reflectivepundit

Our Greatest Problem is Not Covid but the Imminent Threat to Our Democracy

This week’s first anniversary of the breach of the Capitol by Trump supporters will be another shocking display of the fragile state of our democratic system of governance. Whereas President in a speech and congressional Democrats in a vigil plan to honor the defenders of our democracy and their elected representatives, the former president and his sycophants are reported to plan a strong defense of the violence of January 6, 2021 and its perpetrators. Nothing displays the political divide in America more shockingly than those two opposing views about the assault on Congress a year ago—one based on reality and truth, the other on “alternative reality” and lies.

Political polarization is what serves authoritarian politicians best. As Ruth Ben-Ghiat writes in her book Strongmen: Mussolini to Present, “authoritarians hold appeal when society is polarized, or divided into two opposing ideological camps, which is why they do all they can to exacerbate strife.” This helps to explain the rise and continuing appeal of Donald Trump among many millions of Americans.

The starting point was the Tea Party movement that arose in early 2009 in response to the election of Barack Obama and sharpened the partisan and ideological divergences of political elites and the public at large. When Trump became the public face of the birther conspiracy theory that had massive support among Tea Partiers, he won over what became his core support in his run for the presidency—Tea Party supporters and evangelical Christians, many of whom sympathized with the reactionary Tea Party agenda.

During his candidacy and presidency, Trump appealed relentlessly to the emotions of his base and possible converts to his MAGA movement. It is highly revealing what the then GOP candidate Trump told Washington Post reporters Bob Woodward and Robert Costa in an interview in March 2016 about two powerful emotions he recognized,  

• “Real power is—I don’t even want to use the word—fear.”
• “I bring rage out. I do bring rage out. I always have.”

Thus, the titles of two Woodward books on Trump (FEAR and RAGE); the third book, co-written with Costa is titled PERIL (perhaps meant to be the result of stirring fear and rage in the MAGA movement?).

Ultimately, emotions, not rational choices are the main drivers of political and policy preferences. And fear and anger/rage are among the most potent ones.

President Biden and Democrats Must Wake Up and Defend Democracy

By Brigitte L. Nacos

President Joe Biden has yet another talk with Senator Joe Manchin. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer tries to keep the Before-Christmas deadline to hold a vote on the Build Back Better bill. The House Select Committee on January 6 digs deep into the horrific facts of that day.

As important as all of the above may be, everything pales in comparison to the existential threat that President Biden and congressional democrats fail to deal with aggressively—even at the expense of other items on their agenda.

I cannot get a recent column by Michelle Goldberg of the New York Times and a recent article by Barton Gellman of The Atlantic out of my mind. Goldberg in “The Problem of Political Despair” and Barton in “January 6 was Practice” lay out the clear and present danger to our democratic values and American democracy itself.

The insurrection attempt by domestic terrorist groups and Trump supporters as well as the coup attempt by the former president and his clique of enablers inside and outside the White House failed nearly a year ago. But there are plenty of signposts that the Trumpian Big Lie about the outcome of the 2020 presidential election results has a good chance to prevail in 2024.

The mid-term elections next year will preview the effectiveness of GOP majority states to destroy fair elections as we know them.

Whether the former president decides to run again in 2024—or not, the one-time Grand Old Party does no longer exist. The Trump Party has become the theater of the absurd in which would-be performers deliver shock messages and threaten political opponents.

A recent podcast performance by “War Room” host Steve Bannon and his guest Congressman Matt Gaetz was a case in point. They talked about  an “army of patriots” and “shock troops” as they previewed a future in which Trump was president again.

Bannon: “This is Trumpism in power. That's when we went to the 4,000 shock troops we have to have that's going to man the government. Get them ready now. Right? We're going to hit the beach with the landing teams and the beachhead teams and all that nomenclature they use when President Trump wins in 2024 — or before."

Gaetz: “And we're going to go after this administrative state and we're going to start at the Department of Justice and the FBI. That's the job I want. You know, send me over to the Judiciary Committee and their sphincters will tighten because they have been doing a lot of corrupt things over there."

