If I Were David Brooks

In case there is any confusion, I’m not David Brooks. I’m not connected with whatever relative or friend of a friend got him that cushy job at the NY Times where one can sit in solemn judgement and tell everyone else how they don’t understand things that one (the wisest of all wise white men) understands because of his life experiences and his…understandingness.

I’m just a guy who happens to be a scientist and engineer with an Ivy League doctorate who helped found a grassroots Indivisible chapter and has had a couple letters to the editor in the LA Times to my name. Despite (or is it because of?) that, I’m going to inflict my version of Brook’s column on anyone here, because I know you simply cannot help yourselves.

Yes, Trump is Guilty and Impeachment Is Hard, but It’s Our Republic (If We Can Keep It)

Donald Trump committed an impeachable offense on that call with the Ukrainian President. It wasn’t his first, and if he isn’t stopped soon, it is far from his last. And that is just one of the many reasons Democrats are right in starting a formal process of impeachment.

Remember, impeachment is a political process, not a legal one. It is there because the Founders recognized the inherent danger of the unitary executive as manifested by Trump. Congress is provided impeachment as a tool to balance the potential power of President, especially one who refuses to recognize limits to his authority. Given where we find ourselves right now, an impeachment process will be very good for America:

It is the right thing to do. While this is traditionally a slippery slope for politicians, in this case there is a clear and straightforward case to made for impeachment. Reaching the point where a Senate vote is required is critical. Senators will have to declare themselves - and answer for their votes to their constituents. As the Nixon experience shows, public opinion is susceptible to facts. As the ugly facts of this President (and his cronies) are exposed in hearings, support for his removal will grow.

Politicians are reluctant to take risks. When someone as pragmatic and restrained as Nancy Pelosi takes an action, she has generally left less to chance than one might think. The results of impeachment and removal may be ugly - but they are far more desirable than what will follow if the bully in the White House believes the Democrats will shrink from opposing him.

This is the job of Congress. Yes, we are in the middle of another election campaign (which never really ended, since Trump has been holding campaign rallies continuously since 2015). It is inconvenient to have to deal with the esoterics of impeachment when there are so many other problems that we are doing nothing about (like declining health of Americans, declining rates of insurance, climate change, mass shootings, and a President blaming the homeless for pollution) that men like David Brooks are sure could be fixed if everyone would just listen to him. 

We must remember that our Founders gave Congress the vital responsibility to oversee the Executive Branch and to act as a check and a balance. Also, that the American people gave the Democratic Party a majority in the House in 2018, in no small part because the GOP had declined to exercise that function. Americans like it when their elected representatives do the jobs they were elected to do. There is nothing like a Congress that rolls up its sleeves and does its damn job to defuse charges of elitism. 

The time is right. Pelosi has refused time and gain to proceed with impeachment, which has led to reactions ranging from annoyance to outrage by pro-democracy Americans. Her decision to move forward has been due to the rapid unfolding of public reaction to this story. And even though it’s only two weeks old, polls are already showing increased support for impeachment across all Americans. Support is higher right now than it was at the beginning of the Watergate hearings.

Of course, voters quizzing the candidates are asking about jobs and health care and climate change. They are interviewing candidates for their suitability, based on the quintessentially American optimism that the President will work to make these issues better. But there is another conversation that goes on as well, one about the danger posed to our system of government by a corrupt Administration. Without democracy, they know, we may be unable to address these issues at all.

In my personal and social media conversations, I have had contact with hundreds of people from across the country. Most of them have liked/shared/retweeted my messages expressing concern about the state of our republic and express (both with and without profanity) a wish to see the current occupant of the White House removed as expeditiously as possible. 

Trump is ill-prepared for this fight. Trump has inflicted this scandal on himself. He seems incapable of learning from past mistakes, and treats rules and norms as impediments to be flowed over, under, or around as long as no serious obstacle (or consequences) appear. The Democrats in Congress have spent the last three years watching and learning. Trump thinks the game is about “owning the libs” and appealing to his base. Pelosi, Schiff, and other key Dems know they have a simple, clear, devastating story about a President who violates his oath of office, betrays his country, and puts our foreign policy at risk by threatening a small, vulnerable, eastern European democracy just on the off chance they can dig up some dirt on a Democratic rival. This is the kind of fight they can win.

