Author: BC

Turns out there may be dim hopes for us yet! Well on our way to rendering our current planet uninhabitable, we can now at least fantasize about a new destination available for colonization once the gig is up here. Planet K2-18b is only 110 light years away, and strong evidence suggests there is “water in its skies,” a must for habitation by humans. Now, K12-18b possesses “powerful gravity” that would make walking tricky, but at near twice the size of Earth, there would be plenty of room to move. Of course, oxygen is in very very short supply on the planet’s surface, but the way we’re going here, that’s a problem we appear confident can be overcome. Anyway, it’s better than nothing, right? A glimmer of hope on space’s frontier.

Of all the frustrating inconsistencies Trump’s adoring evangelical bloc exhibit, the most puzzling is their near complete shoulder shrug about his ghoulish assault on the environment. If the great I AM created our world and man in his image, and granted us stewardship of his pet project, while constantly forgiving our sins, isn’t it a tad ungrateful to destroy it all? If it was two by two into the ark and all of that, shouldn’t extinction of any of the creatures God carefully inventoried be viewed with concern? Apparently not.

When Scott Pruitt, perhaps the worst fox ever to be selected to guard a federal department’s hen house, resigned from the EPA, he was unapologetic about his near constant abasements of the agency’s mission, not to mention personal corruption that made even Trump wince. Pruitt’s goodbye note predictably blamed the press for his troubles, and took pride in his predations on the natural resources he attacked rather than protected. But in closing, Pruitt waxed reverential and made clear the constituency both he and the President were beholden to. “I believe you are serving as President today because of God’s providence,” intoned Pruitt. Seems God doesn’t much mind a bit of chlorpyrifos testing the bounds of healthy fetal development, and 1986 clean water standards suit the almighty just fine.

The disconnect between evangelical Trump adoration and environmental subversion so outrageous even notorious polluters like big oil and utilities have blushed, fearful of eventual blowback when responsible executive guidance is restored, can be comprehended several different ways. First and foremost is the pro-life paradigm. Trump’s dogged pursuit of anti-abortion zealotry renders all else insignificant. Taking on the baby killers is first, second and last when it comes to priorities. Arctic refuge tracts sold off for oil and gas drilling is white noise. Eye on the ball and all that.

Next, like most all of the wretched core, and the President himself, Christian America relies exclusively on Fox/AM for information. “What Would Jesus Do” doesn’t stand a chance against “what do Stuart Varney or Lou Dobbs say?” In the main, evangelicals appear content to categorize the environment as a government policy issue, not a biblical concern. If anything, it falls into “render unto Caesar” territory, merely another talking point in the overall Fox/AM narrative that always divides things into camps. Who wants to have whacked out eco-lefties on a mission as fellow travelers? Single minded fanaticism is only acceptable when saving babies, not baby seals. Exxon not Greenpeace!

Finally, and perhaps most odious, there is the conscious skewing of frontal ecological assaults to bring them in line with a prosperity gospel view. After all, God wants us happy and thriving right? A sub compact could cause an embolism on an extended journey, better to play it safe with an SUV. Happy campers sin less; that’s a fact. Besides, do you really think he wants us dependent on Sunnis for our gas? We actually trespass against his will when we reap less due to fears satan allows our imaginations to conjure up. Climate change is his work; ours is to resist hysterics and trust in God. After all, judgement day is coming at some point… who knows how. Don’t worry, be happy!

The destructive legacies of even one Trump term will be many, but none will require more urgent attention and immediate counter measures than the environmental protections and international eco-cooperation he has laid waste to. It’s a good bet whoever succeeds Trump as the wretched core’s leader will lean heavily on flyover Christians to cement his relevancy, while continuing to sell Trump’s hideous environmental agenda as both a line in the sand against attacks on our sovereignty and a key to economic prosperity. The power evangelicals have in shaping those priorities will be as significant then as it is now. Were they to understand ecological degradation as a trespass against God, and express any degree of tangible concern about retrograde sensibilities that pits the GOP squarely against virtually the rest of humanity, its approach would surely change. They don’t and it won’t, at least not anytime soon.

Yet and still, although it is impossible right now not to see evangelicals as a flock far more aligned with Dallas snake oil pastor and Trump favorite Robert Jeffress than less craven and materially guided alternatives, there are K2-18b’s within the Christian galaxy. Progressive theologians like Doug Pagitt, Tony Jones and Brian McLaren provide at least the glimmer of possibility that voices focused more on WWJD concerns like poverty, immigration and the environment are growing in reaction to rampant hypocrisy foisted in their name. A growing student rebellion at Liberty University challenging Jerry Falwell Jr’s overt corruption and totalitarian efforts to bring all in his realm to heel speaks better of born-again America’s kids than its parents.

Such outliers should be supported and nurtured, encouraged to repel the ugliness they feel alienated from, not simply thrown out with the bath water. After all, it would be a sin to give up on so many currently lost in a forest of resentment and grievance due to sermons that betrayed them. That would be analogous to throwing in the towel and accepting the inevitability of Earth’s surrender to plastics and uncontrolled carbon dioxide emissions. In fact, Christian sensibilities and the planet’s survival should go hand in hand. What’s more, K2-18bs simply do not seem in plentiful supply right now. BC

Calling North Carolina House Speaker Tim Moore a “staunch conservative” is one of those casual misnomers our political lexicon permits that sacrifices accuracy for the sake of general categorization. In fact, there is nothing conservative about Moore; he does nothing for the purpose of cautious protection of established precedent, which defines the term in most dictionaries. No, Moore is reckless in his agenda, his means of pursuing it, and the overt graft he seems to expect as a natural perk of his public office. In other words, Moore is precisely the type of low life who informs our worst cynicism about American politics.

Elected to the NC House in 2002 with campaign contributions totaling $45,000, Moore’s cake walk victory in 2016 was accompanied by a war chest of more the $1.7 million. And whether it’s been directly intervening to spare a company he co-owns both late fees for failing to comply with state regulators and fines associated with violating pollution standards, or earmarking millions of dollars for projects within his district to benefit contributors, Moore has never been shy about using his position for personal benefit. Why would he be? Ethics oversight has been fully controlled by the GOP for years.

As for his position on the issues, Moore is a Fox/AM culture war caricature with venom to spare on must every pertinent, and more importantly, non-pertinent issue of the day. Obsessed with the LGBT community, Moore makes it his business to make their life in the Tar Heel State hard. The leading force behind legislation to make it a crime for a transgender person to use the bathroom they identify with, which put NC among the national leaders of ugly LBGT reactionaries, Moore wears his bigotry toward any non repressed, guilt-ridden heterosexual like a badge of courage. Indeed, he never met any group other than white, wealthy, Christian intolerants he didn’t want to marginalize.

SB 359 is a classic Moore pet. The measure makes it a murder rap to intentionally carry out or attempt “to perform an overt act that kills a child born alive” during an abortion procedure. Additionally, any health-care practitioner who fails to provide the appropriate degree of care to a child born alive would face felony charges.” In other words, the .000000001 % of evil abortionists who somehow botch a late-term procedure and then snuff the infant’s life out on the operating table could get the needle.

