I can’t just sit by and do nothing. As worried as I am about the fate of this country under a President Trump, I have to do something. Actually, I have to do a number of somethings. The question is, what?

This post is a start. It’s the beginning of what I plan as a continuing feature: Trump Human Rights Erosion And Termination Watch. THREAT Watch.

All kinds of terrible things are going to happen with Trump in the White House, a Republican majority in both houses of Congress and a conservative majority on the Supreme Court. Taxes and business regulations will favor the rich even more than they do now. Entitlement programs for the poor will be cut dramatically. Comprehensive women’s health care which includes abortion will be nonexistent in many parts of the country. Obamacare, Medicare and Social Security will be savaged. The list goes on. We absolutely must fight to limit the damage in all those areas using every legislative, political and people-powered means at our disposal.

But as bad as those changes will be, my worst fears for the country have to do with the loss of human rights and the suppression of dissent. Trump and his allies don’t have to pass new laws to persecute minority groups and target enemies. All it takes to create a police state and a climate of fear is an increased use of force against citizens and credible threats directed at the media. A Trump administration can do that on its own. It can make people afraid to congregate, afraid to act, afraid to say and write what they think—even afraid in some cases to come out of their homes.

If we’re paying attention, it’s not hard to notice when new laws are passed and new court decisions are rendered, but suppression and repression can creep up on us so gradually, we hardly know they’re coming until they’re here. It’s far too easy for us to turn into frogs in a pot of water being brought to a boil. (“Is it getting hot in here?” “No, it’s your imagination. Well, yeah, maybe it’s getting a little warmer, but nothing we can’t handle.”) Repression can be targeted against one group while the rest of us look the other way. (“First they came for the immigrants, but I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t an immigrant. . . .”) The media can be badgered into normalizing the administration and its actions by perpetuating false equivalencies and downplaying the dangers of its most dangerous words and deeds.

If we’re not watchful, if we’re not vigilant, if we’re not responsive, our most basic rights can be ripped away from us. If that happens, this will be a different country. We may never have been the beacon of light to the world we sometimes claim to be, but with a Trump administration, we are in danger of having whatever light we shed on ourselves and others dim, flicker and be extinguished.

In my THREAT Watch posts, I’ll try to pull together the words, signs and actions, large and small, that are moving us toward an erosion and termination of our basic rights, starting from the day after the election. What Trump and his followers said during the campaign only matters if it materializes in words and deeds once he was declared president elect.

I might be pleasantly surprised and find that I have no THREATs to worry about. Maybe Trump will endeavor to be a president for all the people, someone who genuinely wants to unite the country. But somehow, I doubt I’ll run out of things to write about.

This article appears in Nov 10-16, 2016.

28 replies on “Trump Human Rights Erosion And Termination Watch (THREAT Watch)”

  1. Seeing how well all of your warnings made TUSD a much better place I can’t wait until I see your threat warnings. I see the students you educated in Portland rioting in the streets. A quick check by KGW NBC showed that the majority of those arrested are A not registered to vote in Multnomah County, and B did not vote. One young uneducated man stated that we have to keep Trump from getting into office.

    Do you think you could work with him a little bit more? Americans saw the real threat and it is from progressive liberalism. It rots the society at it’s very core. No jobs, no growth, no hope.

    What next, hold a coloring contest to design a new flag with only 39 states? We can call the other 11 Hillaryville.

  2. Oh, good. David is out from under the covers (or wherever he has been hiding for the past week) and is providing his essential commentary to the uninstructed again. Whatever would members of the Pima County Democratic party do without him? Sheep without a shepherd, indeed. Especially on the subject of Trump — it will of course not be obvious to us what is going wrong with his administration and there will be NO other members of the media providing coverage of these issues, so we will need David’s help.

    I wonder if David’s “THREAT” watch will be as effective — and as entertaining, in the comment streams — as the “Next Step Watch” he set up to observe the Ducey administration after he wrote so eloquently to persuade other Democrats and so-called “Supporters of Public Education” to hold their noses and vote in support of Prop 123.

    Just for fun, let’s take a look at the results David’s cutting edge commentary helped to accomplish in TUSD.