Removal of Trump will restore the faith of pro-democracy Americans in our government. These impeachment hearings would never have begun without the stalwart and persistent efforts of grassroots progressive and pro-democracy organizations, many of which were formed in the wake of the 2016 election and which represent the mobilization of hundreds of thousands of new activists. This broad set of groups, representing multiple demographic groups and political viewpoints that range from democratic socialist to Never Trump Republicans will become cynical if such obvious betrayals as the Ukrainian incident are not confronted - regardless of the outcome. Conversely, Pelosi’s recent announcement is hitting them like a double latte with extra coastal froth (or several cups of Sanka, depending where you’re from). 

This will energize the Democratic primary process. There is nothing like standing up for democracy against an enemy to get Americans to engage. Yes, the impeachment hearings will take some national media attention away from the latest failure of a candidate to give proper homage to an Iowa corn dog or the local variant of barbecue. But voters will still find time to make up their minds about who to vote for in national, state, and local elections. Of course, the Republicans will be bellicose, and will rise up in vitriolic attacks against anyone who might be a Dem frontrunner. But they will also be distracted by having to attack Nancy Pelosi or Adam Schiff or Elijah Cummings or whoever Trump and the Mercers tell them is their next target. 

Moreover, we have seen a clear pattern in Trump’s depredations against our norms and laws. With each passing week the corrosion has grown more severe, more far-reaching, and Trump himself less restrained. It is not unrealistic to consider the possibility that he will use the Presidency to either directly influence the vote itself, to enable proxies to do so at his behest, or will refuse to recognize a legitimate election that ousts him. He has test-driven each of these strategies in his public statements. His supporters in the GOP are desperate to remain in power and there is no reason to expect much restraint. 

Americans loyal to our democracy and not to the nativism of the GOP, must resist any such efforts. They must stand up for our republic. Nothing will inspire them more than their newly-elected Democratic House modeling exactly that kind of deep patriotism. We do need an election (or several) to save our country. Impeaching the President is the first step to ensure that election and our America.

America, My America - Part 3

Part 3: Let America Be America Again

Talking to my fellow activists this week, there were many who felt as we had reached an inflection or a stepping-off place; a door had closed behind us and we’d entered a new section of the maze that is America under Trumpism. It would be easy to attribute this vertiginous sensation to the lack of clear outcome in the Mueller hearings, but we’d already minimized our expectations. There are stories we could tell the causes, about fatigue or burnout, or our disappointment that Democratic control of the House has led to few concrete gains or cessation to the harms that Trumpism is causing people every day. But, more than any single thing, it was the collective realization that no matter how bad things are right now, it is entirely rational to expect that they will get worse. 

And that is where we start.

First, we need to recognize that the only way to absolutely guarantee that Trump and Trumpism retain power is for people to give up. We must understand that ceding power is not an option. Historian Timothy Snyder’s first rule in his Twenty Lessons on Tyranny is “Do not obey in advance.” Tyranny thrives when people are quiet, perhaps complaining in private, but otherwise passive and disengaged.

Moreover, there is nothing that Trump, the GOP, and Trump’s supporters would like more than for “the libs” to quit complaining. Those “complaints” saved the ACA and have kept the spotlight on abuses of immigrant families by CBP and ICE. When we call out or stand up to racist bullying, it forces Trump supporters to exercise their defense mechanisms (see Part 2), pushing them to confront their own internal contradictions and waste their energy in ranting. It also emboldens those who are on the sidelines (yes, still) because no matter how quiet they’ve been, they know it is wrong to yell “send her back” to a U.S. citizen, much less a sitting congresswoman. Remember that your speech and actions will have a positive effect on others.

[A brief note on self care is appropriate here. For any sort of emergency or disaster situation, first responders are taught that their number one priority is to keep themselves safe. They must survey the scene and understand the residual danger before helping someone. In much the same way, we have to survey the scene (our lives and our America) and understand what is safe (possible and sustainable) to do. We are each human, with human limitations. Acknowledging those limits and working within them will benefit us all in the long run.]

Where we go next depends upon whether one believes that America is facing an existential crisis or if this is just business as usual – another political struggle in which there are two sides having a reasonable disagreement about how to best achieve American goals. In fact, there is a debate on this topic currently ongoing within the Democratic part, and amongst progressive activists and strategists and media pundits.

The "business as usual" theory says that we must focus on persuading voters using a moderate policy agenda to peel off independents and Dems who voted for Trump. They assert that if we instead headline the racism and white supremacy that underpins Trumpism, we will drive away or discourage those independents and more-conservative Democrats (e.g., Obama-Trump voters). There are three inherent problems with that approach. The first is that experts in authoritarian governments, or those with experience in countries taken over by similar populist movements have noted that normal political tactics and strategies frequently are insufficient to remove the authoritarian from power and retire that movement from a position of influence in politics. In other words, “business as usual” politics will not suffice. 