The rhetoric that accompanied the measure was similarly scurrilous as the national GOP talk track, flat out lying that late-term abortion was common, while implying it was the preferred avenue of women too lazy to address their pregnancy earlier. The proposed law really had only two purposes: to permit GOP bible thumpers to check off the box established by the Trump-adopted talking point fiction that abortionists across the nation are zealously murdering fully developed babies; and intimidating staff at family planning clinics. When General Assembly Republicans failed to override Democratic Governor Roy Cooper’s veto of the legislation, it brought home the reality that, after years of veto-proof majorities, slow and steady gains by Democrats now necessitated more creative thinking in order to ram their schemes through the statehouse.

Moore and the caucus he leads have one overall maxim when it comes to budgetary matters….money talks and the poor can take a walk. Tax breaks for business, read contributors, always come first and last. Indeed, tax relief and social spending austerity are the peas and carrots of Moore’s budget stewardship. Of course, outliers of largesse can be found, like the 82K provided for a special position created for a former fiancé of Moore, whose resume was the only one his office forwarded to fill the special job vacancy. But spending white upper bracket tax money on priorities like education, aid programs for the poor, even infrastructure not earmarked for GOP districts? Not so much.

All of this converged Wednesday morning as most American politicos commemorated 9/11. Moore got the bright idea he could lie to Democrats’ faces and assure them no votes would be taken that morning and then, while the saps were out being patriots, override Governor Cooper’s veto of a contentious budget package they had earlier passed, free of GOP anathemas like Medicaid expansion and money for education. So Moore’s idea of creativity was simple shamelessness and authoritarian kabuki. Nice! Look your fellow elected officials in the eye and lie. Hey, whatever works! As the few Democrats who were present in the chamber called out Moore’s idiocy for the outrage it was, he had their microphones disabled. One Democratic member had to be surrounded by colleagues to avoid being physically confronted by security as she denounced the charade. Nice touch, Himmler.

There is the famous saying by Winston Churchill that democracy is the worst system there is except for all the others. He may have reconsidered that observation had he witnessed the disgusting display in NC this week. At the end of the day democracy, no matter how rough and tumble, requires a modicum of honor and civility. Moore and his caucus now offer neither. Whatever other systems are out there, it’s doubtful their curs are any lower than Moore and his crew. The Speaker claims he texted members to be present, which of course, Democrats ignored as the status of the session’s most important legislation was at stake. Perfectly reasonable!

When bad faith is all one side has to offer, there is no accommodation possible. Since 2010 that has been the case in the North Carolina state legislature. Wednesday it finally reach its logical conclusion; there is nothing left to the imagination. Our President has not yet weighed in on the matter; I have a 401K to bet on whether or not he will support Moore’s deceit. Limbaugh and Levin will surely be speaking of the move as a model for other legislatures.

Optimists have declared Moore stepped over the line and cooked his party’s goose for the upcoming election cycle. It would be nice to have confidence in that assessment. Any takers? Another shade of ruin. BC

A little more than a century ago, after radically changing the course of US foreign policy, Woodrow Wilson left New York City escorted by an armada of naval vessels to become the first American President to visit Europe. His mission was clear: negotiate the terms for peace with the vanquished German leadership, defining a post-war world America now would fully engage with rather than simply watch from the safety advantageous geography had always granted.

Wilson’s reception in France and England was like nothing anyone had ever received anywhere or anytime before. Millions coming out to cheer the man they credited with turning the tide of history’s most devastating conflagration. Everywhere were grateful throngs fighting for a glimpse of the man all appeared happy to follow into a future they were certain couldn’t be worse than their recent past.

How wrong they were would start coming fully to light on September 1, 1939 when Nazi tanks rolled into Poland, but the seeds were planted in Versailles when French Premier Clemenceau got the blood from a stone his nation demanded, forcing Germany to endure the national shame and futility its democracy failed to survive. The lesson history would teach is that policy by emotion, particularly the dark recesses of vengeful bitterness and petty abasement creates a canvas for catastrophe. Allowed to fill in with the predictable elements our worst inclinations contribute, such a landscape will surely produce events that coalesce and quickly cascade at a pace beyond anyone’s best efforts to control.

Near one hundred and two years after Wilson’s triumphant arrival, VP Mike Pence couldn’t pay anyone enough to turn out and wave along the Irish countryside. Literally nobody was interested in bidding our second in command anything more than an international negative salute. The servile shadow of a President who has presented European democracies with the exact same ugliness they adopted to guide their post-WWI diplomacy arrived in Ireland with a forced smile and bad faith, and was welcomed accordingly. Earlier this year, Trump received much the same in London, his fabrications aside.

When Wilson came to Europe he had the creation of a League of Nations as his primary focus. The aim was to provide a forum for proactive diplomacy meant to head off the disastrous miscalculations that sparked WWI’s carnage. He limped home less convinced such idealism was possible after “a just and stable peace” suffered the same unbridled animosity he took in as a southern boy during Reconstruction, Germany was going to pay, come what may…. just like Dixie of Wilson’s youth. Ultimately, America rejected The League of Nations as well, opting for “normalcy” and retrenching back into isolationism only FDR’s full array of political talents, and a “day of infamy” succeeded in casting aside.

What we have now, reflected in the arbitrary and capricious spurts of an anti-statesman, is the same toxic stew of fear, ignorance and complacency that festered for two decades before exploding into catastrophe in Europe and Asia 80-odd years ago. We learned then what many thoughtful people are afraid we will learn again… the modern world does not grant a pass to idiocy for very long. When the planet’s leader shakes allies down, and blusters inanities at regimes who don’t play, dominoes will begin to fall.

Kashmir, Hong Kong, North Korea, Iraq, Afghanistan, Israel-Palestine, Iran, Syria, Brazil, Great Britain, for God’s sake. Our Earth is a fluid place, a dynamic host of variables that will not sit still for nonsense. Moronic tweets usually composed of American exceptionalist gibberish injure US interests and waste time we will not get back, all the while destroying a national brand still reeling from post 9/11 folly.

Forget fixing things, now we are the problem. A cruel and petty country, more interested in indulging xenophobia than providing any kind of safe harbor for anyone. Jordan has refugee camps that span as far as the eye can see. The latest proposal this Administration may or may not honor is 15,000 refugees, worldwide. Total! Bahamians, who survived obliteration are not welcome. Think about that.

American foreign policy is now based fully on MAGA sensibilities. That is, we suffer ungrateful allies, who are only interested in fleecing us, and enemies we have always been outsmarted by. In other words, a set of propositions only a sociopath, or millions of Fox/AM consumers, could love. But at the end of the day the cornerstones really aren’t too different from the Post WWI mindsets that kicked Woodrow Wilson in the teeth, even as he was accorded the welcome of a Roman conquerer. What’s critical is what it led to then, and what it will lead to now if we don’t reset STAT. To paraphrase one of the titles of Churchill’s masterful trilogy of memoirs that captured post-WWI’s consequences…. “a storm is coming.”BC

First it was the Republican establishment. Then it was the party leadership. Then it was…. any notable Republican. Then it was Robert Mueller. Now it’s former Defense Secretary James Mattis a callowed nation hopes can do the trick. Somebody with stature please pummel our bully and his gang of stooges for us. It’s just awful to keep having our lunch money taken in front of everybody. Shameful, degrading, a daily trauma. It’s like Back to The Future; Biff needs a fateful roundhouse to reshape our destiny. But can we rely on Mattis to deliver the blow that the others have refused to throw? That’s doubtful.