Oh, yes, one wants to laugh—just as many of us did, when Trump announced his presidential candidacy in the summer of 2015. Then, he was merely a spent reality show performer with birther conspiracy theorists on his side. Now, he controls a major party whose members are on bended knees to please their dear leader and progressing rapidly in the destruction of our electoral system—and our democracy.

Democrats in Need of Soundbite Messages

By Brigitte L. Nacos

In today’s print edition of the New York Times a full-page column by Ezra Klein is headed by the headline, “Can Democrats Find A Winning Message?” (The online version has a different title). This is a pressing question for those who still hope that Donald Trump’s handiwork in favor of illiberal democracy and authoritarian rule can be stopped. Klein’s opinion piece analyzes the dire predictions of election analyst David Shor, who foresees for the near future massive losses for Democrats in the U.S. Congress, most of all the U.S. Senate. That is not only based on the undemocratic electoral process set up by the U.S. Constitution, but also on the disability of the Democratic Party and its leaders to translate even the most attractive and most publicly supported features of their and President Biden’s agenda into compelling soundbites understood by the American public at large.

These are the terms that Americans hear from Democrats in Washington day-in and day-out—not only in their conversations in the halls of Congress and the White House but also in their appearances in television and radio, in their tweets, and in their coverage by the press: reconciliation bill, filibuster, John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, and so on.

Go out and meet regular people and ask them about the purpose of the voting rights advancement act. Or the filibuster controversy and the content of the reconciliation bill that Democrats are fighting about. Or the filibuster controversy.

Compare that to Trumpian soundbites:

Stop the Steal, Save America, Make America Great Again, America First. These are simple, catchy phrases.

Go out and ask regular Americans what is meant with MAGA and the other slogans above. Most know.

It is not enough for the fighting so-called liberals and progressives within the Democratic camp to get onto the same message. Although that is a precondition at a time, when democracy is under attack from the former president, his supporters, and those who disagree but fear to say so publicly.

Democrats needs to translate their bureaucratic messages into simple words that every American can understand. Soundbites that bite.

Soundbites that speak to the hopes and fears and anger that drives red and blue America further apart yet. At Trump’s rally last night in Iowa, one of his female supporters told a reporter with emphasis that the “civil war” was coming. Must come. Just one illustration of dangerous polarization in our country.

More than two decades ago, Jeffrey Scheuer wrote in his book “Soundbite Society: Television and the American Mind” that TV news was “filtering out complex ideas in favor of blunt emotional messages that appeal to the self and to narrower moral-political impulses.”

According to Scheuer, this obvious bias in favor of simple messages was not the result of intentional slants but rather the nature of the medium—TV with limited air time.

For the Right, there was and still is typically the choice between right or wrong, good or evil. Perfect for short soundbites. For Liberal, these differences were and still are far more complex to press into a meaningful soundbite.

The TV soundbite society of then has long expanded to an overall soundbite society—and not only because of Twitter’s limited text requirement.

In the last decade, but especially since Donald Trump appeared on the political stage in a starring role, aggressive, violent, shocking, insulting, threatening soundbites have become the most-used propaganda weapons of Trump’s Republicans.

Democrats must not copy the viciousness of Trumpian soundbites. But they need to quickly translate the policies they want to enact into simple, effective messages.

That’s not an easy task.

But without making it an urgent effort and succeeding, David Shor’s disheartening predictions may well come true in 2022, 2024 and beyond.  

The Two Decades since 9/11 Changed the Country for the Worse

By Brigitte L. Nacos

The attacks of September 11, 2001, by far the worse deadly strikes on the American mainland from the outside, are rightly remembered on the 20^th anniversary as a dark day in the history of the United States. But 9/11 was also a heroic day as far as first responders were concerned many of whom lost their lives as they tried to rescue fellow-Americans from the falling Twin Towers of the World Trade Center.

9/11 was also a day, when true patriotism overcame the shock of what seemed an unimaginable act of evil masterminded by Al Qaeda’s Osama bin Laden and his henchmen. Yes, true patriotism. About nine months after the U.S. Supreme Court decided the outcome of the 2020 presidential election in favor of George W. Bush, a very controversial decision, partisan and ideological differences made room for unity. When members of Congress appeared jointly in front of the Capitol, there was no division. The message was clear: Leaders in Washington and elsewhere—and we, the people, were not Democrats or Republicans now, they and we were first of all Americans.