The second is that soft-pedaling the GOP's racist agenda will be seen as acquiescence. It also centers the conversation on concern for the feelings of white people who might be made uncomfortable by open and forthright discussions of race, instead of centering on those bearing the brunt of racist speech, policy, and actions. Such timidity will only discourage minority voters, and drive down turnout. (It seems relevant to note that soft-pedaling or denying racism is both a GOP strategy and one adopted by Russian trolls on social media). In an excellent pair of twitter threads, Tim Wise (@timjacobwise) makes the case for using anti-racism as the unifying theme, based on his own experience with campaigns against David Duke in 1990’s Louisiana. He also dispenses with the idea of beating such a candidate on the conventional issues. In such a defeat, the white supremacist side simply regroups and tries again, because its basic premise remains intact. (Links to both threads can be found below.)

The third reason is the simplest.

It’s wrong. No, not incorrect. Immoral. Intolerable and incongruent with the ideas that make America our America.

For the first time in my lifetime, elected leadership of my country is actively and openly spewing rhetoric that helps white people feel comfortable with their racism. In past decades (pre-Tea Party), the Republican party had used white identity politics and racist tropes to win elections, but had also (usually) abided by civil rights laws and had (usually) publicly disavowed racists, keeping them on the fringes. Their cynical strategy was to do just enough to keep the white supremacists energized and voting, but deny them any real access to power. Because GOP leadership has since abdicated to the Tea Party / Trumpist wing (and the Kochs, Mercers, and other billionaires who fund them), and because the Democrats were complicit by their silence in all too many cases, and because white people in general treated white supremacy as taboo, or invisible, or just another political issue are all part of how we have arrived at this particularly dangerous juncture.

We can no longer wait and fix this later. To my fellow white men and women, I say that we cannot tell black and brown people to be patient and wait until the arc of history bends back to where it should be; the clock has run out. We must now do the work that white people in my father’s and grandfather’s and great-grandfather’s generation failed to do — to fulfill the promises of America to all Americans. If that is a bridge too far, if white “moderates” cannot bear to own the fact that the past injustices are not all past and forgotten and that they must work to do right by their brothers and sisters, then the rest of us must move forward and hope they catch up.

At this time, in this crisis, we have the painful gains of the past 150 years of American history as a platform and as moral leverage. It is time to stand up for the unequivocal fact that white supremacy deserves no place at the American table, and that the sins and horrors visited by systemic racism on our own citizens and those of other countries are the opposite of what we want our America to be.

We must be clear that, in our America, there is no excuse for allowing a white supremacy to set the public agenda, and that such an ideology is antithetical to the Constitution and the very idea of America.

We must confront white supremacy directly. In 1861, the white supremacist-controlled states seceded from the Union, turning their back on the idea of America. Half a million Americans died in the battles to keep that idea alive. In the 1950’s and 1960’s, black Americans and their allies. tired of the unfulfilled promises of the American ideal, forced the national conversation on racism and white supremacy that resulted in the Voting Rights Act. Most Americans look back on those events as being part of American progress — because they represented America being America. 

Today we face our original sin of white supremacy again. Trump has made it clear that he will be unswerving in his dedication to denying even our most accomplished and skilled Americans of color full participation in the life of our nation. And while there are real policy disagreements between the right and left, the underlying, fundamental source of those disagreements is whether or not we will treat all our citizens, regardless of race, as full participants in America. Our founding documents, our 24 decades of American progress, and the very idea of America all say that we must let America be America again.

Out of the rack and ruin of our gangster death,
The rape and rot of graft, and stealth, and lies,
We, the people, must redeem
The land, the mines, the plants, the rivers.
The mountains and the endless plain—
All, all the stretch of these great green states—
And make America again!
– Langston Hughes (1935)

Threads by Tim Wise:

1. https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1152930670093787141.htm
2. https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1154158572407808002.html

America, My America - Part 2

Part 2: America Besieged

Today, the idea of America is under assault.

This is not new, in and of itself. There are always people and ideologies that seek to erode the idea of America for their own profit or power. But today, as we approach third decade of the 21st century, the nexus of that assault is Trumpism and the common belief that binds its not-so diverse coalition together is white supremacy. Born out of reactionary, nativist talk radio and other media, enabled by lack of transparency into the political contributions of billionaires and corporations, and metastasizing in the fake-grassroots Tea Party movement, takeovers of state governments and a series of national elections in 2010-2016, Trumpism holds most of the power in our national government today. In the chaos that is Trump’s amateurish, unskilled approach to leadership and management, the one consistent thread is a nativist, racist, misogynist message that informs the words, policy, and actions of the Trump Administration, the GOP, and the GOP-controlled Supreme Court.