After a stretch of hibernation since resigning with less than an exclamation point as leader of the Pentagon, Mattis has a book on the way, Call Sign Chaos, which is to say he will be hitting the talk circuit to promote it. Since it’s doubtful the tome’s publishers were interested in paying seven figures for a tribute to Trump abasements, there exists a presumption the author is going to be taking el jefe to task. However, if an excerpt from the book, offered as an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal the other day, is any indication, Mad Dog’s bark won’t be much bigger than the nibble he was barely able to muster when Trump paraded him around as one of “my Generals.” At this rate he may not even earn a PM mention on the insulter-in-chief’s Twitter feed, let alone an AM tweet storm reserved for enemies du jour.

In fact, it’s fair to wonder whether Trump won’t thank Mattis for his observations, which ultimately merely offer up the false equivalence trope of emerging US tribalism without even a mention of the President by name. “We are dividing into hostile tribes,” bemoans Mattis, “cheering against each other, fueled by emotion and a mutual disdain that jeopardizes our future, instead of rediscovering our common ground and finding solutions.” Both sides do it. Really?! We can get that from Hugh Hewitt.

No doubt, like so many of those who could give Trump a black eye, Mattis feels a brawl with President low road is beneath his station. Moreover, it’s clear from the self-congratulations the General lays on with a ladle rather than a brush – after all, he could have stayed retired with a family he had long neglected… but for duty blah, blah, blah – that he feels no guilt whatsoever for signing on with a boss who was fundamentally at odds with his entire worldview. Mattis assures us a good Marine does his homework, but apparently the general moved right past Trump’s MAGA stump gibberish before accepting his Cabinet position. Even a cursory glance at the Trump campaign’s trail of fears would have promoted the conclusion carrying out his Sec./Def. duties required complete refutation of his employer’s positions. The record shows Mattis succeeded too well for too long to be viewed as much more than just another ship jumper looking to proactively aerate a reputation tarnished by Trump…. as all inevitably are.

Trump’s ventures abroad for meetings with NATO allies have been one embarrassment after the other from the start. Everything from siding with Putin in Helsinki to a constant and shrill fixation on “unfair” imbalances in defense spending has framed the US less as a leader than an obstacle to Western collective security. Trump being Trump, Mattis was dragged into many an incident as window dressing for outrages he surely abhorred, but said little publicly, and even less privately if the reporting is accurate. When it counted, as the damage was happening, Mattis was keeping his head down, apparently figuring there were bigger fish to fry. Now we expect him to make a stand?

When history looks back at this dark passage and identifies Trump’s enablers, no picture will speak more words than a conference table occupied almost entirely by white male sycophants dutifully absorbing the nonsensical “achievements” he endlessly extols. And seated next to his greatness for the first two plus years, like a prized Christmas ornament, was his favorite general. Granted, Mattis looked like he had swallowed paint thinner throughout the charades, but his seat assignment never changed. Moreover, when he could have offered some candid frankness in a froth of disgusting servile repetition, he took a pass. The image, however, will endure.

Finally, there is perhaps nothing worse in the always expanding litany of Trump outrages than his seditiously overt efforts to recruit the armed services into his wretched core, turning what once was America’s pride and joy symbol of enduring civilian control of our military into ominous red flags any democrat should worry about. The Commander-In-Chief’s transformation of morale boosts for the troops into MAGA rallies has been going on from the start. Navy, Air Force, Army…. Boy Scouts…. no group has been exempted.

Whether it be caustic and dishonest criticisms of his predecessors, or lies about his role in securing advanced weaponry, Trump has only had one gear when addressing those in uniform… self-serving. Mattis never made much of a public peep about it, though most all confirm he was not happy and made clear within the Pentagon, from the top down, partisanship within the ranks would not be tolerated. Yet and still, as far as confronting Trump with the unacceptability of his behavior, or using his platform to accentuate how out of line the president was acting, the record shows Mattis wanting.

To be fair, and accurate, Mattis’ career has been exemplary; he is respected and admired by virtually all who have dealt with him as a modest, intelligent and honorable straight shooter. Moreover, there is unquestioned validity to the argument that, in democracies the military must always err on the side of the elected, even if they undermine such deference. Indeed, it may be that Mattis is a crucible to the crossroads we reached long ago and still ponder.

Further, it may not be fair to expect him to abandon a set of principles that views Trumpism more as a test of our system’s fortitude than an imminent threat to it. One could even be convinced to admire Mattis for eating Trump’s crap sandwich for as long as he did out of duty he felt for his nation. But let’s be clear about one thing the intelligent and clear-eyed have known since January of 2017, this President is a hideous aberration, a detestable outlier of incompetence and indifference to the most minimum of obligations his office requires. That includes his duties as Commander-In-Chief. There were plenty of very “honorable” German Generals within the Reich, who prosecuted unfathomable calamity.

At the end of the day, history will issue it’s own opinion about the reticence of Mattis to confront Trump directly, with all the ugliness that entails. Like they’re saying right now down in Florida as Dorian churns away, hope for the best but prepare for the worst. Or put a slightly darker way: the road to ruin contains too many bystanders who could help direct traffic. Who knows, maybe even the stray mad dog. BC

On the first Tuesday of November, 2016 I was frustrated. I was certain voting mid-day would encounter the briefest lines, but my schedule and hideous DC traffic were not cooperating. Four years earlier, getting to the polls at 2:00 pm, I felt fortunate only having to wait about 35 minutes to help re-elect Obama, but it was going to be rush hour this time around. Arriving at Kilmer Junior High I was surprised to find a relatively desolate parking lot, which encouraged me to check if I missed a sign directing me to another area of the campus. Heading inside it was just me and several partisans from both the GOP and Democrats handing out sample ballots. I was confused enough to seek confirmation that in fact polling had not ended earlier than I assumed.

When I entered the voting area I was stunned. It was me and the volunteers… that’s it. I asked the lovely woman checking my ID what the hell happened to the crowds; she smiled and said “it’s been very quiet all day.” As I processed the opposite of what I expected, the ramifications began to surface. When I got home, I was perplexed enough that my wife Susan asked me what was wrong…. we may be f****d was all I could muster. The rest is sad history.

At some level, to some degree, no matter how far the process is set to autopilot, democracy is about personal responsibility. If the binary choice is rule by an authoritarian’s decree – or a fool’s tweets – or some form of collective consensus, no other conclusion is possible. Those in America, Britain or Israel who choose to ignore the basis of the latter are simply advocating for the former… that simple. Either participate and accept responsibility for the result or let it die and suffer the whims of arbitrary chaos.

In America things have been taken for granted so long, constant and guilt-ridden perfunctory plaudits to a volunteer military aside, it’s fair to ask if fully disregarding one’s responsibility to civic routines is the norm or aberration. Certainly the numbers aren’t very hopeful in that regard, particularly those clarifying the newest generation of participants. Of all the age groups, 18-29 year olds exercise their most basic right the least. Less than half voted in 2016, surely influencing a result that hinged on a percentile in several states thought before the election to be foregone conclusions. Had our youth turned out in mass, would we be suffering Trump today? Not likely.