As time went by, for sure, rumors and conspiracy theories circulated. The so-called Truthers sought and claimed to have found proof for a CIA/government plot that destroyed the WTC and part of the Pentagon. But while Trutherism found many believers in the post 9/11 era, these conspiracy theorists did not violently invade the U.S. Congress and threaten Democratic governors and state legislators.

Instead, in our own communities, common sense for the good of the whole prevailed. Most of the time. Especially, when problems and issues concerned our children and grandchildren. In school board meetings, parents disagreed. But they did not threaten and physically attack each other or the teachers of their children. 

Today, twenty years after 9/11, the “Stop-the-Steal” and QAnon conspiracy theories continue to fuel political and social polarization. While Al Gore gave a gracious concession speech and pledged his full support to George W. Bush, the former president and his supporters continue to spread the Big Lie that Donald Trump won the 2020 election. The Big Lie motivated lawless right-wingers to attack the very foundations of our democracy.

On September 11, 2001, 3,000 innocent Americans lost their lives. Reason enough to commemorate the victims and the courageous first responders.

Twenty years later, the Covid-19 pandemic has taken so far 660,000 lives in the United States—220 times more deaths than on 9/11. Of late, close to 1,500 Covid-19 infected persons die in this country every day. One 9/11 in two days!

And yet, given the political and social polarization, there is no nation-wide pulling together as Americans first.  

On 9/11, America was attacked by foreign terrorists.

Today, America is threatened by home-grown terrorists. By White Supremacists/Neo-Nazi groups and radicalized individuals who talk about a coming civil war. They feel emboldened by one ex-president and one political party that continue to downplay the breach of the Capitol on January Sixth.

Yes, the two decades after 9/11 did change the country—change it for the worse.

Not Racial, Ethnic, and Religious Diversity but White Supremacy and Crazy Conspiracy Theories Loom as Serious Threats to U.S. Democracy

By Brigitte L. Nacos

In his 2011 book “Suicide of a Superpower: Will America Survive to 2025?” the one-time presidential speechwriter, presidential GOP candidate, and to this day right-extreme pundit Patrick J. Buchanan characterized the essence of a nation as “a people of common ancestry, culture, and language, who worship the same God, revere the same heroes, cherish the same history, celebrate the same holidays, share the same music, poetry, art, literature, held together, in Lincoln’s words, ’by bonds of affection…mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battle-field, and patriotic grave, to every living heart and heath-stone.”

Given those characteristics, Buchanan lamented, “the European and Christian core of our country is shrinking” and “the death of its [America’s] cradle faith brings social disintegration, an end to moral community, and culture war.”

 He left no doubt that the election of President Barack Obama represented the greatest threat to the survival of “his” idea of America. And in his prescriptions to save the European-Christian America included a moratorium on immigration and rolling back any progressive gains won in what Buchanan labeled the [liberal] culture war.

Not only pundits like Buchanan but also some well-known scholars have long warned of the evils of multiculturalism. In 2004, the late Harvard political scientist Samuel Huntington chose as the lead in his article “The Hispanic Challenge” the following paragraph,

“The persistent flow of Hispanic immigrants threatens to divide the United States into two peoples, two cultures, and two languages. Mexicans and other Latinos have not assimilated into mainstream U.S. culture, forming instead their own political and linguistic enclaves—from Los Angeles to Miami—and rejecting Anglo-Protestant values that build the American dream. The United States ignores this challenge at its peril.”

It is ironic that President Joe Biden warned the other day in his Memorial Day that “democracy itself is in peril,” using the same term as Huntington. But the peril Biden spoke of has a very different meaning than the peril Huntington meant.  

Whereas Huntington and Buchanan saw multicultural challenges to what Isabel Wilkerson described in her recent book “Caste: The Origins of our Discontents” as a system of White caste dominance, Joe Biden invoked the beliefs and values of true Christianity and inclusive democracy, when he said, “Wherever Americans are, there — there is democracy: churches and synagogues and mosques, neighborhoods and coffee shops and diners, bleachers at kids’ baseball or soccer games, libraries and parks.  Democracy begins and grows in the open heart and the impetus to come together for a common cause…Americans of all backgrounds, races, creeds, gender identities, sexual orientations, have long spilled their blood to defend our democracy.  The diversity of our country and our arm- — and of our armed services is and always has been an incredible strength.”