White supremacy is the password, the secret handshake that identifies a fellow member of the Trumpist clan, whether true believer or cynical opportunist. A dedication to white supremacy is the qualification that enables Stephen Miller to set policy on immigration for the US. John McCain’s refusal to embrace it and Trump is why, upon the death of the Senator, the White House had to be shamed into lowering their flag to half-mast. It is why Trump and the Tea Party embraced the juvenile, absurd conspiracy theory that President Obama had been born outside the U.S., and why so many members of the media and ordinary citizens gave it credence. It is the why behind the Muslim Ban, the forced, deliberate, and permanent separation of families seeking refuge in America, and the nativist bile and hatred directed at Congresswomen who are black or brown and have the courage to speak forthrightly in defense of both their constituents and vulnerable refugees.

Every day the evidence piles up. Today, July 27th, 2019, it was the story that Trump had once again used the language of disease and rot to refer to person of color and their neighbors. Yesterday it was stories about three-year-old girl who the Chief of Law Enforcement Operations of CBP indicated might be a threat to national security by dint of her brown skin and desire to return to her mother. Before, it was the 18-year old American citizen who was held for a month and starved by CPB because they didn’t like his brown skin and dark hair and eyes. 

It plays out in national policy decisions, when welfare for billionaires and corporations are prioritized because they will benefit “all” (or at least the deserving), when both historical and current data indicate they benefit the 1%. Meanwhile programs that measurably, historically keep Americans out of poverty or help them escape are denigrated as being giveaways to the undeserving (who, we are to understand, mostly have brown or black faces) by the GOP and propaganda outlets like Fox. 

It affects our foreign policy and our standing in the world. Trumpism’s focus on white supremacy has led us to begin rapprochement with Russia and to damage our ties to the democracies of Europe that share key ideals with a Constitutional America. It leads to cuts in foreign aid to Central American countries that are struggling in no small measure due to American interference. These countries are a significant source of immigration - and are fleeing because of the conditions in their home countries. A clear-eyed view would suggest that if we wanted decreased migration, then improvements in their home countries would decrease the number of people who need to flee. It is the annealing force of white supremacy and racism that keeps the Trumpist in line in the face of this kind of contradiction and irrationality.

Our governmental structure itself is visibly eroding. The simplest and most straightforward measure of that erosion is the frightening and unprecedented number of open or acting leadership positions in the Trump Government and the turnover in those positions. Notably, Homeland Security, Custom and Border Patrol, and Immigration and Customs enforcement are all run by acting directors. Only 41% of the key positions in the entire DHS structure are filled, about 30% having acting managers, and another 30% are unfilled. Yet no one in the Republican Party seems sufficiently concerned to make this an issue, and Trump’s supporters are unruffled. This despite the fact that national security and our borders are described as major policy concerns by the GOP and its supporters. Again, the cognitive dissonance and accompanying discomfort this should create is overridden by the solidarity of a shared fear and hatred of people who are different. To the Trump voter, Trump is an ideological kinsman because of the shared bond of white insecurity. And that is more important than a functioning government.

That this bond is unspoken and implicit gives it more power, as do cultural mores that have come to place racism in the column of bad, wrong, or evil things. To the Trump voter, deflecting criticism of Trumpism as “socialist” or “liberal” is a defense mechanism used to avoid confrontation with the underlying racial (or misogynistic) prejudices. The recent labeling of Representatives Tlaib and Omar as anti-semitic is another example of this inherently defensive reaction. 

The dissonance between between Trumpism’s ideological roots (white supremacy) and the American ideals of equality, integrity, and generosity also results in the curious over-identification with the symbology of America. This is part self-reassurance and part attempt to co-opt the appearance of the true America as a camouflage for the GOP's underlying lack of a coherent, positive  ideology. Think of Trump’s bizarre embrace of the American flag onstage at CPAC. If I love the flag then I am a patriot (and therefore good), so I cannot possibly be a racists because racists are bad and I am good. Whether it is the flag, the 2nd Amendment, adherence to the law (e.g., against unauthorized border crossing), or the unsupported belief in a magical past golden age of America, virtue by association is used for self-reassurance or to bash as unpatriotic (and therefore bad) anyone who is insufficiently enthusiastic or points out the verifiably mixed history of those symbols and their interpretations. 