Matt Taibbi of Rolling Stone is perhaps the best writer in America when it comes to establishing the equilibrium one requires to address the Trump era. Somewhere between crying Hitler and tuning news out completely in favor of compulsive selfies of friends and family is a sweet spot we’re all trying to find. It’s a place between laughing and crying, between toxic cynicism and hysterical alarm, between taking to the streets and clutching a remote. In short, each of us defining our civic obligation and accepting the responsibility for creating what few still believe is normal.

Taibbi can hold forth on the wretched core’s destructive alienation, and the longing for demigods it creates, and chew gum at the same time. He can recall ugly bigotry spewed by rally goers while assessing the absurdity of protesters’ inane chants across the street, which only fortify Trumpie resolve. The degree to which one can disdain Democrats arguing about who is least racist while a neo- Nazi idol ruins us defines how elusive salvation may prove to be. Do we really want to save a process that’s so broken? Or are the “Bernie or busts” right… it’s revolution time? Who’s to know? When facts are replaced by placards all bets are off. When Breitbart is the journalistic equal of the Washington Post, it may just be too late. Stock up on corned beef hash and kerosene.

One thing is certain…. it’s not just us. Britain has its own 35 percenter crisis. The world’s oldest democracy is zombie walking toward disastrous economic dislocation. Brexit would lose by a landslide in a redo, but nihilists are even less likely to admit a mistake than they are to consider the facts which condemned their assumptions from the start. Former Prime Minister Teresa May did her best to make the insanity more palatable, but it was like telling a healthy patient, don’t worry we’ve decided to only take one of your kidneys. So Parliament has been suspended by a Trumpkin with a taste for tea, the better to keep those bothersome truths at bay….. take em both. What’s a little renal failure when safeguarding national sovereignty we convinced you was in danger?! And who will accept responsibility for Britain’s ills once the damage is done? Clown question.

In Israel it’s even more dire. An entire national identity is at stake. The security state vs democracy choice is upon the Jewish homeland. Annexing the West Bank is something it could have done 50 years ago. Likud OG Menachem Begin could have done it 40 years ago, Ditto Ariel Sharon 30 years ago. Why didn’t they? They understood it wasn’t so simple, and the national interest would suffer. Militarism is not Zionism, or shouldn’t be, anyway. Netanyahu clarifies the difference between hardliner and corrupt politician as much as Trump does. One would think a clean Mediterranean Sea is in Israel’s best interest as much as anyone’s. Yet thousands of gallons of untreated sewage spews hourly into a natural resource praised for thousands of years – by the Torah and Bible alike – because treatment plants in Gaza can’t afford to operate due to the chokehold Israel exerts. Who loses in that situation?

Fact is, we can make this thing as easy or hard as each of us wants to, but the results won’t discriminate. Florida Trumpies have a Cat 4 hurricane barreling toward them the same as those who despise him, even as the Donald’s EPA mindlessly relaxes methane emission standards, essentially trusting big oil and gas to police itself. It may be fitting and just that Dorian has Mar-A-Lago dead in its 135 MPH sights, not to mention Rush Limbaugh’s compound, but, even if each is wiped of its stilts, will Fox/AM change it’s tune?

When the brand is wanton stupidity there is no such word as modification. One either treats it with the disdain it deserves, or offers it credibility that discredits the offerer. Nothing but poison flows from this well, and a sip is as toxic as a gulp. Whether one marches in the streets or takes another selfie, that’s not changing. What’s rotten in Denmark is half the discussion. Is Chuck Todd any better than Martha McCallum when the issues he wants to preen about are framed by the gibberish she aims to normalize? It’s the narrative, stupid! BC

There is no other word for it. No matter how creative one becomes to describe the prospects of President Trump’s Doral resort in Miami, the most accurate term is failure. Doral appears to be going belly up. Operating revenue, income generated by primary business activities, is down 69% since 2017. That’s known as a hemorrhage. Instead of a waiting list for new applicants to be considered, hundreds of former members are waiting for refunds of membership payments management is in no hurry to make good on, yet another platoon in the sad army of those the Trump Organization has welched on its financial obligation to.

The reasons vary depending on who you talk to. Most notable, and most probable, is the damage Trump’s chaotic reign has done to a brand that was never mistaken for IBM. Indeed, it makes perfect sense that the last person a decent, informed and empathetic fan of US democracy would want to swipe an Amex gold card for to play a $300 round of golf, followed by a $28 club sandwich and $12 bottle of Heineken, would be the ugly personification of the polar opposite of such qualities. Just because the GOP has no concern about emoluments, doesn’t mean the market place can’t reach its own verdict on the matter.

Of course the top of the Trump Organization food chain – his children – have a host of other explanations, provided with the let’s-see-what-sticks haphazardness their father passed down. Everything from Zika fears to hurricane interruptions have been offered with straight faces. To be fair, Eric and Don Jr. are between a rock and a hard place created by their parallel play of looking to turn a business profit by day, which affords no partisanship, and heading to Sean Hannity at night, where they label more than half of America socialist termites in league with satan. A very tricky balance beam to walk.

When Trump purchased Doral in 2012 out of bankruptcy for $150 million and excitedly trumpeted his plans to return the resort “back to greatness,” he was a reality tv star who engaged on the side in ugly, racist conspiracy theories about our first black President. A nasty gadfly with more of a following than he deserved. Nobody cared about Doral, except maybe the PGA, who had hosted a tournament at the “Blue Monster” for decades. Whatever Trump could or couldn’t do with the property was his business… God’s speed….. Things are surely different now.

Three years into the Trump Presidency we know him better than we wish we did. The pattern is always the same. Like Verruca Salt in Willy Wonka, it follows several distinct stages. First, try and sweet talk the objective forward, Trump’s idea of reasonable. When that goes nowhere shift gears and start taking names, implying without facts made up reasons as to why opponents may be refusing to budge on the matter. Finally, when it’s certain no means no, throw a tantrum on Twitter and as the chopper awaits, insulting any and all deemed responsible for the outrage of refusing L’Enfant Terrible his way.

Incredibly, it’s not a stretch to contend that Trump’s primary purpose for attending the G7 Summit in France was to begin floating the idea of Doral hosting the gathering next year. Certainly, he was never more enthusiastic and animated throughout the long weekend than when making his pitch for Doral. He couldn’t be bothered to even attend the discussion of Climate Change, nor was he remotely prepared to defend his arbitrary tariff regimes against China, and Russia’s hegemony over Ukraine was dismissed simply as Putin “outsmarting” Obama, but Trump was clear and determined when listing the “advantages” Doral enjoys for hosting next year’s event. It’s not hyperbole to contend leading other leaders on a tour of “his” 800-acre club would constitute a high point of his time in office. It would replace “the biggest landslide in history” as the lead fish story for his rallies…. “they kept asking how I could be such a great President AND run such a first class facility. They were, frankly, stunned it was possible!”

As usual, what Trump declares to the camera, or pecks into his Twitter feed, and the White House talk track are out of sync. Trump seems to be using the assumptive close. He implied the deal is done and, after an exhaustive search by above board government advance teams, who “went to places all over the country,” Doral was declared the perfect spot. “It’s not about me,” insisted the President, it’s “about getting the right location.” Yet and still, the White House is mum on the matter, refusing to respond to Washington Post inquiries on how the resort will bill the parties involved, and how it doesn’t amount to one monstrous conflict of interest.

