White Supremacy

“War” Between House Republican Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy And Congresswoman Liz Cheney

Ronald 1 Comment

The split in the House Republican minority after the January 6 Capitol Insurrection is widening, as a small band of House Republicans, led by Congresswoman Liz Cheney of Wyoming, daughter of former Vice President Dick Cheney, continues to denounce Donald Trump and criticize House Republican Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy of California for refusing to separate himself and the majority of the Republican House Caucus from continued support of the former President.

One must realize that 139 of the 212 Republicans in the House of Representatives refused to support the Electoral College vote of January 6, certifying the victory of Joe Biden over Donald Trump, and they are still remaining loyal to Trump, as he ponders running again for President in 2024.

They are traitors, seditionists, white supremacists, and domestic terrorists, who try to make what happened with the Capitol Insurrection seemingly nothing much at all, and Liz Cheney and about ten others have defied McCarthy, and Cheney is raising the ante, and McCarthy is working to undermine her third ranking position as Republican Conference Chairperson.

The future of the Republican Party and its reputation is at state, and it looks likely that the party as we know it is doomed in its future!

The Civil War “Ended” 156 Years Ago Today, But Actually Has Never “Ended”!

Ronald 2 Comments

It has been 156 years since the Civil War ended officially, with General Robert E. Lee surrendering at Appomattox Court House in Virginia to General Ulysses S. Grant.

It took until the early 20th century for a sense of nationalism to lead to the construction of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, DC.

But the South never truly changed, and still has not even now in 2021.

They still promote racism, white supremacy, antisemitism, anti labor rights, nativism, and evoke hypocritical belief in their own version of Christianity.

For a century, it was the Democratic Party spewing forth these ugly views in the South, and now it is the Republican Party, since the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

Of course, not all Southerners are oriented toward hate and narrow mindedness, and many Northerners have moved to the South and made the South become more cosmopolitan.

But rural Southerners still think they are in the Civil War Era, and are gaining the backing of the Republican Party in trying to limit the voting rights of people of color, and making even white workers to be subjected to limits on their ability to advance and move ahead!

Social Justice 53 Years After Martin Luther King Jr’s Assassination

Ronald Leave a comment

On this 53rd anniversary of the Martin Luther King Jr. Assassination in Memphis, Tennessee, it is sad that we see systemic racism still alive and popular among too many Americans.

The George Floyd murder trial; the Georgia legislation that puts voting rights under attack; the anti Asian attacks that have become so prevalent in the past year; the increased threat of domestic terrorism; and the continued attack on immigrants of all backgrounds are signs of the failure of social justice to make progress after King gave up his life in the quest for equity and fairness in society.

The Presidency of Donald Trump allowed people who promote racism, nativism, white supremacy, misogyny, antisemitism, Islamophobia to flourish, as Trump was George Wallace on steroids.

When Wallace ran for President in 1968 and won five states, 46 electoral votes, and 13 percent of the popular vote, it was shocking, but at least there was no way that Wallace could win the Presidency.

But a half century later, Donald Trump was able to gather the forces of hatred and win the Presidency, despite losing the popular vote by 2.85 million votes, and would go on to marshal his forces to promote undermining of American democracy, and continues to do so by promoting the lie that he won the Presidential Election of 2020, and inciting the US Capitol Insurrection of January 6, 2021!

So the commitment of Martin Luther King Jr. to human rights and social justice must continue with a new generation of committed leaders!

Georgia And The Outrageous “Jim Crow” Voting Limitations Against African Americans

Ronald Leave a comment

The state of Georgia once had a forward looking, decent Governor named Jimmy Carter, a half century ago.

The state of Georgia has, at present, two decent US Senators in Jon Ossoff and Reverend Raphael Warnock.

But it also has a corrupt, racist Republican state government, which has now passed outrageous “Jim Crow” voting limitations against African Americans, and without shame.

And as the legislation was signed, a Democratic legislator was arrested for simply knocking on the door of the office in which corrupt Governor Brian Kemp was in process of signing the legislation, which includes making it a crime for anyone to offer food or water to anyone waiting online, often for hours in hot weather, or simply elderly and needing food or water, as they wait to cast their vote in the elections.

This new legislation allows the state government to ignore election results, and declare the losers the winners of the election.

This is unadulterated racism, white supremacy, and Fascism, and will be appealed, and MUST be rejected and declared unconstitutional!

No decent person would support such a restriction on voting in a democracy, and it makes it more urgent that the Democratic Congress pass H.R 1 and H.R. 4, to guarantee voting rights to all Americans and flexibility in voting regulations!

