Nativism

A Half Century Since The Watergate Break In That Brought Down Richard Nixon

A half century ago, on June 17, 1972, the Watergate Break In occurred, and over the next two years and two months, led to the downfall, the resignation, of Richard Nixon from the Presidency.

The most corrupt and lawless Presidency came to an end, and one would have thought that it would never be conceivable that we would have a future Presidency that could be more corrupt and lawless.

But we are now living through a nightmare that seems to have no end, as Donald Trump remains a threat to the nation and its future!

He has millions of cult followers who are trying to insure that the January 6, 2021 Insurrection, which was horrendous, but ultimately failed in its brazen attempt at a coup d’etat, can be tried again in 2024 and succeed in putting Trump back in the White House, causing the downfall of American democracy!

The elements that back Donald Trump promote antisemitism, racism, nativism, misogyny, homophobia, white supremacy, and Christian nationalism, and represent the worst right wing criminal elements of America!

As we move toward the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence in 2026 and the 240th anniversary of the making of the Constitution in 2027, there is much fear and trepidation over what is clearly the greatest constitutional crisis since the Civil War in the 1860s!

The Donald Trump Nightmare Began Seven Years Ago Today!

On June 16, 2015, two days after Donald Trump’s 69th Birthday, the New York Real Estate Mogul announced his candidacy for the Republican Presidential nomination for 2016.

The seven years since that day have been a literal nightmare, with Trump declaring war on all of his Republican primary opponents and promoting racism, nativism, misogyny, and supporting domestic terrorism in the pursuit of his goal of destroying American democracy and promoting authoritarian Fascism.

His four year term was easily the most corrupt and divisive Presidency in American history, and he was determined to force his will on the nation, as the first losing candidate to refuse to accept defeat, and encourage his supporters to attack the US Capitol on January 6, 2021.

A cult has built up around Donald Trump which threatens stability and order, and Trump and his ilk remain dire threats to the future of American government and the world community at large, as he embraces authoritarian dictators and has undermined America’s allies around the world.

The future is tense and unpredictable, and the Republican Party has become a party of white supremacy, male dominance, and extremist right wing, working against the rights of racial and ethnic minorities, women, gays and lesbians, academic freedom in colleges and universities, and even public schools and libraries.

America is in the greatest crisis since the Civil War 160 years ago, and the future is not guaranteed to be one of democracy surviving.

Loss Of A Great Woman In American Diplomacy: Madeleine Albright (1937-2022)

America yesterday lost one of its greatest ever women public servants–former United Nations Ambassador and Secretary of State Madeleine Albright in the administration of President Bill Clinton.

Albright was brilliant, courageous, principled, and always spoke her mind as the first woman Secretary of State.

This author and blogger was fortunate to have the opportunity to attend a public lecture at Florida Atlantic University by Madeleine Albright a few years ago on the role of foreign policy in the American Presidency, and I was immensely impressed.

Being a refugee from both Nazi occupation of her homeland, Czecholovakia, and then again from Soviet takeover after World War II, Albright demonstrated the great value and contributions of refugees who emigrate to America, and is an excellent argument against the ever present nativism of hatemongers.

Albright learned of her Jewish heritage in recent years, as her parents converted to Catholicism to promote protection of their family, and she appreciated greatly learning of her heritage, which sadly included Nazi murder of three of her grandparents.

Albright opened up avenues of opportunity for women with her amazing performance in high pressure diplomacy, and she warned us in a recent book about the danger of the rise again of Fascism, condemning Donald Trump as a threat to America’s future.

Her warning of the danger of Donald Trump must be part of a massive effort to insure that neither Trump or anyone of his ilk makes it to the White House and beyond!

America And NATO Nations Must Welcome Ukranian Refugees And Overcome Nativism!

The crisis in Ukraine is creating a massive refugee problem, but the answer is that NATO and the United States MUST welcome Ukranian refugees, whether Ukranians or other nationalities, who are escaping the war against Russia, with welcome arms!

Nativism is totally unacceptable, so all of the nations in NATO, including the US, must welcome however many refugees are required, and overcome the hatred and bigotry promoted by Donald Trump and right wing talk radio and cable news stations, including Fox News Channel, One American News Network, and Newsmax!

America has always been a land of immigrants, including people escaping oppression, so there cannot be any attempt to close the doors, but rather accept the responsibility of a decent government and people to admit refugees and help them to recover from the wounds of war in their homeland!

Florida Republican Senator Rick Scott Declares War On The Poor, Women, Education, Immigrants And More!