Trump for his part, seems to be expecting everybody to rely on his word and good faith that a successful G7, or whatever it will be called if he invites Russia as he declared he will, is his entire focus. The G7 deserves the best facilities and everybody is saying my club fits the bill…. “I don’t care about making money,” he said in France with a straight face, even as reporters laughed.

Trump outrages on every front – moral, ethical, institutional, legal, etc. – long ago exceeded our ability to track without creating tranches and assigning values as to just how destructive each is to previous standards and guideposts of behavior. As far as Trump’s refusal to accept any limits on his continued involvement with properties his family business owns, the numbers tell the story. He has visited Mar-a-Lago, Bedminster, Doral, et al literally hundreds of times before even serving 1000 days in office. Moreover, he has hosted foreign delegations from Japan and China, along with their full entourages. Did they stay for free? Yea… right.

It bears repeating here, just for context, that Jimmy Carter placed his beloved peanut farm in a blind trust to prevent any whiff of impropriety. God bless him. Ask Trump’s wretched core about the wafting stench emanating from his flagrant efforts to involve properties he owns in global events his elected office plays THE leading position in overseeing and they’ll shrug and tell you a guy as rich as Trump isn’t concerned about such chump change. He’s a billionaire. Money doesn’t mean anything to him! It’s all a personal sacrifice. After all, he’s working for free. Sure he is! When he starts melting down if his long con designs get taken to task – even cabana boy Rick Santorum bristles at the idea – we’ll all see just how genuine his public service inclinations are…… “I want it now!! “ BC

Back in 1992, Senator Warren Rudman, a Republican from New Hampshire, and Democratic Senator Paul Tsongas of Massachusetts, formed a non-profit called the Concord Coalition. The bi-partisan group was meant to cast light on a simmering crisis that could ruin the US economy if allowed to fester unattended… deficit spending. Rudman spoke in apocalyptic terms of a debt bomb that could paralyze US and world markets and destroy entitlements like Social Security and Medicare.

Since the founding of the country, balancing the budget has been a given as a primary responsibility of both the Legislative and Executive branches. While there has been a public debt since America’s founding, responsible governance was defined for more than 200 years as striving to match spending with revenues,. Government programs needed to be paid for, which meant higher taxes if necessary, pretty simple stuff. Substantially exceeding available revenues was strictly for emergencies like war and depression. Thus, while FDR increased the debt by 1048% from what he inherited from Hoover, he tackled the Great Depression and paid for WWII. Few held it against him or his legacy.

Indeed, the generation of US economic preeminence WWII ushered in kept deficits at bay until LBJ lurched into Vietnam while creating the Great Society. Even so, Democrats, firmly in control of Congress, were not shy about demanding the upper brackets contribute their fair share, so red ink remained manageable. When Ronald Reagan swept into the White House in 1980, Jimmy Carter had actually reduced the deficit, albeit while also passing on a recession with monstrous interest rates and near double digit unemployment. Moreover, fat cats had run out of patience when it came to progressive taxation, and Reagan was their guy.

Reagan came into office with one priority and one priority only…. slash tax rates for the upper brackets. “Supply-side” economics, created and promoted with evangelical fervor by a club of GOP true believers led by Jack Kemp and incoming OMB Director David Stockman, was supposed to contain two elements, each fully dependent on the other for the theory to succeed. Cutting spending would make slashing tax rates possible, and the tax cuts would stimulate the economy, creating more revenues with lower tax rates, which could then “trickle down” to revive programs initially chopped to facilitate the tax relief. At least that was the theory. Practice would prove a bit more complicated.

David Stockman worked feverishly under the premise that landmark tax reform, being rushed through both chambers on the Hill, would be followed by swift spending reductions that would bring the budget back into equilibrium and enable the Supply-side formula to shine and propel the economy out of the rut it had been in for too long. In August of 1981, the Economic Recovery Tax Act (ERTA) passed without much of a peep from Democrats unenthused about becoming impediments to the tax relief Reagan spent his campaign promising and provided the US upper brackets with 20 points of love. The top marginal rate was reduced from 70 to 50 percent. That figure would eventually go as low as 28% before stabilizing between 35-40%, a gigantic gift the wealthiest Americans continue to enjoy.

But something happened on the way to Supply-side nirvana; the Reagan White House decided being the budget cutting boogie man was not a good role for the Gipper. Instead of following through with the second pillar of the theory, Reagan’s troika of handlers, James Baker, Mike Deaver and Ed Meese, decided to simply fake trying to cut the budget. Claim to want to do it, but blame House Speaker Tip O’Neil and the Democrats for blocking our honest efforts…. we tried. In fact, under Reagan, government debt rose from $997 billion to $2.85 trillion, with the military budget surging 30% within the confines of Reagan’s amped up Cold War rhetoric and “star wars” fever dreams. Thus, two momentous events occurred together: first, the deficit spending genie was let out of the bottle; second, policy messaging was developed, not to convince the entire electorate, but merely the GOP. Today, we suffer mightily for both of these watersheds.

Anyone wishing to learn more from one present at the creation should read David Stockman’s tale of how he and other true Supply-side apostles were betrayed by their leader. Principled governance is not what comes to mind perusing Stockman’s account of the Reagan White House’s decision to begin using the nation’s credit card in earnest.

It’s clear both the White House and GOP leaders like Bob Dole knew what they were doing. In a fit of conscience they actually passed legislation on the down low to rescind some of the ERTA’s most substantial rate reductions in order to boost revenues. Yet and still, the die was cast; deficit spending was now more than an emergency measure, it was good politics. As running a tab of more than a $1 trillion had its expected impact on economic performance, the GOP and later Fox/AM lionized Reagan as an economic visionary, the father of the Supply-side miracle. Cottage industry plagues from Grover Norquist to the Koch brothers sprang forth to make certain the new brand became orthodoxy no Republican lawmaker could swim against without being treated as an apostate. Supply-side lost one of its legs and was redefined as merely a synonym for cutting taxes and assuming Democrats would sabotage spending reductions. No matter, the cuts alone were all that counted as far as political viability within the GOP.

The rest is sad history which created our nightmarish present circumstance. From Reagan’s more than doubling of the debt he inherited to W’s shameful decision to increase his poll numbers by blowing a $1 trillion surplus he inherited with the mantra of “returning it to hardworking taxpayers” to Trump’s unfathomable $1.5 trillion gift to the upper brackets at full employment, hypocrisy doesn’t get more blatant than Republican attacks against Democratic “tax and spending.” The very trope itself underscores the critical difference between parties…. at least Dems admit the piper needs to be paid.

It’s important to note, as Trump heads to the G7 summit ready and willing to embarrass us before the world yet again, that the day he delivered perhaps US history’s ugliest inauguration speech, the nation’s jobless rate was at 4.7%, which is considered full employment. He is on schedule to deliver more than $6 trillion in additional debt under circumstances his predecessor, who, even with a dire economic crisis produced about the same amount of red ink, would have thanked heaven to have. Trump’s spending spree has been fully blessed by the GOP, who scraped and clawed to pass tax relief only billionaires and corporations celebrated. Of course, they called it Supply-side economics.

