Blood of Our Ancestors

The 45th and possible 47th President of the United States of America:

You know, when they let, I think the real number is like 15, 16 million people into our country, when they do that, we got a lot of work to do.  They’re poisoning the blood of our country. That’s what they’ve done. They’ve poisoned ... mental institutions and prisons all over the world. Not just in South America. Not just in the three or four countries that we think about, but all over the world they’re coming into our country. From Africa, from Asia, all over the world. They’re pouring into our country. Nobody’s even looking at them. They just come in. The crime is going to be tremendous.

Mehdi Hasan asks the conventional rhetorical question.

Not sure how these people sleep at night https://t.co/JNEoCV46X7

— Mehdi Hasan (@mehdirhasan) December 19, 2023

Trump contends there are "like 15, 16 million people into our country, when they do that, we got a lot of work to do. They're poisoning the blood of our country." Representative Malliotakis said "He didn't say the word 'immigrants.' I think he was talking about the Democratic policies." 

Unless the ex-President meant that there are approximately 14 or 16 million Democrats "pouring into our country "from Africa, from Asia, all over the world," he was talking about immigrants.

Nonetheless, I'd ask a different question than would Hasan. We have to accept the possibility that these folks sleep well at night, either because they lack a conscience or because they actually agree with Mr. Trump. Perhaps the better question, asked rhetorically or not, would beg an explanation as to the reason such Republicans are unable or unwilling to defend the remarks they prefer to pretend the former President did not make.

They would not have to defend the racial aspect- "blood"- of the comment. If they want to restrict dramatically the flow of migrants to the USA, they could make the argument. But they won't. Karen Finney, of whom I'm no fan, has an interesting theory which might explain their reticence when in response to Hasan, she maintains "Trump's comments are as much about interracial/bi-racial Americans as they are about immigrants. The 'poisoning the blood' rhetoric akin to 'one drop' laws in the US. This is about a much bigger version of who is American."

Technically, she is wrong, but only technically. Trump was talking about immigrants, and only immigrants and reflects the perspective of many voters. While his words and meaning are hateful and bigoted, they make sense to a lot of people. 

Nonetheless (as Finney recognizes), when Trump speaks of "blood," he is not speaking of the "blood" of African-Americans, Asian-Americans, or Americans of Latin descent. Were he doing so, there would be no "blood" to be poisoned- it already be "poisoned," the result of sexual relations among people of different national and racial backgrounds.

Thus, when Donald Trump was speaking of "the blood of our country," he was referring to the blood of white Americans. Finney's critique is insightful insofar as she was foreseeing a slippery slop, unconsciously harkening back to Reverend Martin Niemoller. The Lutheran minister, at first a right-winger, then a critic of Adolph Hitler, after the Second World War eloquently powerfully admitted

First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a socialist. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a trade unionist. Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—because I was not a Jew. Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.

Actor Ronald Reagan was a fake and bad President with soaring rhetoric. So he understood what even Republicans once did, that "you can go to live in France, but you cannot become a Frenchman. You can go to live in Germany or Turkey or Japan, but you cannot become a German, a Turk, or a Japanese. But anyone, from any corner of the Earth, can come to live in America and become an American." Here, it has been not who our parents or grandparents were, but who we are, or striving to become.

But Donald Trump's acolytes, including supposed rivals Ramaswamy, DeSantis, and Haley, are in too deep. Intimidated by, or in support of, the Republican Party's leading presidential candidate, they are unable to make an argument in favor of democratic principles, institutional mores, or American values. Their silence speaks loudly. Commitment to what has made America America has given way to accepting someone who wants to decide who gets to stay and who gets shut out based upon the supposed blood of their ancestors.

Share |

The Republican Candidate Silently Approving of Racism

On CBS; Face the Nation on Sunday, Chris Christie reiterated his view that Nikki Haley is not a serious candidate for the presidency because she has said that Donald J. Trump is fit to return to the office. The former New Jersey governor stated

... in the end, look, Governor Haley got an endorsement this week that got her a lot of free media publicity, but it doesn't change one simple fact. She won't answer questions about Donald Trump. In fact, you know, she said just this week that he's fit to be president. This is a guy who last night in New Hampshire, used Vladimir Putin as a character witness for the decaying Democracy in America. A Vladimir Putin is an expert in democracy and someone who says that is fit to be President United State? It's- it's ridiculous.