The Senate Filibuster Designed For Obstruction, And Historic Denial Of Basic Civil Rights

Ronald Leave a comment

The US Senate is the greatest deliberative legislative body in the world, but also condemned in history for promoting denial of civil rights for people of color, particularly, but not only for African Americans.

The filibuster was used to prevent federal anti lynching laws in the years after Reconstruction and through to the 1950s by Southern Democrats, and then it was used to prevent basic civil rights laws, until Lyndon B. Johnson showed great courage, and used various tactics to overcome the denial of civil rights, and accomplish the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

Now, the Republicans have used it in the past decade to stop progress under President Barack Obama, and now are threatening the same under Joe Biden, and specifically in areas including voting rights, and inhumane treatment of various minorities, including people of color, women, gays and lesbians, disabled people, and immigrants from Latin America, Asia and Africa.

They claim the mantle of “minority rights”, but only for their narrowminded effort to promote white supremacy, and refuse to accept the reality of a multi ethnic and multi racial and diverse future America in the next 25 years.

The Senate has been an obstructionist legislative body, where Senators who represent far less than a majority of the population are able to prevent what a clear majority of the population wishes to see in the promotion of human rights and work against racism, nativism, misogyny, homophobia, antisemitism, and Islamophobia!

So a change, requiring a “spoken” filibuster, which used to be the norm, needs to be revived, and that will bring about the ability to overcome the filibuster in a short period, and allow for progress on so many important issues the Senate needs to address to advance American democracy!

Republicans Are Outrageous In What They Do NOT Care About!

Ronald 1 Comment

The Republican Party of 2021 is not offended by the destruction of the environment that has been going on in the past four years under Donald Trump.

They are not offended by the growth of childhood poverty due to the COVID 19 Pandemic and the economic collapse of the past year.

They are not offended by white supremacists carrying the Confederate flag into the US Capitol on the day of the Insurrection, January 6, 2021.

They are not offended by the loss of life to gun violence.

They are not offended by the reality of African Americans being killed by the police so often, and without consequences.

They are not offended by the dangers that members of Congress faced, along with the sitting Vice President Mike Pence, as a result of the traitors and seditionists who saw to bring harm to the Capitol Building on January 6, 2021.

They are not offended by the racism, nativism, misogyny, and homophobia of so many Republican members of Congress, as well as former President Donald Trump.

They are not offended by the inability of tens of millions of Americans to have a living wage, an increase in the minimum wage, while the top few percent of the nation keeps on gaining obscene levels of wealth.

These Republicans, who dominate the party, have no ethics, morals, scruples, conscience, common decency, compassion, empathy, or a sense of justice!

The 2021 Republican Party Is The Democratic Party Of 1861

Ronald Leave a comment

It has been 160 years since the outbreak of the Civil War.

The Democratic Party of 1861 was the party of secession, treason, sedition, and white supremacy.

The Republican Party was the party of the Union, and promotion of anti slavery expansion, and many of them were also anti slavery, promoting human rights and democracy.

Now, the Republican Party is the party of secession, treason, sedition, and white supremacy.

And the Democratic Party is the party of promotion of human rights and democracy.

This complete reversal, and the concept of the Republican Party fighting to prevent demographic change, and accept that America will be a multi racial society with a white population minority in 2045, is truly shocking!

It weakens the nation as it faces so many challenges internally, and in foreign policy!

With Donald Trump Appearing At CPAC, Republican Party Is In Process Of Suicidal Behavior

Ronald Leave a comment

The Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), occurring this coming weekend, is a situation of the Republican Party being in the process of suicidal behavior, by permitting Donald Trump to appear and rile his right wing base!

The Republican Party in Congress is imploding right now, between backing white supremacy and Christian Evangelicalism, and undermining the responsible conservative base, including Ben Sasse, Mitt Romney, Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski, Pat Toomey, Richard Burr, and Bill Cassidy in the Senate!

And the horrific reaction of Kevin McCarthy, House Minority Leader, to Liz Cheney, who has the principles and courage to make clear that Donald Trump cannot be allowed to be the future of the party, is a sign of long term decline. Instead of following Cheney, Adam Kinzinger, and eight other principled House conservatives, McCarthy is hitching his star to the crazed former President!

Fascism Is On The Horizon If Donald Trump Is Reelected: Warning Of Author Sinclair Lewis In His Work “It Can’t Happen Here” In 1935

Ronald 18 Comments

In 1935, Novelist Sinclair Lewis wrote a prophetic novel, “It Can’t Happen Here”, stating that what was happening in Fascist Italy under Benito Mussolini and Nazi Germany under Adolf Hitler, could happen in the United States. Lewis wrote that it would be “clothed in a flag and carrying a Bible!”