To be clear, Democrats don’t wear virgin white in all of this. Promising the stars to provide target rich shooting for GOP-Fox/AM hypocrisy is what they do best. Elizabeth Warren has surged into contention for the 2020 nomination promising a list of goodies she insists the 2% will pay for. Her numbers don’t add up, even if the tax justice could somehow pass. Unlike Trump and the GOP, a Warren Presidency will quickly run into the limits responsibility forces on campaign promises, an obstacle the Trump GOP has ignored from the start. Either way the card is maxed out, with the doom Rudman warned of near 30 years ago just over the horizon. Back in 92’ Rudman spoke of the ominous specter of interest payments on as much as $10 trillion in debt. We’re now at more than twice that figure and, even at record low rates, interest on the national debt hobbles us. What happens if rates surge into the double digits? A couple of generations will quickly learn how destructive inflation can be. The housing market is now barely holding its own with buyers able to get a 3.65% 30-year fixed rate. What happens when that rate is, say, 12 %? Ditto car purchases.

Successful anything requires options. The more avenues, the better plan that can be created and employed. We are running out of options to fashion winning economic strategies. This Administration has moved aggressively to destroy as many as it can, everything from capitalizing on the prerequisites for addressing climate change, to needlessly aggravating a critical debt problem Trump promised to resolve “in a couple of years.”

The chickens of arbitrary tariff madness are coming home to roost. Recession is nigh. What will be available to help pull us out of the hole Trump now furiously burrows is little and none…. and little is blowing town. The mess a Democrat will be faced with if we’re determined enough to send Trump packing is likely to make what Obama inherited from W look pleasant. It’s the end of the red brick road the Reagan Revolution set us on. BC

One of television’s best and most underrated sitcoms was “Roc.” Well before James Gandolfini and Bryan Cranston, Charles Dutton created an everyman hero we could all cheer for. He was Shrek before Shrek, and Dutton could not have been finer. Perhaps the best episode of the series revolves around a crack house surfacing in Roc’s neighborhood and his unrelenting efforts to shut it down.

After organizing neighbors to fight the scourge, which creates a variety of frustrations and gives rise to Roc’s full host of frailties and stubbornness, the dealer himself pays Roc and family a visit to try and “work out” a solution to their “disagreement.” The gangster first tries to buy Roc’s acquiescence, and when that approach fails, threatens Roc’s family, which gets both of Roc’s hands around his neck. After our hero’s wife and father convince him to let the thug go, the dealer says they should let things cool off and talk again the next day. Roc’s reply is classic, and acting doesn’t get better. Dutton again grabs the low life and declares there is nothing to discuss. “I want you out of my neighborhood; that’s my bottom line!” Roc makes clear that he won’t rest until the dealer is gone, “even if it kills me.” As the frightening criminal heads out the door, he turns to Roc and hisses “it just might trash man… it just might.” Great stuff!

The scene serves well as a parallel to our current national nightmare. Since his inaugural declaration of America as dystopia, Trump has set up shop in our neighborhood and demanded acquiescence to a ruinous stream-of-consciousness Presidency with really no higher aims than the crack dealer Roc looked to strangle. Our block was founded on and nurtured with notions of community and relentless progress, continually nourished by lessons our mistakes have taught us. Trump has from the outset attacked those foundations on the hour and sown division whenever before a microphone, or on his Twitter feed. Those who support him are simply junkies on a stoop, destroying our block.

The latest outrage portends a new level of destructive mischief. Unabashedly putting the elbow on Netanyahu to prevent duly elected US lawmakers from entering Israel signals two new and chilling developments. One, that Trump now gives no thought to the propriety of using American foreign policy, and engaging other world leaders in his petty grudge fests. Two, that to justify his actions he will exponentially amp up his lying rhetoric and expect the same from his supporters here and abroad. The Omar/Tlaib affair demolishes whatever line anybody still deluded themselves to believe existed between Trump foreign policy and his desperate political survival.

That Trump actually relished carrying out the whole sorry mess in the open speaks to what he now believes his wretched core wants to see and embrace. His instincts in that regard have always been on the mark. His clients are that desperate for what he has to sell, addicted to the collective resentment and bigotry they ingested for decades from Fox/AM gateway providers.

Of course, patriotism is not a cut and dry concept, as today’s battle for America’s soul clarifies. That so many have fallen into the nod of euphoric militarist xenophobia now forces those of us, who, frankly, probably never previously gave the question the thought it deserved, to come to terms with how it defines who we are and what requirements it demands. We always read or listened to the news about other neighborhoods falling victim to rot from within, always glad it was the other guy. Now it’s us. The dealer is in that old white mansion on Pennsylvania Ave. and the lines are long.

Trump has bought off the 2% with a debt bomb tax giveaway. He’s bought off big business with, er, anything they want. Energy interests pinch themselves everyday as they enjoy a new opportunity they had assumed was relegated to the dust bin of history as America evolved past fossil fuel dependence. Evangelicals now believe they have the best friend they’ve ever had at the helm, the result of ambitious Trumpist initiatives to make common cause with born again nastiness toward LGBT scapegoats, and frontal assaults on Roe v Wade and Planned Parenthood. Ammosexuals have been coddled through one assault weapon/mega mag-enabled mass murder after another. Trump has assured them it’s never the right time for gun sanity. Now, farmers, many pushed to the brink by arbitrary tariff regimes, are the latest to graciously accept White House/GOP bribes for acquiescence.

Incredibly, Democratic presidential aspirants are more concerned with beguiling the community with their own set of pay offs, while arguing about who is sufficiently decent, than rally cries to save the neighborhood from ruin. Fact is, near three years of this Presidency HAS divided us, and the menu of issues is down to one…. get this scum out of our lives, rid the block of its pestilence. Those on the right side of this struggle must understand and embrace the preeminence of that desperate prerequisite to anything else we can achieve as a nation. Because, you better believe student loan forgiveness will not be on anyone’s policy plate during a second Trump term. Death of American democracy will be breakfast, lunch and dinner.

In July of 1997, when Britain formally ceded control of Hong Kong to China, most simply hoped for the best. Those prayers were not answered and more than one and a half million are now in the streets making clear Hong Kong isn’t going to be Beijing. Here, way too many appear to still harbor aspirations that government by Hannity and Carlson is somehow palatable, and that 2020 is just another election cycle, even as the President and GOP lay out a welcome mat for foreign interference.

“Hate” has been assigned a new definition by Trumpie apologists: anyone out of patience with our dangerous lurch toward fascism. Well, call me a hater. My tolerance for this regime ran out long ago, and arguments about “policy” only sound like normalization of the untenable. Trump’s hourly outrages, his continuous mining of the depths his awfulness feels no shame in exploring, preclude any discussions of coexistence. To think such entente is possible requires ignoring virtually every public statement he makes. I want him out of my neighborhood. That’s my bottom line! BC

By: Jon Schwartz

Over a lifetime of playing five on five pickup basketball in many places I’ve noticed something about race relations. Seems whenever I play with only 9 other white guys, there’s no racial issues.  Duh.  And if I’m playing in a game with all white guys and one black guy, or conversely if I’m the only white guy playing with 9 black guys, things run smoothly.  The times I’ve witnessed obvious racial tension, or conflict that seems to have a racial element while playing pickup basketball is when there is a 3/7, 4/6, or 5/5 black/white, or white/black race ratio.  

Why this has been my experience, I can’t say; moreover, I assume there have been many pickup ballers throughout the land whose experiences are nothing like mine. But, while I’d never want to generalize that all games with an equal or near equal racial mix have been fraught with arguing and tension, or that all games I’ve played with racial homogeneity were devoid of any violence, let alone tension, I can’t help but wonder if a risk assessment hypothesis makes sense here.  One white or black guy represents a low threat level to the other nine.  However, once there are three or more of the “others” there seems to be a new threat level to the opposite group.  