Florida Senator Rick Scott, former governor involved in Medicare fraud, but winning two terms as Florida Governor and his one term in the Senate by very small one percent margins each time, is clearly thinking ahead about running for President.

It has been said that he resembles the villain Voldemort in the Harry Potter film series in appearance, except that his nose is not punched in as in the films, lol! 🙂

Scott is a miserable human being, who has no concern or empathy for anyone, and is one of the worst of the worst in the Republican Party!

He is now promoting a Republican agenda if they win control of both houses of Congress in the Midterm Congressional Elections of 2022.

If this is not enough to motivate Independents and Democrats to organize and vote in November, then nothing will!

Scott promotes a war on the poor, on women’s rights, on the teaching of American history and government, on immigrants, and on trans and gay people!

Scott also wishes to promote gun culture and make Christianity a part of government as theocracy, as well as violate voting rights, and revive the idea of a border wall with Mexico, that would be named after Donald Trump! 🙁

The code words of “socialism”, “wokeness”, and “globalism” are used as weapons to promote an extremist right wing agenda!

The Donald Trump Mafia And “Religious” Type Cult Controls The Remnants Of The Republican Party!

It is time to recognize that Donald Trump is like a Mafia Chieftan, a gang leader, a cult leader, with many so called “religious” people, both right wing evangelical Christians and Orthodox Jews, following his lead, and believing he is the savior of their America!

The Presidential Election of 2020 was the only time when America did not experience a peaceful transfer of power, as even after Lincoln was elected in 1860, his inauguration went forward without direct threat, although there was a “Baltimore Plot” that was prevented from success and open bloodshed!

Their America is one of racism, sexism, nativism, misogyny, Islamophobia, and even antisemitism, as well as worshipper of guns, and homophobic!

Donald Trump is clearly still a threat to national security and to American democracy, and it is essential to ban him from being able to run again for President, utilizing Section 3 of the 14th Amendment, as this author and blogger wrote about on this blog a few days ago.

But also, the conspirators of January 6, 2021 must be prevented from holding public office, as they are the true scum which has no regard for human life and safety!

Even when one of the worst conspirators of all, Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, has a relapse and admits the terrorist attack, along comes the evil Tucker Carlson of Fox News Channel, who intimidates him back into obedience to the cult!

The Republican Party is a very sick party, and a threat to the future of American democracy, and must be overcome on all levels, a battle for the ages to redeem what Abraham Lincoln spoke for during the Civil War!

CNN And Chris Cuomo Vs. Fox News Channel And Tucker Carlson, Laura Ingraham, Sean Hannity!

Cable News is in crisis, although one would not think so at Fox News Channel, while fully realistic of that fact at CNN.

Both cable news media corporations, as well as MSNBC, are far from perfect, but at least the culture around CNN is to take action when anchors at those channels become involved in “scandals” of one sort or another.

So CNN has fired Chris Cuomo, the highest ranked anchor, and brother of former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, who resigned in August in the midst of a sex scandal, due to his brother Chris intervening to help his brother in unseemly ways.

On the other hand, Fox News Channel has consistently over the years refused to discipline or fire its top anchors in the evenings, despite their open nativism, racism, misogyny, Islamophobia, and homophobia, all of which should be grounds for termination!

So Tucker Carlson, Laura Ingraham, and Sean Hannity spew forth constant lies, propaganda, and support Donald Trump and the January 6 Insurrection and the “Big Lie”!

There is nothing too low and disgraceful expressed by these three anchors to incite hatred and division that is not ignored by their company’s leaders, and including bitter attacks on Dr. Anthony Fauci and the actions of the US government trying to deal with the fallout of the COVID 19 Pandemic!

No decent human being would act the way these three talk shows hosts behave, and yet millions upon millions of Americans believe Fox News Channel and its anchors are God personified, and their tactics could lead to the outbreak of bloodshed and violence yet again in America in the short term and long term future!

So yes, criticize CNN, but be thankful that they have displayed a level of ethics and accountablity, that one has never seen from Fox News Channel!

Fareed Zakaria CNN Special From May 2021 Updated: “A Radical Rebellion: The Transformation Of The GOP”

The Welfare State–Secularism—changing racial situation.

Fareed Zakaria on a CNN Special today, updated from May 2021, entitled “A Radical Rebellion: The Transformation of the GOP”, presented an analysis of the disaster that the Republican Party has become:

in an era of conservatism attacking the concept of the Franklin D. Roosevelt New Deal and the Lyndon B. Johnson Great Society;

allowing Right Wing evangelical Christianity and theocracy to take over the party in the name of God;

and working against the reality that the white majority face a future in America of minority racial groups together being a majority of the population in about 2040-2045.