Women’s Liberation reached the White Supremacy/Neo-Nazi Movement: Females had Leading Roles in the Capitol Breach

By Brigitte L. Nacos

“I can’t predict. I don’t understand the resolve of the Deep State. Biden may still yet be our president. If he is, our way of life as we know it is over. Our Republic would be over. Then it is our duty to fight, kill and die for our rights.” This was the answer given by Jessica Watkins, the self-described commander of an Ohio militia affiliate of the Oath Keepers, when asked by one of her recruits after the 2020 presidential election what she predicted for the new year 2021.

Following the violent assault on the Capitol earlier this year, Watkins received a great deal of news coverage because of her prominent role in the preparation for and execution of the violent invasion. Along with eight others in the Watkin’s led group she was indicted by a Grand Jury of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia with conspiracy to stop, delay, and hinder the congressional certification of the Electoral College vote and four other crimes.

Lost in the “breaking news” barrage in the post-January 6^th days and weeks was the starring role of a surprisingly large number of females among the first wave of violent intruders. Four of the nine members of the Watkins group were women—besides Army veteran Jessica Watkins who is 38 years old, the others were significantly older females: Laura Steele (52), Connie Meggs (59), and Sandra Parker (60).  As surveillance video from the Capitol shows, these four women were in the thick of the crowd pushing into the Rotunda.

 While important as supporting cast, women did not participate directly in violence in right-extremist movements of the past, including White Supremacy/neo-Nazi movements. That was in stark contrast to violent left-extremist movements and groups starting with the anarchists of the 19^th century and more pronounced in the Marxist terrorist organizations of the 1970s and 1980s. Some of the latter, such as the Red Army Faction in then West Germany, had at times more women in the leading strata than men. And females were instrumental in planning and carrying out brutal terrorist attacks. Thus, a saying in some police circles was, “Shoot the women first…”

Now, it seems that female White nationalists are no longer excluded from violent activities of their movement. On the first Friday in March, there were a total of 259 persons charged with crimes in the January 6^th breach of the Capitol according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office, District of Columbia.

More remarkable, of those 259 defendants, 31 were women. When adding Ashli Babbitt, a 35-year-old Air Force veteran, who was shot by Capitol police as she forcefully tried to enter the Speaker’s lobby near the House chamber, 12,4% of those forcefully storming into the Capitol were females as aggressive as their male counterparts—in deeds and words as the following examples show:

Shame on Mainstream Media for Publicizing another Trump for Political Office

By Brigitte L. Nacos

It is well-document that the most influential organizations of the U.S. mainstream media—from CNN to the New York Times and Washington Post—singled out Donald Trump for the bulk of their election-related coverage. This was the case in 2015 before and in 2016 during the Republican primaries. The celebrity candidate, however rude and insulting, received significantly more and more positive coverage than his competitors on the GOP side but also with respect to Hillary Clinton. Only after he had won the presidential nomination, did the same news organizations finally scrutinize the least qualified and the most dangerous of all candidates. It was too late.

While these same newsrooms deserve credit for their watchdog role during the nightmarish years of the Trump administration, they seemed not to have learned from their past mistakes in 2015/16. Again, they help—unwittingly, I assume—to pave the way for another Trump’s political career.

I was shocked this morning, when I first saw on Yahoo’s home page a story on Lara Trump, Donald’s daughter-in-law, under the headline “Lara Trump for North Carolina Senate Seat?” The article originated in the New York Times and was, as the story revealed, teased by Donald Trump’s enabler-in-chief Lindsay Graham, Senator of North Carolina, who told FOX News that the pro-conviction vote by Richard Burr of North Carolina in the Senate’s impeachment trial “made Lara Trump almost the certain nominee for the Senate seat” in that state.

So, the ambitious Trump through marriage, whose political ambitions had already been covered quite generously before, won another plum piece of free media without saying a single word or doing a single thing—just like father-in-law Donald whose ample free news in 2015/16 freed him from pleading for donations or spending his own money.

The news media must not become the former president’s substitute for his no longer available Twitter account but treat him like any former ex-president, better less so, although the FOX News newsrooms and their competitors will be delighted to serve as his bullhorns.