Ultimately, the most destructive part of the inherent contradiction between white supremacy and the American ideal is that Trumpism absolutely must continue to violate our democratic norms and dismantle the institutions of democracy. No matter what rationale is provided (e.g., fiscal responsibility, libertarian values, the 2nd amendment), simple policy differences will not suffice to keep the Republican party and a reliably white supremacist agenda in power. A working democracy always relies on the will of the people, and Trump cannot hope to persuade much more than the current ~60% majority of white people who voted for him to adopt the white supremacist beliefs needed to provide him unwavering support. The coalition consisting of minorities and white people who reject white supremacy is too large (and growing). And however imperfectly and unevenly, the long-term trend has been toward a more diverse, more just, more equitable culture. In this current day, the degree of handwringing and angry defensiveness that accompanies even the calmest assertion of the fact of Trump’s or other GOP member’s racist behavior is clear evidence that even most Trump supporters see racism as a moral sin and as evil. 

And that is why we can return America to itself. 

America, My America - Part 1

Part 1: My America
I've got a lot on my mind these days. Any moderately conscious person knows that America is divided to an extent not seen since the civil war. And that the tone of our discourse, public, private, or political is less productive than it should be.
But there is one specific worry, one thread, one splinter under my thumbnail, one itch on the sole of my foot, one sharp pain behind my left eye that will. not. stop.
I'm losing my America.
My America, the one that stood, clear-eyed and fearless and said "give me your tired, your poor" and had the audacity to claim it was self-evident that all people were created equal – and then tried and failed and tried and failed and tried some more to live up to those impossible words – is slipping away each day. I can feel it.
There’s an America that built an economy on the backs of people kidnapped from Africa, and using stolen land; then granted those slaves their freedom but then selectively denied them the essential voice of the ballot for another hundred years and then enacted new laws to force racist white men and women to cease that form of oppression; that has now returned to it in the form of subtle and surgically precise methods used to deny the votes of black and brown men and women, and subsequently cured one outbreak of voter suppression in North Carolina and a second in Pennsylvania but allows others to persist in Georgia and Florida. But that’s not exactly my America.
I’m not losing the America of the scrubbed and sanitized histories I was taught in school, that told me about Europe’s “discovery” and (re)settlement of the Americas, but not of the genocide of 130 million indigenous men, women and children. And I’m not losing the taught America of westward expansion and manifest destiny that failed to mention of the Trail of Tears and Wounded Knee. Where I learned of the Civil War and the triumph of the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments, the end of chattel slavery and their promise of full citizenship and civil rights for former slaves, but not the unforgivable failure to meet those promises in the terror, rape, and murder of Jim Crow. 
No, I’m thinking about my America. I understand the America of our true history, which documents the paradoxical country that defended of freedom against the tyranny of fascism and Naziism but also installed or supported dictators in Chile and Central America and Iran. I’m familiar with the America that refused a home to Jews fleeing the rise of Hitler but rescued Jews from concentration camps less that a decade later. I know the one that today hails Martin Luther King, Jr. as a hero in death but condemned him in life as a radical and an anti-American and assassinated him.
These things were all done by America the country, by America the nation. By the corporate and aggregate grouping of people under a flag and molded into a set of institutions that sometimes enact the will of the majority but too often the whim of the powerful. But I’m not speaking of that. And I’m not speaking of the American government, of institutions that have an unnerving tendency to choose their own preservation over the good of the people or ideals they are intended to serve.
None of those things are sufficient to be my America.
My America must be sought in these words:

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

Mine is the more perfect, perfectible Union. Mine is that dream to which we aspire, the ideals to which we must cling. It is made not of leaders and heroes, not of building or monuments, not even of national symbols like our flag. Because these are people and things. And no matter how good and how loved, they are still intrinsically flawed and transient. They can fail or be corrupted or fall short. They all pass away. Which is why the oath of office of the President does not say she will defend our institutions or preserve our government or protect our people or our actions or our history. Instead, it says he will “preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States.” Because the Constitution is not just the document carefully preserved in the National Archives. It is ideas expressed in word and given flesh and bone and concrete and steel by people who honor, apply, and live out those ideas.
My America is an idea.

Like any truly great idea it must be both shared and carefully tended if it is to survive, much less burgeon and prosper. Should we hoard it and build a high wall or fence of steel slats around it, it will wither. Should we hew only to its symbols and forget that they mean not just respect for the military but also mean the right to live without fear of mistreatment or murder by police, the idea of America will atrophy and fade. And when we discard its principles in the interest of expediency or gain, we tarnish and corrode the institutions that should reflect our ideal America.
That is where we begin, because my America is slipping away. Now.

Tomorrow:

Part 2: America Besieged