He covers from the John Birch Society in the 1950s;
to William F. Buckley, Jr and the National Review;
to Barry Goldwater and the conservative takeover in 1964, leading to massive victory of Lyndon B. Johnson and the Great Society;
to Richard Nixon and the “Southern Strategy”in 1968;
to Jerry Falwell and the “Christian Coalition” and the “Moral Majority” in the late 1970s and early 1980s;
to Ronald Reagan and the “Reagan Coalition” in the 1980s;
to Pat Buchanan’s challenge of George H W Bush in 1992;
to Newt Gingrich and the “Republican Revolution” of 1994 and after;
to the promotion of right wing propaganda and lies by Fox News Channel starting in 1996;
to George W. Bush and Dick Cheney in the 2000s;
to the Tea Party Movement rise under Barack Obama’s Presidency;
to the rise of Donald Trump in 2015-2016;
to the “Big Lie” about the Presidential Election of 2020;
to the January 6, 2021 US Capitol Insurrection;
to the present extremism in the Congressional and State Republican parties in 2021;
to the constant threat to women’s rights, including abortion;
to the right wing rejection of Gerald Ford, George H. W. Bush, Bob Dole, John McCain, and Mitt Romney as not conservative enough;
and the growing racism, nativism, antisemitism, Islamophobia, misogyny, and homophobia that have become alarming realities for the future of American politics!

Fox News Channel’s Tucker Carlson “A Clear And Present Danger” To Truth And American Democracy!

Fox News Channel has been an outlier since its creation by Rupert Murdoch in 1996.

It has the biggest audience of any cable news channel, but it has spewed forth right wing extremist propaganda for the past 25 years, including their persistent promotion of lies, mistruths, racism, nativism, misogyny and Islamophobia!

Its talk show hosts in the evenings–Sean Hannity, Laura Ingraham, and most significantly, Tucker Carlson–are demagogues who distort and divide for personal and company profit!

Tucker Carlson presents a “clear and present danger” to truth and American democracy, and his decision to create a documentary that denies the reality of what happened on January 6, 2021 is beyond the pale!

All of us who watched on television the Insurrection as it occurred, and all of the tens of thousands of hours of video that shows the destruction and assault on the US Capitol, are a permanent record of what was going on, and yet Tucker Carlson is claiming the events of that horrific day are a “false flag”.

This is propaganda worthy of Nazi Germany, Soviet Russia, and the authoritarian dictatorships spreading around the world in the attack on democracy that is now enveloping not just elsewhere but here!

Donald Trump is the most dangerous and demagogic political leader bar none—including such as Huey Long, Joseph McCarthy, George Wallace—in the past century!

The thought that any honorable media source would peddle such totalitarian propaganda is shocking, and Tucker Carlson is committing the ultimate felony of propaganda promoted by Joseph Goebbels in Nazi Germany, the spreading of lies that led to the massive loss of life in the Holocaust!

Voting Rights Extension 2006: 98-0 In Senate! Voting Rights Extension 2021–Rejected By Republicans!

Today is the 10th Anniversary of the dedication of the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial in Washington DC.

It is very clear what Martin Luther King Jr. would say if he was alive today–total anger at what the Republican Party, the party of Abraham Lincoln, has done–to work to destroy the 15th Amendment to the Constitution, and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 under Lyndon B. Johnson, and reaffirmed as recently as 2006, under President George W. Bush, when the US Senate voted 98-0 to renew it, with full backing of the Republican President and his party unanimously.

But now, in the age of Donald Trump and a Republican Party morphing into the old segregationist Southern Democratic Party from Reconstruction times to the 1960s, we are stunned to see not one Republican Senator—not even Mitt Romney, nor Ben Sasse, nor Lisa Murkowski, nor Susan Collins—willing to vote to overcome the filibuster tactic. This vote was just to consider and discuss and debate a Voting Rights Act to restore the damage done by the US Supreme Court in 2013 in Shelby County V Holder, and by many Southern and Western states legislatures since then, to restrict the right to vote, the bedrock of a democracy!

The Republican Party has lost its credibility completely as a serious alternative conservative party, and now is just a bunch of power seeking, phony so called “religious’ people, who are out to promote white supremacy, nativism and misogyny! They are out to promote election subversion and voter suppression and deny the right to vote to millions of Americans!

The party will not recover long term if it does not abandon Donald Trump now, and there is no sign of that occurring!