It appears to me that the time has come when questions must
be raised that are difficult to
contemplate. In fact, the main
media has virtually ignored such questions because they are covering only daily
breaking news, while politicians do everything in their power not to raise them and
the uninformed don’t even know what to ask.
So, as usual, I will insert well-worn toes to test the waters.
Perhaps, there is no better place to begin than to recall
that Donald J. Trump has once again projected something characteristic of
himself onto others, in order to show how rotten everyone else is compared to
him. It is a tactic of diversion and
propagandizing that the Donald has used for many years. It is used to excoriate his detractors and to
shift the prevailing or potential narrative to a focus on others.
Trump has reacted in his usual punitive and pugnacious manner to charges of “cover-up” and talk of
impeachment as well as to the defection of Republican congressman Amash who
has dared to declare that some of Trump’s actions are equivalent to impeachable
offenses. In retaliation, Trump has
acted in his most authoritarian manner to divert the public’s attention from
investigations of him to focus on the following:
- · investigation by Attorney General (AG) Barr of the investigating agencies -- FBI and CIA and NSA -- to find evidence of their having undertaken the original Mueller investigations and prior ones on false pretenses and with criminal intent. In order to do this, Trump issued an Executive Order that allows de-classification of “everything” pertinent to Barr’s investigation. In other words, Trump has directed the AG of the United States to act as his personal agent and to access all intelligence records with no limits imposed, meaning the AG can do what he did with the Mueller Report – he can cherry-pick what he can use to make a case against the intelligence agencies and their agents, whether or not those snippets have any relevance or relation to the actual circumstances of the case-at-hand!
- · Trump has taken to calling the supposed actions of leaders of these agencies (and others) as “treasonous” implying that our intelligence and investigative leaders have acted as “traitors”
- · Come up with a plot to extradite Julian Assange to the United States where he can be tried for actions he undertook to publish secret documents stolen from our government (and others); the rub is that such action against Assange can also work to undermine the protection of secret sources utilized by investigative reporters in this country; such a ruling would be detrimental to the ability of a free press to investigate government (or private sector) corruption
- · Has, at the same time, refused to do any more work with Democrats on infrastructure (and perhaps any other legislative work) until investigations by congressional committees are stopped (broadly speaking, just another obstructive action by this authoritarian ruler)
·
While all this is happening on the domestic
front, Trump has also begun diversionary tactics on the international scene,
by:
o
ramping up warlike actions against Iran
o
supporting ultra-right-wing candidates in Europe
and elsewhere
o
talking about N. Korean “successes,” while
down-playing recent short-range missile tests
o
making a trip to Japan to be the first to meet
with their new emperor
o
and, continuing the trade war (tariffs) with
China, and now Mexico
- · With the acquiescent Mitch McConnell leading the Senate, Trump has been pushing the approval of conservative judges to lower courts to stack that branch in his favor as challenges are made to his domestic agenda and his authoritarian “orders”
- · Perhaps Trump’s most obstructive moves currently involve his actions designed to prevent present and former staff from testifying at all before congressional committees; thus, he has embarked on a strategy that may come back to bite him, discouraging anyone in his administration from answering congressional invitations or subpoenas
- · Meanwhile, Trump continues to rally his base with outrageous scenarios, including ‘pep’ rallies, big lies about people and circumstances; taking credit for a robust economy that he did not initiate, and ignoring the huge social issues that cry out for solutions
With this picture of government destruction, obstruction and
authoritarian overthrow fresh in our minds, let us raise the issue that will be
with us now and for some time to come.
What is to be done with the base supporters of Donald Trump,
who continue to support him no matter what he does or says?
Should they continue to be regarded as simply misguided, or
is there now beginning to arise a more detrimental nature to their support and
their acceptance of his words and actions?
Are they now abetting the high crime of obstruction of justice (and
other criminal actions related to finances and abuse of power)? After all, there are several other supporters
of Trump who have been indicted and fined or jailed for their abetting of their
leader’s behavior. Is that a pointer
toward what should happen to others?
Moreover, what about those who support Trumpian legislative,
executive or judicial policies, programs and promulgations that threaten to
undermine or destroy the fundamental values and structures of our democracy?
And, what about those supporters who freely donate money
and/or in-kind services to a regime that is devoted to changing (de-constructing)
a democratic form of government?
Finally, what responsibility or recourse do we have toward
those who continue to support Donald Trump even though the Special Counsel’s
Report found at least 11 examples of obstruction of justice that cumulatively show a pattern of behavior?
