That Mount Rushmore display last night—an alternately smirking and glowering Mussolini declaiming to howling hyenas—shook me to my toenails. Each time they chanted “USA! USA!” he paused with that look of self-adulation I’ve seen from Mobutu to Ceausescu to Qaddafi. They roared when he said anyone defacing a block of stone can be sentenced to a minimum of 10 years in prison. They booed when he labeled long-overdue protests enshrined in the Constitution as extremist leftwing terrorist acts, all the work of “liberal Democrats.” Unlike all those other despots I’ve covered, this man is deeply disturbed in a different way. And others were propped up by corrupt, coopted armies. We have no excuse. We put him there ourselves.
How many qualified voters, too sanctimonious to choose “the lesser of two evils,” voted for a no-chance also-run or sulked at home because Bernie Sanders wasn’t on the ballot? How many just stayed home, with something better to do than save America from what was blindingly obvious before November?
I’ve watched democratic states slip into shitholes since the 1960s. From time to time, I’ve covered Trump’s sociopathic, racist narcissism as he threw poor families out of their homes to build yet another Trump-Dump palace bound for bankruptcy. Before November 2016. I wrote about a coup d’etat attempt. In hindsight, I fell far short, never imagining that craven senators, greed-blinded tycoons and mindless morons would take us to this point. And now we learn that his fan-boy obsession with Putin now amounts to outright treason, shrugging off $100,000 bounties on the heads of U.S. troops he extols in speeches.
That speech, crafted by his Rasputin handlers, had none of the usual rambling and boastful asides. It railed against those “communists” in our streets, yet it was straight-up Stalin. He refused to meet first with Indian tribal leaders, whose spiritual grounds he desecrated. He insisted on lavish fireworks against the pleas of foresters who feared wildfire after years of a beetle infestation. His cults packed in tight, unmasked, simply to feed his insatiable ego.
To all of this, add Trump’s assertion—repeated again this week—that the Covid-19 he has thwarted better than any other leader will magically disappear. I write this from Arizona, now a champion super spreader with a governor who still refuses to follow medical guidance.
Joe Biden leads the polls, but we have four months to go. Trump can win four more years to stamp out democracy if – only if – Democrats and independents let him succeed with his desperate Hail Mary: fear and loathing. We need to win over conservatives in a handful of states who are irrationally frightened by “socialism” and ethnic mayhem in the streets.
The nation exploded in long overdue rage at the execution of George Floyd. Peaceful marches made the point. In Congress and at all other levels, authorities are beginning to rein in police. This is urgent, but it is immensely complex. And we’re dealing with human nature. Looters and provocateurs invariably glom onto to legitimate street protests. The issue of police brutality soon mushroomed into the larger issues of slavery and injustice of Native-Americans.
These larger questions can be addressed by laws after a national discussion. We need to legislate against discrimination at every level. But violence in the streets and reducing social complexity to black and white only deepens individual bigotry. Trump’s Orwellian doublespeak said all people are created equal. He doesn’t believe that for a minute, nor do his cultists. But it is what our Constitution guarantees.
My view, for what it’s worth, is this:
1. We urgently need to channel public outrage into reforming police. Defunding is an unfortunate word. Yes, get rid of tanks and heavy artillery. Use skilled social adjuncts for non-criminal situations. We need well-trained, carefully screened police, along with citizens’ oversight to swiftly and fairly prosecute abuse. Police unions have far too much power. Blacks suffer by far the most, but so do all others. This can’t wait.
2. Slavery poisoned our past, and we need to heal its scars. But we need to understand it. Wearing Kente cloth is not enough. That comes from Ashanti-Akan chiefs who sold captives wholesale to white traffickers. When rival tribes defeated them, their people went to the coast in chains. We can talk this out in December to decide what to do about statues and monuments that evoke our checkered, unjust past. Attacking “white people” across the board is no answer. Ulysses S. Grant married a woman whose family had slaves. His abolitionist parents shunned the wedding. He won the Civil War and, as president, made sure freedmen had the vote. At least one black possible vice president has a slave-owning ancestor. None of this is an excuse for anything. But it’s complicated.
Happily, only Fox News carried Trump’s gross distortions. CNN and MSNBC spent little time deconstructing it. But Trump’s electoral jihad, at the cost of multiple millions to all taxpayers, is just getting started. The vital crises he ignores worsen dramatically: climate collapse; China’s attempted subjugation of the freedom world; Russian expansion; Israel’s colonization of Palestine, which threatens its survival; North Korea’s new nukes; desperate refugees fleeing conflict and starvation; Iran and the Middle East.
Trump spoke again about insidious enemies seeking to tear down beloved relics of our glorious past, the greatest nation in history. “They will never, ever succeed.” This is Hitler describing his 1,000-year Reich.
Happy Independence Day, everyone. Let’s celebrate in our safe little clusters and then get to work—united and focused—on the one thing that matters most: making sure that on the next July 4 we still have the country our founders entrusted to us.
Mort Rosenblum is founding editor of the quarterly, Dispatches. From 1967 to 2004, Rosenblum was Associated Press bureau chief and special correspondent in Africa, Southeast Asia, Argentina and France, reporting from 200 countries. From 1979-1981, he was editor of the International Herald Tribune. The latest of his 12 books is “Escaping Plato’s Cave: How America’s Blindness to the Rest of the World Threatens Our Survival.” Others include “Who Stole the News?,” “Coups and Earthquakes,” “Chocolate: A Bittersweet Saga of Dark and Light” and the best-selling “Olives: The Life and Lore of a Noble Fruit.” Read more at The Mort Report.