    The candidate David and his friends had identified as an underhanded game-theory-wielding schemer (STOP STEGEMAN NOW!, as the pervasive yellow signs said): back in, with the most votes of ANY of the contenders. I wonder if the signs actually boosted Stegeman’s vote total, giving the impression that if anyone wanted one of the candidates out that much, it was a good sign voters should vote him back in? Seems quite possible.

    One of the incumbent candidates David supported, a Democratic-party insider and defender of every sad mis-step taken by the current Superintendent (Embarrasment-endent would be a better term, considering his record ): back in, with the second-highest vote total in the district.

    The other incumbent candidate David supported: out on his ear and the Board majority controlled by Adelita Grijalva is now broken up.

    The third candidate David endorsed, someone with a solid on-the-ground understanding of the realities in the schools and a sound understanding of the desegregation case, hanging by a thread as the votes are counted, currently 250 votes behind a woman who is a complete newcomer to TUSD politics, who has NO direct experience in TUSD schools — not as a teacher, not as an administrator, not as a parent.

    Looks like it may be an interesting two years in TUSD, with a TUSD-politics-neophyte law school student serving as the swing vote between two entrenched 2-person minorities, but David will probably be much too busy running down the Trump administration to turn his attention to these paltry local matters. We may be on our own for awhile in trying to understand why it is still so impossible for TUSD to do the simplest things, like retaining teachers at the same rates other local districts do and competently managing implementation of the court’s orders in the district’s still ongoing 40-year-old desegregation case. What a shame.

  5. “I have to do something. Actually, I have to do a number of somethings. The question is, what?”

    For starters, how about jumping off that cliff?

  6. Elsewhere in math Trump won 28 states compared to Hillary’s 22, thereby Trumping her popular vote win once again.

    Two time lying loser. Remember when she said this, “anybody not willing to accept the results of the election are a danger to democracy?” You own that Hildabeast.

    Wave goodbye to Oregon and California. Take your state with you because the rest of us want beachfront property.

    If you don’t move it we’ll have it towed.

  8. I wonder if the Planned Parenthood funding of riots could be considered terrorism, or organized crime? Then their assets could be seized under the RICO laws.

  9. David,
    If you had not written “Trump” so often, I would have thought you were warning us about “progressive liberals.” Perhaps you had best stick to writing about education; though I seldom agreed with you on your points, I respected your experience and perspective.

  10. more people voted for Hillary. The only thing that saved Trump was the Electoral College.

    very real human rights danger, if Trump does what he threatened. But he’s already backing off on lots of his campaign promises. So who knows if you can trust him on anything.

    We’re dealing with a person who can’t be relied on, or believed. No telling what he’ll do.

  11. We have plenty of experience with leaders we cant believe. One has a private email server in her basement, The other promised me I would save $2500 on my healthcare per year. Nothing to see here, move along.

  13. “The only thing that saved Trump was the Electoral College.”

    The only thing liberals, ‘progressives’, hate more than white Christians is the U.S. Constitution, the very foundation of the greatest country on the planet.

    By definition, ‘progressives’ stand against the United States of America.

  14. We are not a Beacon of Light – we are an exporter of War and Death and Destruction and have been for decades – let’s be real, war is who we truly are and how we all are able to have the material things most of the rest of the world can not and good stock returns. Think we have problems – reference last week’s Weekly article on Syrian refugees – our problems individually are nothing compared to the families we help drop bombs on by exporting weapons. Tucson is an enabler: Raytheon is a dealer of death and drives our local economy more than any other company. If you’re going to be real about this, admit the truth and core of the whole world’s problems is the US is a dealer of death and destruction.

  15. The local economy is driven by government jobs, controlled by lying cheating socialist politicians that do everything they can to hold bsck business ownership. And by the way war is used to free people from death and poverty based on government failings. They cant all come to the US.

    Maybe try France?

  16. ” We absolutely must fight to limit the damage in all those areas using every legislative, political and people-powered means at our disposal.”

    And if that doesn’t work, out come the guns.

  17. Well David I hope you’re happy. Right above me you have persuaded a liberal that he must use guns. Stop it people. It’s time to grow up and quit your whining. That is not the world I want my children growing up in.

