Category: Crisis

The Role of a Patriot

The Role of a Patriot

“It’s gotta settle down for the good of America” – Governor John Kasich, Ohio

“The most stringent protection of free speech would not protect a man in falsely shouting fire in a theatre and causing a panic.” – Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes

 

Tradition holds that Americans argue ‘like Hell’ about the Presidential election, then, after the votes are cast and the dust settles, take the win or swallow the loss, and bind together in support. Even after the highly questionable Bush v Gore election of 2000, with the dubious outcome decided by the Supreme Court, the country came together behind a President in crisis nine months later on September 11th.

Trump supporters, with historical justification, feel that the nation owes the same to the current President. They are increasingly frustrated with the growing drumbeat of opposition to Trump, not just with the Mueller investigation, but the daily commentary from Twitter to the New York Times. The publication of Michael Wolff’s book, Fire and Fury, rubs even more salt in the wound. They feel that Trump is the duly (fair and square) elected President, and America should get behind him, or get out of the way.

Leave aside, they say, the eight years of President Obama when the opposition used every means to thwart his agenda. Let go of the “birther movement,” Merrick Garland’s Supreme Court nomination, the sixty times the House of Representatives voted to abolish part or all of the Affordable Care Act, and Trey Gowdy’s $8 million Benghazi investigation.  Get over the Russian involvement in the 2016 election from Facebook to voting machines.  The behavior of the right should not determine the norm. More simply, two wrongs shouldn’t make a right (or a left).

An American Patriot is someone who believes in this country and the historical foundations that make it “special.” A Patriot believes in “American Exceptionalism:” that the United States is unique as an example of Democracy and a leader in the world, a “shining city on the hill” (as President Reagan would say.) So what should be the role of a Patriot in the Trumpian world?

The Patriot’s problem is this. Should they follow the lead of Ohio’s John Kasich, a Republican conservative who has been a leader in opposition to President Trump? Kasich states, despite his opposition, that we must “settle down,” and get on with the business of governing America. Even Democrats have taken a similar stand, with Leaders Pelosi and Schumer remaining focused on the agenda, and dampening loose talk of impeachment and removal.

Following that traditional line, Democrats need to concentrate on the election of 2018, win the House and even the Senate, and return the Government to the “status quo” of shared power. In this way, they can protect the causes that the Trump administration seems so determined to destroy. Whatever Mueller comes up with (given that the current Republican Congressional investigations will ultimately be rigged) we’ll deal with then.

Others feel a more immediate terror with Donald Trump at the helm. Not only do they see America’s progress being rolled back, from voting rights to environmental advances to medical care; but they see a Presidency barely in control. The greatest fear: what if there is another 9/11, will this President, through action or neglect, put us in even greater danger? Tweets about the size of his button and stories about a five hour White House workday, do nothing to alleviate that fear.

What then, should be the role of a Patriot, of a loyal American citizen? Is it  to sit silently while the United States is dismantled behind the cloud of Trump tweets and the chaos of the White House? Or should the Patriot speak out, calling out each failure and each abridgment of citizen rights. Supreme Court Justice Holmes stated that free speech does not extend to shouting “fire in a crowded theatre.” The exception, of course, is if the theatre IS on fire.

 

 

 

 

Clouds of Hate

Clouds of Hate

As a self-described member of the “Resistance,” I am still holding my breath for the results of the Mueller Investigation and the House and Senate Intelligence Committees. The fact that Mueller and the Senate are trying to follow up on the Steele Dossier gives even more credence to the possibility that the Trump campaign colluded with the Russian Government to win the election. The investigations and their inevitable results in the Courts and the Congress are still to come. We have a long way to go.

But it has become more apparent that the Trump Administration is doing damage every day: damage to America, to the rights of all citizens, and to a nation “…dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.”

Today the White House announced that women’s birth control is no longer guaranteed under the Affordable Care Act. If a woman works for an employer who has religious or moral (there’s a vague term if there every was one) objections, the employer can get exempted from providing birth control. This could have dramatic impact on particular areas of employment: hospitals, many managed by Catholic Church agencies, may claim the exemption, leaving their women employees without insured birth control. (I’m sure the insurance will continue to cover Viagra.)

This is part of the ongoing war the Trump Administration is waging on women’s health rights. Many of the proposals for changes to health insurance would allow insurers to charge women higher rates than men since they have the “pre-existing condition” of being a woman. Add this to the attacks on women’s right to choose (the House passed a bill this week criminalizing abortion after the 20th week of pregnancy) and it’s clear that the goal of the Administration and the Republican majority is to “de-equalize” women.

Yesterday Attorney General Sessions issued a statement that the Justice Department does not consider discrimination against trans-gendered people as discrimination based on sex, and therefore they are not protected under Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. This continues to roll back  LGBTQ rights gained over the past two decades, as the Department now claims that the legal definition of gender is “biological” only. Taken to its logical conclusion, discrimination based on “gender-identification,” and potentially sexual preference as well, will no longer be considered a “civil right” by the US Government.

This week the Justice Department also filed a brief supporting the right of a business to deny service to folks who do meet their approved sexual preference. This was the case of the baker who didn’t want to make a cake for a gay wedding, but it isn’t too far a reach to see this legal precedent rolling into all sorts of public life. This is the kind of discrimination that Martin Luther King and the Civil Rights movement of the 1960’s “sat in” to end: Attorney General (Jefferson Beauregard) Session has allowed its return.

And finally, the President himself clearly demonstrated his own prejudices this week in his “disaster” appearances. In Puerto Rico, the President complained about the cost of rebuilding, he questioned the willingness of Puerto Ricans to work, and he did little more than congratulate the Federal employees on their efforts. He failed to show empathy, and even made light of the shortages (tossing a few rolls of paper towels out.)

In contrast, in Las Vegas he went to the hospitals, he talked to the survivors and the first responders: he was clearly more comfortable among “his” people.  The difference: a President who is ill at ease among Hispanics, but “just fine” in the remains of a Vegas “country concert.” One wonders whether he would have been so quick to sympathize if the concert had been “Life is Beautiful” or “Lallapalooza” (not so much his base.)

So while we wait for the answers about the legitimacy of the Trump Presidency, remember that the work of the Alt-Right goes on, making Americans less equal. It is the tremendous price we pay for the results of last year: we are surrounded by “clouds of hate.”