This article appears in Jul 2-8, 2020.
Our founding fathers gave us slavery. When boswell asked dr.samuel johnson what he thought of the american revolution going on at the time he said “I observe those who scream the loudest about freedom and liberty are the slave holding southerners!” We had to fight a civil war in 1860 and segregations in the 1900’s and racism to this day. And your answer to voting for trump was a grifter in 2016 and a senile old pervert? If democrat party puts stacy abrams on ticket we will consider it. Read fredrick douglas speech on the 4th of july.
The political system of America from 1781 to 1861 was about the “freedom” and the maintenance of economic advantages from slavery, at any cost. No matter the nonsense about states rights, the civil war was about slavery. The Jim Crow/Segregationist era was about maintaining slavery in another form. And the celebration of “heritage and not hate” is also about keeping former slaves in their place, notwithstanding nonsensical rhetoric. In Germany from 1945 until today, the destruction of Nazi ideology by the Allies and then by Germany itself was and is paramount. Can you imagine Germany today having a debate about Nazi “heritage not hate”, and the defense of “heritage” monuments to Hitler, Himmler, and Goering, somehow detached from their actions. Ditto with Lee, Davis and Stonewall Jackson. We should have had a much more rigorous anti-Confederacy effort during Reconstruction, as during the Allies occupation.
“How many qualified voters, too sanctimonious to choose the lesser of two evils, voted for a no-chance also-run or sulked at home because Bernie Sanders wasnt on the ballot?”
Bucky, that describes you to a T. And now you’ve updated it with your obsession of having Stacey Abrams (who, among the others under consideration, would make a decent VP) on the ticket. Dude! Wake up!
willeybud You damn right I did! (to quote a famous hollywood actor.) I proudly voted for jill stein to keep hellbot from destroying the democrat party and will vote green party again if the DNC and their stooge biden gives me no choice. ( I would still vote democrat down ticket as I did in 2016) for frances perkins when they talk about states rights they never mention the state right to do what? first it was slavery then segregation and now voter suppression. By the way the southern states insisted on the 2nd amendment to arm their slave patrols. After the civil war they became the police in big cities controlled by democrats (you conservative/republicans will like that one.)
Buck Private Arizona…a poor soul clouded by the delusion of self righteousness. Lacking in
big picture vision. Enjoy the rest of your weekend.
I see the black community in atlanta showed up with guns to face the klan who ran away in fear. The john brown gun club was their backing up their black brothers and sisters. Black america is finally realizing that the establishment democrats are for gun control to disarm black people so they can’t shoot back at racists! or defend themselves. The deep state doesn’t care if whites own guns(they are no threat to the deep state) ;but they sure care if black citizens own guns. Ronald Reagan signed the first major gun law in california even though he ran on keeping your guns. Evidently that didn’t include black people.
Pardon me for correcting some B.S. here, Mort, but the U.S. Constitution guaranteed nothing more than the continued domination of WHITE MEN. That document was written expressly for that purpose–to reserve all wealth and power for white men in the “New World”. Read it again, buddy.
The Bill of Rights and subsequent amendments went to some lengths to correct the original injustice and immorality of the Constitution, but it has not gone nearly far enough. Civil society has attempted to carry the baton further but is constantly met with poo-poohing from Old White Guys who say “stop being so divisive”, and “we must have unity”, and “forget the identity politics” and other such offensive, self-serving pablum.
Only ignoramus amateurs with no understanding of electoral politics or true threats to democracy blame irrelevant third parties for bad electoral outcomes. Tchump won because of massive voter suppression by his Republican Party, because this remains a profoundly racist and sexist country, and because the Dumbocrats ran the most unpopular candidate in the modern history of their party, a candidate whose team then proceeded to piss away an eminently winnable election by running an absolutely lamebrained campaign.
Focusing your campaign on convincing a handful of Angry Old White Guys in Michigan to abandon Tchump is NOT the way to win. Obama overcame all of the inherent disadvantages of racism, voter suppression, etc. to win in not one, but TWO landslides because he was popular, charismatic, NOT an Old White Guy, and most of all, because he ran a great campaign that dramatically expanded the electorate. He turned out MILLIONS of people who don’t usually vote, because they don’t usually see anyone who truly represents them.
You want to beat Tchump in November?? Give the people a candidate who is NOT just another handsy, rapey, pro-corporate, dementia-compromised doddering fool of an Old White Guy. The best thing that could happen now is Creepy Joe falls down the stairs and Kamala Harris or Stacey Abrams or Elizabeth Warren takes over and KICKS TCHUMP’S ASS.
That is another big pile of BS. Delusion might be be more accurate.
Better yet so we can all understand your position, list all the references to skin color in the USC.
Race wasn’t specifically addressed, just like gender, and that omission is precisely the point. The U.S. Constitution is constantly held up as this sacred, profoundly liberating document, but that’s very misleading at best. It really only applied to free white men who wanted to escape the tyranny of the British monarchy. Everybody else had to wait decades or centuries to get the same freedoms, security and privileges as white men, and in many cases, THEY’RE STILL WAITING……
That’s nonsense skinny. That is comparable to going to the bank to cash $100 check and then go back and say they owe you $1,000. It is not there, it is simply your opinion. And it has been promoted through public schools and colleges.