  19. Safier is wrong to stir up more fear and division. But all the Trump people being hateful in this thread are not making their point. The truth is that the American people are not going to flourish under either Trump or Clinton. The Democratic and Republican parties are two sides of the same coin. They both love rich elites and big corporations, and neither party cares about working people and middle-class people enough to actually do some good for us.

    I wouldn’t have been happy if Clinton won, and I’m not happy that Trump won. There will just be more wars, more pollution, less money for education and healthcare, and more homeless people, more foreclosures, and more bankruptcies.

    Trump supporters — you have been conned. He will ALWAYS side with his rich friends — and that includes the Clintons. You’ve seen that famous photo of them laughing it up together. They’re laughing at you. He’s going to break every promise he made, and then hopefully you will realize that you have more in common with working people of all different races than you do with rich lying politicians.

  20. When I came to Tucson 3 years ago, I knew I’d be moving to a conservative area, but in my wildest dreams, I didn’t think it would be as hateful, white supremest and disgusting as many of the posters to this article are showing themselves to be. And most discouraging, judging by the huge number of churches in the area, is that a great many of you claim to be Christian. Ouch —

  21. I can’t read much more into this election other than the fact that it was an overwhelming repudiation of trickle up economics where the Clintons/Obamas get rich and everybody else suffers. All the while the democrats are telling you how many jobs “they created.” They just forget to tell us how many more they destroyed.

  22. Laurey Jaros are you kidding? I just read every post again and I could not tell any posters skin color, nor did any post disparage another one’s color. Yet you somehow took an inventory of local churches and determined that these posters must be Christian.

    You obviously missed the whole point of the election results because of your blind hatred of something and somebody. And that looks to me like you targeted white Christians.

    NBC has an interesting article about the ethnic support for Trump.

    http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/2016-election-day/trump-did-better-blacks-hispanics-romney-12-exit-polls-n681386

    It looks like you are doing the same thing that CNN tried. And failed at.

    http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/2016-election-day/trump-did-better-blacks-hispanics-romney-12-exit-polls-n681386

  23. Tucson conservative? What exactly is it that you’re smoking, Laurey. As far as Mr. Safier is concerned, PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP. Deal with it.

  24. Workin it — You’re still not getting it. Why do you say “Clintons/Obamas” get rich and don’t mention the whole family of Trumps? If you believe him, he’s richer than the Clintons and the Obamas combined — and his businesses outsource their production to China, Mexico, and lots of other places that are not “Made in the USA.” I wish I believed he’s going to change that, but I don’t.

    Trump’s not gonna help you and his other supporters. He’s really not. I wish y’all would realize that it’s not Dems vs. Reps, red vs. blue. It’s the rich elites (the Trumps AND the Clintons) against the rest of us. Really, it’s easy to see if you just look. They try to divide us so we don’t see how they’re ripping us all off.

    Trump doesn’t care about you. None of them do. We must work together to help each other. Shop local. Hire local. Start local businesses. Get to know your neighbors. Please.

  25. Mr Blaze I didnt mention the Trumps because they were private citizens. Nothing illegal or unethical about earning a profit. The Clintons used their influence as governmental figures to extract money worldwide from people that may have come to expect favors. She may have given favors as secretary of state or she might have asked the president to do the same.

    Everybody isnt out to get you. Bill Gates started in his garage. I guess we should have stopped him.

  26. #Laurey Jaros

    You need to leave this “hateful, white supremest (sic) and disgusting” city as quickly as possible.

    Delta is ready when you are.

    Giddyup.

  27. Trumpers should remember there were plenty of “Bernies” who also wanted change in government. The difficulty is stated well in this quote: “What Trump and his followers said during the campaign only matters if it materializes in words and deeds once he was declared president elect.” It is worrisome to have people believe what they are seeing on Fox – that the white nationalist cronies are in – even though the decisions as to the Cabinet is still ongoing. Although Trump won, this is no payback for 8 years of Obama, etc. etc. The US is not Disney, and these are serious times.

  28. MaryE2 Obamas presidency were serious times. But he chose to circumvent our laws and our Constitution. Maybe he should get some of the blame . Your reference to Disneyland was exactly what it looked like at the border. When Disneyland opens at 8am the pics look almost identical. People running to find supposed happiness in the arms of a great big rat. But 10pm brings the same disappointment every night. “We must return to our homes.”

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