of King. The belief that the acts of ordinary people still have power. The knowledge that the problems of racism, economic exploitation, and war are interrelated. The trust that nonviolent acts can change things. The understanding that a “beloved community†is not some idealistic dream but a realistic goal if we are willing to work for it.
One of King’s biographers once said that at first historians thought that King was living in the age of Kennedy. As time has given us perspective we know that Kennedy was living in the age of King. King has transformed American society, culture and politics. Even conservatives quote King albeit for their own purposes. Although we are about to enter the time of Trump we are still in the age of Martin Luther King Jr.
To be honest I have always been ambivalent about Martin Luther King Day. It’s not because I didn’t think he was a great man. If anyone in my lifetime deserves an American holiday it is surely this man. There are two things though that bother me about the holiday. First, it reduces the civil rights movement to the actions of one man when it really wasn’t. This is of course in line with the American myth that it is only great people who move American history. The civil rights struggle, as probably every other event in American history, was very different from this. It was the result of ordinary people, performing ordinary acts with courage and determination. It wasn’t just Rosa Parks in Montgomery, Alabama but hundreds of people who walked, hitchhiked, and carpooled every day for a year to boycott a bus system which made them sit in the back of the bus. It was children from six-year-olds to teenagers who desegregated schools by walking past mobs with faces contorted by hatred, people who spit on them, and many who yelled vile things. It was college students who sat in Woolworth lunch counters while crowds of people shouted epithets and poured condiments over them. It was freedom riders who rode buses and were beaten, shot at, arrested, and jailed for the simple act of riding a bus or trying to use a restroom or waiting area. It was people trying to walk across a bridge or along a road, but risking physical harm or death to do so. Ordinary people doing ordinary things with courage and determination. These as much as Dr. King are the real heroes of the civil rights movement and should get the honor and respect due them.
My second complaint about the holiday is that it has allowed Dr. King’s legacy to be controlled by politicians and mainstream media who have turned him into something he wasn’t. Nostalgia always turns the past into what suits the needs of the present and this has been especially the case with King. As the Broadway play Hamilton tells us, history is not just who lived and who died, but who tells your story. Note the story they tell on this day. Martin Luther King was a highly principled man who exposed the segregation which black people had to endure and led marches to bring about change. All this of course is true, but it doesn’t tell the whole story. Yes, MLK was a spokesperson who preached nonviolence in the fight against racism and intolerance. There were some who were not nonviolent, Malcolm X and the Black Panthers come to mind, and they were an important part of the story. King’s memory is used to discredit them. Yes, the civil rights movement ultimately reached its apex in the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and the Fair Housing Act of 1966. Racism however goes far deeper than what these remedies address.
In the last few years of his life King realized this too and turned his attention to the antiwar movement, income inequality and other ethnic groups. He saw that the growing defense budget was taking needed money from the social programs he supported. He saw that his vision of nonviolence needed to be extended to foreign affairs. He noticed that the hard-won gains in desegregation meant little if income inequality prevented people of color from having access to them. He heard the cries of police brutality and economic pain that his black critics were expressing. At the time of his death he was speaking out against the Vietnam War, he was planning a poor people’s demonstration in Washington, and he was bringing the media circus which followed him to a strike by sanitation workers in Memphis. In a speech delivered only months before he was killed he said,
it means ultimately coming to see that the problem of racism, the problem of economic exploitation, and the problem of war are all tied together. These are the triple evils that are interrelated.
This side of King was less popular with the mainstream and is too often left out of the narrative that is told today.
Martin Luther King Jr. preached concern for others and standing up for what you believe is right, but he did more than that. He espoused the creation of a beloved community in which there would be no poverty because society would support all at a basic level of existence; there would be no racism because each would see the other as a brother or sister; there would be no war, not because people would live without conflicts, but because they would find non-violent ways to settle them. This beloved community was not some pie in the sky utopia for King, but an achievable goal if enough people adopted his belief in nonviolence.
King never thought that most people would support him because they were people of high moral character. As an African novel puts it “the beautiful ones are not yet born.†He undoubtedly thought that some would, but he also knew that others would support him only if they understood that their own self-interest would be enhanced if they did. It was part of his method to convince them that it would.
So, on his day let’s honor the real Martin Luther King Jr. and not some character that has been made up.