The America that I was born into was, metaphorically, a nine white guys/1 black guy basketball game.  White people made up 84% of the population in the 1960 census, the year I was born.  Most of the remaining 16% were black, with a smaller minority of Hispanic people, and only 1% were Asian.  In 1960, only 4% of Americans were first generation immigrants.  Today, 15% of Americans immigrated here.  As most of us are well aware, the USA is rapidly approaching a white minority/majority scenario, in which less than 50% of the USA is white.  If you don’t think this is preoccupying a large bloc of the fast fading white majority, you’re not paying attention.  Furthermore, if you don’t think people of color don’t have at least some part of them that relishes this scenario, you’re being obtuse on that score as well.  And finally, if you’re white and you’re certain the white minority/majority scenario isn’t freaking you out, you may simply be selective in how you are processing the information.  

The “Great American pick up game” is now almost a 6 white guy/4 people of color ratio, soon to be 5/5, and soon after that 4/6, and if my admittedly rudimentary pickup basketball perceived risk hypothesis (devoid of meaningful social science, utterly misogynistic, and limited to my black and white people experience) holds any truth, then our country has evolved from a low/no threat racial and cultural dynamic to a high risk perception scenario – and it explains a lot, while underscoring one essential question as Election 2020 beckons: are you cool with America becoming less white or not?  

We can assume that most, if not all people of color are not only ok with this shift, but welcome it. Why wouldn’t they? What can we assume about white people?  

Our major political parties represent the two tribal choices on this question, and are engaged in a standoff.  The Democrats are branding themselves as the party that “celebrates diversity” and the shifting demographic tides.  This is best reflected in the unprecedented make up of their congressional caucus, which “looks like America” according to the messaging.  Furthermore, it appears that all the white male democratic presidential candidates are running in spite of being white males, now a liability reflected in the apologist tone they have adopted on the debate stage when addressing their diverse array of opponents.  

Meanwhile, the Republican caucus (omitting the resigning Will Hurd of Texas) is now 196 caucasions, of which only 13 are women; it’s a full whiteout on the right side of the House chamber!  Complimenting the vanilla-for-all ice cream stand of Congress, there are 54 Republican senators, all of whom are white save for one black man, South Carolina’s Tim Scott.  In other words, if Republicans in Congress were the senior leadership of any corporation they’d be sanctioned by the government, boycotted by other companies and the people alike, and generally shamed into hasty overnight demographic change.  But this is today’s GOP, like the last vestige of an old southern mint julep drinking white’s only country club, they’re in no hurry…and yet they make up one half of our country’s legislative power.  This is Trump’s caucus and the message is unmistakable…. “keep it white.”  

In 2012, the Republican National Committee engaged in a post-election “autopsy” after losing to President Barack Obama.  Their findings: the Republican party must embrace the changing demographic of America.  Through policies more favorable to minorities and minority recruitment into positions of leadership, the Republican party could emerge more competitive and appeal to a more diverse population.  Flash forward to 2019, and it’s abundantly clear Mitch McConnell et al have chosen a very different direction.  

While they haven’t just come out and said it, the Republican party’s mission statement can be summed up as follows:  “America was founded by white men.  America was led to itspinnacle as the world’s only superpower by white men.  America can only remain the greatest nation on Earth if it is run by white men.  If American power and leadership is ceded by white men to immigrants and people of color, all will be lost.”  The unpublished text of the Republican brochure’s talking points may read “call us racist all you want, but if you think America could be great through a non-white male power structure, PROVE IT!  Where else in the world is there a country that is kicking ass that isn’t run by white men?”  

—– 

One of the things to love most about science is that every staggering scientific discovery has had one thing in common: while dropping a whole new paradigm on us, the discovery has also kicked the crap out of mankind’s arrogant pre-disposition.  It’s as if every new revelation says “humanity, you think you’re at the center of it all, but you’re just a gnat on a dogs butt in the grand scheme of things.”  

Mankind:  Everyone knows the sun, the planets, and the heavens revolves around us.

Copernicus:  Umm…no…sorry.  We revolve around the sun.  We’re just part of it all, not at the center of it all.

Mankind:  Everyone knows we were created in God’s image and that the animals, plants, and all things are meant for our pleasure.

Darwin: Umm…no…sorry.  We’re just another kind of Chimpanzee.  We’re just part of it all, not at the center of it all.

Mankind:  Everyone knows the laws of physics, and that the universe exists in three dimensions.  We all know about the universe and our place in it.

Einstein:  Umm…no…sorry.  There’s a fourth dimension: the space/time continuum—you just weren’t smart enough to see it.  The more we learn the more we realize how ignorant we are, or as Einstein brilliantly put it, “whatever your troubles with math, I assure you mine are greater still.”

In recent years the psychology field has had its greatesthumbling contribution:

Mankind: Everyone knows that if you use your brain, set aside your emotions, and judge things dispassionately, you can understand what is true, what is untrue, and as a result you can judge things accurately and fairly.

Psychology: Umm…no…sorry.  The human brain is shrouded in prejudices and biases that we’re entirely ignorant of, and we ignore them because they’re inconvenient.  We tell ourselves we can always see the truth, but the truth is that we can never see the truth, just our favorite version of it.

—– 

I attended black/white “integrated” schools (indeed, by high school the black kids and the white kids sat on opposite sides of the cafeteria as they do now, from what I hear) but the neighborhoods of my hometown, Evanston, Illinois were almost completely segregated.  Post Jim Crow and the Civil rights/Voting rights acts, the notion of integration has been a well-intentioned myth that has never come to fruition.  The business of integration, through busing and other governmentally mandated half measures, has been foisted upon schoolchildren and in some instances, workplaces.  The government has yet to take full measures espousing the merits of racial and cultural integration through mandated integrated housing.  The message so far is “kids can deal with mixed races and ethnicities in schools, and some of us adults will have to deal with it at work, but mixed neighborhoods are a bridge too far.  

There has been one constant on the integration/segregation continuum:  The most segregated race in America is, and always has been, white people.  Not only are white people most likely to live in vast majority white communities, but the single greatest cause of “white flight” from neighborhoods is a substantial increase in racial minorities moving into their neighborhood.  Nothing pushes a white person from their home faster than a racially different person moving nearby, forget progress or even mother nature, darker skin produces exodus. This is true from North to South, East to West, rural to urban, rich to poor, and…wait for it…Republican to Democrat.  

Therefore, if indeed there are two kinds of white people: those who insist they’re cool with the shift from white majority to white minority/majority (aka. white democrats), and those who aren’t (aka. white republicans) it’s yet to be substantially reflected in neighborhood maps nationwide, whether it’s  flyover country or either coast. Diversity does not characterize our living arrangements anywhere!

I was raised a liberal white, Jewish male in a WASP neighborhood in Evanston, Illinois.  When I was four years old, our Jewishness wasn’t appreciated.  The neighborhood kids “declared war” against my family.  They marched outside our house, carrying picket signs saying “Schwartz’s go home.”  True Story! And it taught me early on the extreme discomfort of being “the other.”  Furthermore, having grown up with black friends and raising 2 black sons, I like to think I check all the boxes of white Democrat righteousness:  I “love the others” and I’ve “been the others too!”