In other words, I am raising the issue of whether or not
citizens of a democracy have an obligation to protect their Constitution and
their democratic values from other citizens who, by either overt actions,
covert behaviors or ideological purity seek to undermine and destroy that form
of government and the values that underlie it.
This nation fought two world wars to checkmate foreign
forces that threatened to destroy our way of life; we fought a Cold War to keep
communist nihilism from doing the same. We fought a Revolutionary War to banish an authoritarian monarch from our very shores and our ancestor’s lives. We fought a Civil War to keep democracy alive when human slavery and its
accompanying values threatened to undermine our Constitution and our Society. We fought in Viet Nam and North Korea to
contain the advance of dictatorial Communism.
We went to war in the Middle East to contain terrorists who threatened
to destroy our way of life, and we are still there. And now, we face an old enemy that wants to
undermine our entire electoral process and our democratic values – yes, it’s
Russia again – but this time, it is unprecedented that the Oval Office contains
an occupant who does not take action to resist the new cyber war against us by
that country’s dictator, but instead heaps praise upon him and rescinds
sanctions against him and his regime.
Meanwhile, that same Oval Office resident encourages,
creates and applies policies and procedures that threaten our Constitution’s
fundamentals. To wit:
·
discrimination against a particular religion
(Islam) by blocking immigrants from Islamic countries
·
undermining of the sovereign right to vote in
states throughout this nation without so much as a word of opposition from the
White House
·
support for groups that seek to disrupt and
destroy the rights of others; Charlottesville will remain the epitome of this
President’s overt support of Nazi’s, KKK, and other violent hate groups finding
“good people” on all sides, never deigning to object to their beliefs or their tactics;
even minimizing the death of one young woman killed intentionally by a car
driven by a Nazi sympathizer
·
the documented growth of hate groups dedicated
to white nationalism since Trump assumed office because of his support and lack
of censure
·
ever-growing discrimination against persons of
color; persons with disabilities; persons living in poverty; the budgets of
this administration have illustrated their absolute disdain for vulnerable
populations who need the help of government
·
mainly through opposition and undermining of the
ACA (Obamacare), this administration has done harm to persons of low income,
negatively affected the general welfare and the domestic tranquility (two of
the fundamental aims of our Constitution) of tens of thousands of our People
·
undermined cabinet departments such as EPA, HHS,
Education, Homeland Security by undertaking radical means of destroying their
integrity and their missions
·
blocked or dismantled Consumer protection
agencies, boards and councils
·
undermining of the FBI, the CIA and the DSA
·
the latest efforts to go to war with Iran have
also raised the issue of war powers; will Trump act alone without Congress to
press us into war? I believe he will
(I have dealt with most of these items in more detail in
past blogs. You can use the search
mechanism available on this page to find pertinent subjects)
What concerns me right now are the devotees, the automatons,
the uncritical, apparently amoral and non-questioning supporters of this
authoritarian wannabe dictator. What can
we do about them before succumbing to a Fuhrer-led dictatorship like the Nazi
regime of the 1930s and 40s, allowed to mount a take-over by the pacified and
neglectful partisans of an authoritarian fascist ideology?
That question is loaded with all sorts of difficulties that go
to the very heart of civil and individual rights. I suspect the fundamental
difficulty is tied into the question: Do
those who advocate or abet the undermining (or overthrowing) of the very rights
and principles that undergird our constitutional system of governing deserve
the same access to the protection and use of those rights? Or, perhaps, it can be worded another way:
Can those who advocate, abet, contribute to, or participate
in the abrogation, undermining, de-construction, overthrow, coup d’etat, or
destruction of our basic freedoms, rights and institutions be allowed the
protection and use of those same principled concepts?
Or, perhaps we might ask in a much less detailed
manner: can those who participate in the
overt or covert destruction of our democracy also be considered as citizens eligible
for its freedoms and benefits?