Just as important, the influential mainstream media must refrain from providing free publicity to other members of the Trump Clan: his sons, his daughters, daughters-in-law, and son-in-law.

When it comes to Mr. Trump and his family, journalists, editors, producers—all in the mainstream media must act according to George Santayana’s aphorism, "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”

I do not expect that they will.

Trump and the Madman Theory: A Madman Without a Theory

 By Brigitte L. Nacos

In his book “The Madman Theory: Trump Takes on the World” Jim Sciutto applies President Nixon’s so-called “Madman Theory” to President Trump. But whereas Richard Nixon and his National Security Adviser/Secretary of State Henry Kissinger had some, however crazy plan as they tried to convince adversaries of a president mad enough to resort to weapons of mass destruction to get concessions, Trump and his advisers never had a plan.

Now, after four crazy years, there is still a madman, a would-be tyrant and his hardcore followers trying to overthrow America’s more than 200-year-old democracy. What we have witnessed during the last four years and especially since Trump’s electoral defeat two months ago has been a huge step away from democratic principles—most of all the acceptance of election results by winners and losers in the pluralist system of governing.

As I watched FOX New last night at a time when Georgia’s election returns indicated a possible double win for the Democratic Party in the run-off for seats in the U.S. Senate, I heard hysterical outcries about those two “communists” ahead of their patriotic opponents. Given the long-used labels “communists” and “socialists” attached to “extreme liberals” by Trump and his propagandists, the time has come to call the Trumpian fascist movement no longer benignly “conservative” or “the conservative right,” they are in reality autocrats and, yes, they are fascists trampling on the rule of law.

At the end of his book “The Anatomy of Fascism” Robert O. Paxton details what he calls the “mobilizing passions” of fascism, among them,

• the belief that one’s group is a victim, a sentiment that justifies any action, without any legal or moral limits, against its enemies, both internal and external;

• the need for authority by natural chiefs (always male), culminating in a national chieftain who alone is capable of incarnating the group’s historical destiny;

• the beauty of violence and the efficacy of will, when they are devoted to the group’s success.

We see these fascist mobilizing passions at play right now at work in Washington, D.C. and around the country with the President of the United States Donald Trump in the starring role. We see these fascist mobilizing passions in the two chambers of Congress where too many GOP Senators and Representatives violate the oaths they swear to the U.S. Constitution. And we see these fascist mobilizing passions in the social media posts of online fascists who are devoted to and courted by their Dear Leader.

In two weeks, there will be a changing of the guards in Washington. Joe Biden will become U.S. President, and Kamala Harris will become U.S. Vice-President.

But to assume that the fascist passions will evaporate once Biden and Harris move into the White House would be naïve. The Madman without Theory will not go quietly into a post-presidential life.

                                                                                                              ***

I wrote the above post a few hours before Trump's fanatic followers unleashed terror in the halls of the U.S. Congress. While the violence did not surprise me at all, I watched in amazement the thin or non-existent law enforcement presence in and around Capitol Hill. Assuming that the Department of Homeland Security, the FBI, and other agencies kept track of violent online extremist communities, law enforcement was fully aware that many fanatic Trump followers heard their idol's call to come to Washington and fight for his second term. Whereas overwhelming military and police might threatened peaceful "Black Lives Matter" demonstrators in the capital last year, the White Supremacists, typically insisting on their right to wear arms, met no serious resistance as they entered through doors and windows into congressional buildings.

After inciting and watching the seditious horror show for hours Donald Trump finally asked his terrorist followers to "go home" assuring them that he loved them...

 

 

The President Who Stole Christmas

By Brigitte L. Nacos

There will not be a Merry Christmas this year. Not in the United States of America.

Every day is now more deadly than were the horrific attacks of 9/11. Every day now, more than 3,000 Americans die as result of the Covid-19 pandemic. So far, more than 311,000 have succumbed to the illness. To put it differently, America has suffered the equivalent of 104 deadly 9/11 attacks!

Every day now, public health experts tell us that grimmer times are still to come. This morning’s heart-wrenching projection was a likely death toll of more 560,000 coronavirus victims in the U.S. by April 1, 2021.