Like every other decent US-loving Democrat, I have been raining holy hell down on the Trumpist GOP, rightfully calling them out for their shocking enthusiasm to return America to the bad old days of sanctioned bigotry.  But do I really walk the walk? Why have I never lived in a racially integrated neighborhood?  Why have I made my home renting/buying decisions on the basis of code words like “quality schools,” “clean water and air,” and “friendly people” which funneled into high majority white neighborhoods?  Am I subject to the same confirmation biases that determine how white Alabamans look to set their affairs in order? A tough and painful question, one we may all have to confront if a colorless America is really as important to us as we claim it is. How about we put it to the test right now with a hypothetical?

Suppose we pretend that sometime in the next 10 years the current cultural civil war in America will be resolved by a two state solution: A US Republican state in the south, from Georgia to Arizona, and up through Utah, Wyoming, Montana, and Idaho, and a US Democratic state in the Northeast, Midwest, and west coast states.  

In this scenario, the USR state is unabashedly pro white in policy and action.  The USR is very tough on immigration, preferring white Russians and Euro’s to Muslims, Hispanics, and Africans.  While they didn’t claim to be racist and claimed to welcome anyone willing to play by their rules, they evolved into a 96% white state.  Meanwhile, let’s say the USD state welcomed the continued immigration of darker skinned people.  They broadened the safety net, passed reparations, created Medicare for all, greatly curbed gun rights…and became a 32% white state.  

Now imagine that all Americans had a choice of where to live, either in the USR or the USD. What would you choose?  If you’re anything like me, you’re thinking “USD—definitely.”  But, like me, if you’re white and you’ve never sought residence in a highly integrated neighborhood, The answer is not as simple as it sounds; if it were we’d already be a more integrated US. It may very well be the crux of the issue, and determine where the nation heads when we soon reach our crossroads. Right now a lot of us are patting ourselves on the back for this convenient version of “the truth” about ourselves, but I encourage us to pump the breaks on our self-righteousness.  Maybe, despite our best intentions, like those we condemn, we can’t handle the truth either.  JS

“I just think you people would be happier in Africa where you came from.”

George Lincoln Rockwell – American Nazi

“Why don’t they go back and help fix the totally broken and crime infested places from which they came?”

President Donald Trump to The Squad

At the end of the day, heading into the most critical Presidential election in US history, one that will determine if America is capable of providing racist authoritarianism a mandate, it gets down to what it’s been from nearly the start: is the Trump Presidency “normal”? Do the policies and comportment of this President fall within the parameters our history and democratic inclinations process as acceptable, or has this Administration, and the party that now ardently supports it, demonstrated a consistent infidelity to what Trump took an oath to protect? That simple. And that critical.

How this question is processed and debated was on display this week when Rep. Joaquin Castro, manager of his brother Julian’s presidential campaign, tweeted a list of Trump donors from his district, publicly accusing them of “fueling a campaign of hate” against Hispanics. Of course both the statewide and federal GOP immediately screamed foul, labeling Castro as the real hater seeking to stoke division and actually incite violence and retaliation against citizens merely participating in our electoral process. House Republican leader, Kevin McCarthy, expressed GOP outrage from the highest levels, charging Castro with “targeting and harassing Americans because of their political beliefs.” Castro rejoined he was doing no such thing, merely posting publicly available information for the benefit of his constituents, who deserve to know of business leaders in their district who finance overt racism and policies aimed at terrorizing Latinos.

Bloomberg’s Ramesh Ponnuru nicely synthesizes what is really the whole ball of wax in an Op-Ed today. Taking Castro to task, Ponnuru argues Trump 2020 is not David Duke 2020, or even Corey Stewart 2020, and treating an incumbent President’s campaign and supporters in a similar vein is outrageous and divisive. Ponnuru draws a distinction between what supporting an unabashed Klan or Nazi candidate and supporting Trump says about the advocate’s character and societal inclinations. Equating the two is inappropriate, according to Ponnuru, and amounts to slandering those you are outing as Trump partisans, impugning their character and weaponizing legitimate disagreements about policy. “…Supporting the Nazis today is an aberrant practice and a mark of a vicious character,” Ponnuru asserts, but supporting Trump “is neither.”

There it is in a nutshell. The line in the sand is Nazism, since Trump hasn’t yet descended that far down his supporters no more deserve to be “shunned or harassed” than Warren or Sanders backers. In branding Castro’s tweet a scarlet letter and destructive hypocrisy, Ponnuru clarifies better than most before him the equivalence position. Of course he conveniently omits the entire history of Trump’s behavior since he launched his campaign with a screed about Mexican rapists and murderers invading from the south. It’s simply an article of faith that our President is no Nazi. How could he be? Surely millions would never have voted for him if he was. That’s all the proof you need. And that’s all the evidence Ponnuru provides. Nothing to see here.

But what if we took the entire bias issue off the table? What if, for the sake of argument, we just accept the President’s pronouncement he is “the least racist person in history!” A regular freedom rider. Is there anything else about this presidency that doesn’t jibe with the bare minimums of acceptable? Anywhere else Trump paddles against the drift of historical norms for basic competence and decency? After all, there is a 448-page report nobody seems interested in reading that outlines not one, not even five, but ten compelling instances of obstruction of justice. Moreover, the refusal of this Administration to cooperate with Congress in its fully appropriate investigative role would make Tricky Dick, himself, blush.

Tell you what!…. Let’s be even more agreeable and take the Mueller investigation off the table as well! Let’s accept Trump’s word, and the constant whining of his continuous diatribes on the subject. No collusion! Nothing but a big hoax! Anything else we need to be concerned about in the way of new normals? Remember, historic Dow highs. Record low unemployment. Yet and still, there is a few trillion in new debt. Moreover, didn’t we learn with Smoot-Hartley and that nasty Great Depression that tariffs and trade wars are big no nos? And what of this ridiculous repeated nonsense of claiming tariffs aren’t passed on to US consumers and simply pad the US Treasury with Chinese revenue? Surely any POTUS, who would keep claiming such a thing, must be off his rocker… right? What about using tax dollars to protect specific industries from the policy’s ruinous effects. Is that normal?!

You know what? Let’s forget all of that as well, assume he is the business genius he claims to be. The economy is a MAGA miracle! Mr. Art Of The Deal has reasserted our rightful place at the top of the food chain. For our purposes here we’ll now only consider foreign affairs, which at the end of the day is the prime responsibility of a POTUS anyway. Is the Trump foreign policy and his international statesmanship within the bounds his predecessors established? Is the national interest being attended to?

Perhaps it’s most efficient to take the President’s word for it on say a preeminent concern such as North Korea. How is that going? Oh! Look he tweeted just this morning! Trump’s own words can reassure us….

“In a letter to me sent by Kim Jong Un, he stated, very nicely, that he would like to meet and start negotiations as soon as the joint U.S./South Korea joint exercise are over. It was a long letter, much of it complaining about the ridiculous and expensive exercises. It was also a small apology for testing the short range missiles, and that this testing would stop when the exercises end. I look forward to seeing Kim Jong Un in the not too distant future! A nuclear free North Korea will lead to one of the most successful countries in the world!”

What the hell were we worried about?!! BC