This was way before the horrors of Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany reached their peaks over the next decade, but already enough evidence of the dangers of the manipulation of minds with emotional rhetoric dividing groups in a society, based upon race, ethnicity, religion, and national origins.

Lewis was warning about the potential dangers represented by Huey Long of Louisiana, who was assassinated months later in 1935, with the story of his assassination covered in my book “Assassinations, Threats, and the American Presidency: From Andrew Jackson to Barack Obama” (Rowman Littlefield Publishers 2015, Paperback Edition 2017).

It could also be applied later, in the 1950s, to Senator Joseph McCarthy of Wisconsin; to third party Presidential candidate George Wallace of Alabama in 1968; and to President Donald Trump.

Only Trump, with his Fascist appeal, backed up by military, police and evangelical support, and rallies to appeal to those who are racist oriented, and also nativists, white supremacists at Charlottesville, antisemitic, Islamophobic, and misogynistic, is a clear and present danger, as he is the President of the United States.

He has stoked Fascist appeals as a manipulative method for the past five years since he announced his candidacy in 2015, and has set out to destroy all traditions and norms!

A lot of intelligent people, including those I know or knew, and also a lot of not so bright people who have emotional attachment to Donald Trump, since they are ignorant and share his horrific beliefs, have rallied around him.

And yet, many conservatives and Republicans who really care about our Constitution and rule of law, and the perpetuation of our democracy, are alarmed by Trump’s constant attack on “Fake Media”.

Trump calls everyone and everything which opposes his authoritarian bent as unAmerican. He waves the American flag as if he owns patriotism, when it is his critics who are truly patriotic, and care about human rights and freedom.

Donald Trump incites in a crazy manner on Twitter daily, and in the midst of the greatest crises since the Great Depression and World War II, he ignores and refuses to take responsibility for the Second Great Depression and the CoronaVirus Pandemic!

He stokes bloodshed and violence in attacking those who are promoting the need for racial healing, and encourages right wing hoodlums in the streets of Portland, Seattle, Kenosha and elsewhere,

This presents the danger of greater violence in the two months left to the Presidential Election of 2020, and the interim to the next inauguration, and his stated refusal to accept defeat if the election goes against him, an absolutely terrifying scenario!

It would seem that his opponents, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, face constant threats of assassination, and this author of a book on assassinations is truly alarmed that someone who is a Trumpite will attempt to do that!

If Trump is reelected, this nation will be threatened in its basic values in a way never having come to power with Huey Long, Joseph McCarthy, or George Wallace, despite these earlier threats in the 1930s, 1950s, and 1960s. It will be an authoritarian dictatorship without any control, a nightmare that will mirror the horrors of Fascist Italy and even Nazi Germany!

As Sinclair Lewis wrote in “It Can’t Happen Here”, it actually “Can Happen Here”!

It Is Official: The Republican Party Has Become A Cult Around A Strong Arm Authoritarian Out To Destroy American Democracy!

Ronald 8 Comments

The Republican National Convention began today during the daytime hours, and Donald Trump and Mike Pence were renominated for President and Vice President of the United States.

Donald Trump avoided tradition and spoke for an hour, ranting and raving against his “enemies”, reminding those who know history of Adolf Hitler at his Nuremberg rallies.

We are witnessing the Republican Party officeholders swearing their loyalty to a man who has lied 20,000 times in office; has promoted racism, nativism, misogyny, white supremacy; has become a friend of authoritarians and alienated democratic nations; has undermined the judiciary, intelligence agencies, the foreign policy apparatus, and attacked the news media as “the enemy of the people”; has bullied and attacked all of his critics incessantly; has undermined our environment and civil liberties; has refused to take strong action against the CoronaVirus Pandemic; has shown no sense of compassion, empathy, decency or dignity in any form; and a legion of others sins and shortcomings that has never been matched by any previous President in more than two centuries of American history!

The party of such Presidential luminaries as Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, Dwight D. Eisenhower, Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush has been shamed by Donald Trump!

The party of such Congressional luminaries as Charles Sumner, Robert LaFollette, Sr., George Norris, Arthur Vandenberg, and Everett Dirksen has been embarrassed by the weak kneed refusal of today’s Republican members of Congress to show some backbone to Donald Trump!

Face the facts: the Republican Party has become a cult, and is unlikely to come back into respectability, even after Donald Trump leaves the scene, as he has done so much damage and harm, that the Republican Party name may very well go into oblivion!