And, yet, there is no public outcry, no public mourning. The most visible public activism is displayed by those who falsely claim to act in defense of their individual liberty and fight against mitigating health measures.

104times 9/11 in terms of lost souls seems less of a national nightmare than 9/11, when a divided nation united behind a crisis-managing president and consoler-in-chief, George W. Bush. Most embraced the notion, “Now, we are not Democrats or Republicans—we all are all Americans.”

There is no such spirit of unity and togetherness now. Just the opposite.

Unlike previous presidents, Donald Trump has not even tried to unite the country and discharge his most important duty: protecting the lives of Americans.

Instead, he denied, minimized, and completely ignored the most serious health crisis in a century at various stages. He called Covid-19 a political hoax, discredited and acted personally contrary to health experts’ mitigating guidelines, and cued his supporters to follow his dangerous words and deeds. Instead of listening to the best public health experts in the White House Covid-19 Advisory Board, Trump and his coterie sided the quackery of unqualified voices that advocated the debunked herd-immunity thesis.

As the first vaccine became available, the cheer leaders of one-term President suggested to name it “Trump Vaccine” in honor to all the good their hero has done to defeat Covid-19.

Instead, this catastrophic health saga will be remembered as the “Trump Virus” because the 45^th president knew early on how deadly this virus was and is but refused to take any mitigating actions to minimize the spread of the coronavirus.

To be sure, even if strict measures were implemented early on, Covid-19 would have taken many lives here as it did in other countries.

But this president’s complete failure of acting decisively in concert with sound scientific advice cost according to public health experts many, many more lives—probably hundreds of thousands! And many more will die in the weeks and months ahead.

No, there will not be Christmas as we know it in America. The man who stole it is President Donald Trump.

He stole it from those more than 310, 000 dead fellow-Americans and those close to them.

He stole it from those who lost their jobs and their small businesses.

He stole it from those who stand in long lines at food banks and soup kitchens.

He stole it from those children whose families face eviction from their apartments.

He stole it from Americans who seem strangely fatalistic in the face of an unspeakable crisis.

And, unlike the Grinch who stole Christmas in the famous cartoon, the man who stole this upcoming holiday in our real lives will not change his heart and mind.

Trump’s Hateful Rhetoric and Political Violence

By Brigitte L. Nacos, Robert Y. Shapiro, and Yaeli Bloch-Elkon

On September 29, 2019, with his impeachment looming, President Donald Trump (@realDonaldTrump) retweeted a warning by the Evangelical Pastor Robert Jeffress, “If the Democrats are successful in removing the President from office it will cause a Civil War like fracture in this Nation from which our Country will never heal.” Two days later, U.S. Representative Louie Gohmert, a Republican of Texas, warned Democrats that their “coup” was “pushing America into a civil war.”[1] On far-right websites Trump supporters suggested drastic and even violent actions against the “enemy” within. Some warned that they may need to exercise their Second Amendment rights—in other words, take up arms against the traitors. Responding to one of Trump’s daily Twitter attacks on Adam Schiff, the leading U.S. Representative in the impeachment inquiry, his followers seconded the President’s rhetorical assaults. One male commenter attacked Schiff as “a co-conspiratory [sic] in a coup attempt. This is treason.” That same day, a 52-year old man in Tucson, Arizona, left a death threat on Schiff ’s voice mail. “I’m gonna f_ing blow your brains out,” he warned.[2] The would-be attacker told police officers that “he watches Fox News and likely was upset at something that he saw on the news.” He also stated that “he strongly dislikes the Democrats, and feels they are to blame for the country’s political issues.”[3] In his residence, the police found an AR-15 assault rifle, two pistols, and 700 rounds of ammunition.[4] Although these examples of hate speech and threats of violence seemed shocking, they were merely iterations of Trumpian rhetoric and signposts for significant increases in right-extreme violence and school bullying in the United States. Our research found that Trump’s online and off-line hate speech corresponded with his followers’ aggressive rhetoric, violent threats, and actual violence against Trump’s declared “enemies,” most of all, minorities, the news media, and oppositional politicians.

For the comprehensive research report on the links between Trump's aggressive words and the growth of right-extreme violence read our just published article in the online journal Perspectives on Terrorism.