Similar questions arose at our nation’s beginnings and have arisen
in various forms throughout our national history. Consider
v
Royalists who opposed American declaration of
independence, the war of Revolution and the establishment of a separate and
distinct government
v
Those anti-federalists who opposed a strong
central government under a binding Constitution
v
Those who started revolutionary movements bent
on establishing new governments, or
v
Those slave owners who supported human slavery
and undermined the rights of all by so doing
v
Those who kept the preeminent right to vote (along
with other freedoms like freedom of religion) from Native Americans, persons of
color, poor whites without property, and from all women
v
Those confederate state leaders and followers who
attempted to secede from the Union to prevent the abolition of slavery, and to
preserve white privilege and the profits gained from slavery
v
Those like Andrew Jackson and others like
Jefferson who warred against native Americans in order to steal their lands and
to prevent their full citizenship
v
Those leaders and followers who put together Jim
Crow laws to keep freed slaves from gaining the rights and freedoms of full
citizenship
v
How about those tycoons of industry of the
Gilded Age who controlled government at local, state and federal levels by the
power of their riches, and made sure that immigrants, minorities, poor whites
and others were provided low wages and long hours to build their industries and products so the tycoons could
become even richer, while such laborers stayed “in their place?” Some may have been
great philanthropists (for their own social status aggrandizement) but worked
behind the scenes to control votes, speech, institutions, labor and
materials. Their robber baron-style
principles and assumptions, plus their prejudices and vices, led to the
corruption of many of our institutions and democratic principles even unto this
present day (talking about the absolute malice and harm brought upon customers
by tobacco, fossil fuel, and food processing companies to name just a few
poisoners of individuals and the environment).
v
How about those who opposed the vote for women;
their attitudes and tactics undermining that eminent right for all women
v
OR, go on to ask about the KKK, the
union-busters, the McCarthy era search for communist infiltrators in the
government, or various attempts to silence the press; segregate public
schools, and the growth of hate groups in our own contemporary society.
How do we deal with the many groups and movements that are
blatantly (and often violently) anti-democratic, and that seek to twist our government and our
institutions in such a way that they will benefit in the end as certain rights
or freedoms are altered from their original intent? A few thoughts:
1)
Bring back the restrictions and guidelines of
Dodd-Frank; it is the constitutional duty of government to “regulate Commerce with foreign
nations and among the several states…, to “coin money and regulate the value thereof...and fix the standards of weights and measures…”
2)
We need strong national laws that prevent the
denigration of our rights, like voting and adequate affordable health
care. So, what are we waiting for, let’s
get down to business and start making sure people have what they need, for
example:
a.
regulate drug prices
b.
huge fines and arrests for CEOs and corporations
who harm their customers
c.
housing units for everyone so that no one is
allowed to be homeless
d.
pass legislation that holds legislators, judges
and executives accountable for their legislation, regulations, decisions and
orders that bring harm to those affected by those acts;
e.
set stronger qualifications for every political
office and vet all candidates in depth for elective and appointive offices;
reject candidacy of those who advocate violence, abrogation of any rights or discrimination
against vulnerable groups; it is our duty to vet deeply and completely to
prevent candidates like Trump from ever being nominated by responsible parties
or organizations
f.
no district lines drawn by anyone holding office
(including judges) or by anyone or group that employs or supports paid
lobbyists; all re-districting must be drawn by Commissions of ordinary citizens
chosen by vote of other citizens
g.
make right to vote automatic and universal by
certifying that right to every new-born citizen and oath-taker; disallowing any
government entity to set any local restrictions on that right (including voter
registration application) unless approved by a National Elections Board or some
such oversight agency
h.
restore or establish consumer protection boards
in every relevant agency of government and consider renaming Inspector General’s
Offices to reflect consumer protection from government abuse in all its functions
i.
consider seriously boycotting states and
localities that give in to the destruction of rights, freedoms and
responsibilities; or, that take upon themselves the forcing of non-majority
beliefs that are contrary to the existing law of the land like the ignominious
passing of strict state abortion laws that seek to define life and to impose
certain religious, doctrinal or ethical beliefs of one religious group upon the
entire population. This is contrary to
the establishment of religion clause of the 1st Amendment and must
be boycotted and monetarily opposed by every progressive entity in this country
until the forces of destruction feel backlash in their wallets and purses
j.
let’s get back to the reforms of HR-1 and
follow-through in whatever ways are possible
That’s a small
beginning. The point is that we must immediately start
correcting the abuses of King Donald I’s authoritarian regime or we shall
struggle over the next 30-50 years to undo what he and his minions like Barr,
Mnuchin, Bannon, Carson, Cavanaugh, Manafort, Flynn, etc. have wrought.
In the final analysis, we cannot abrogate the rights of people just because they advocate a different political ideology, as much as we may take exception to it. But, the question remains whether an attempt to overthrow a democratic government, or its laws, on the part of its leaders or by the abetting of its citizens, can simply be ignored. In my estimation, it cannot -- we must protect and affirm our democratic values and system of governing by acting in ways that challenge the potential destroyers, reform certain laws and processes, and exalt our rights, freedoms and the rule of law.