However, Christie went a little further, both in questioning Haley's motives and in making a further case against the leading GOP contender. He charged

Once she hasn't ruled out being his vice president, I don't think you could take her as a serious contender against him. Rod DeSantis and I have both ruled out accepting the vice presidency from Donald Trump. Nikki Haley has not. That's why she's not saying strong things against Donald Trump. Why she's saying he's fit to be president of the United States. I mean, the fact that if you watch that speech last night, where he says that immigrants from Asia, Africa and South America are poisoning the blood of America, I don't know how you could take someone like that and say that they're fit to be president of the United States.

Christie was referring to the remark in a campaign speech in New Hampshire Saturday when Trump charged 

They're poisoning the blood of our country. Not just in South America, not just the three or four countries that we think about, but all over the world they are coming into our country, from Africa, from Asia, all over the world. They're pouring into our country, nobody's even looking at them.

Afterward on social media, Trump wrote (caps his) "ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION IS POISONING THE BLOOD OF OUR NATION... WITHOUT BORDERS & FAIR ELECTIONS, YOU DON'T HAVE A COUNTRY." 

In a video from October, the candidate who longs to be an authoritarian referred to immigration as "poisoning the blood of our country." He repeated the remark last week because the earlier one received little attention. In so doing, he has ratcheted up his rhetoric- and not only because it borrows from Adolph Hitler.

                         

A week after being inaugurated as President, Trump signed an executive order temporarily banning immigration from seven predominately Muslim countries. That was blocked in court and was replaced by another executive order, which also was blocked. A third added North Korea, which has relatively few Muslims, and visa restrictions later were extended to six other countries, at least two of which are not majority-Muslim.

This was insufficiently comprehensive to fit the definition of a "Muslim ban"- as it was derided by the left and centrists- but it emphasized blocking from immigration individuals of that religion. The President's critics assailed the policy for being anti-Muslim and even "racist."

We didn't know it at the time but those were the good-old days, when Trump singled out persons because of their beliefs and not their genome or other immutable characteristics- their "blood."

As of this moment, Nikki Haley has not responded to Donald Trump's blood remark. At the fourth Republican debate, she gave the leading candidate the thumbs up, stating "I think he was the right President at the right time." She added "it's just I don't think he's the right person to be President," presumably because she believes she is the right person. Having not ruled out being his running mate, Haley appears ready to assist Trump in his plans for America and in return, Trump has not criticized the former South Carolina governor.

Christie may eventually drop out of the race and endorse Haley to prevent the GOP from nominating Trump. But at this point, he has the two of them dead to rights, and one seems eager to be an accessory to autocracy and racism.

 

Share |

GOP Profiles in Cowardice

Texas law bans abortion after detection of fetal cardiac activity, generally around the sixth week of pregnancy. Katie Cox, suffering from the deadly genetic condition Trisomy 18 ("Edwards Syndrome"), which "her doctors say threatens" her future fertility and even her life. Cox had filed a lawsuit to end the pregnancy and left the state. It was a good move because the Texas Supreme Court, siding with Attorney General Ken Paxton, ruled against her.  

The case has produced a display of cowardice, and something beyond cowardice. First up: cowardice:

What a coward & phony. @tedcruz may be the most unTexan-like Texas elected official. Weaselly and weak, skulking away when his false bravado is challenged even a little bit. https://t.co/vVY2buZ28s

— Matt Angle (@LSPmatt) December 15, 2023

Next up: cowardice that exceeds all cowardice.

 

Haley is contending

We have to humanize the situation and deal with it with compassion. I think that Texas should go back and have their medical board deal with this and say how should we deal with this. I think every state should do this.

Even Chris Christie (Chris Christie!) was having none of this, remarking

“I think it’s really, really difficult for me to understand why Gov. Haley won’t answer that question, why she says things like, ‘We should be compassionate,’” he told reporters Wednesday. “What the hell does that mean? Are you for it or against it?”

Christie said it’s “not pro-life to prevent a woman from ending a pregnancy which is doomed to end in death of her child and may risk her own health.” He emphasized that he would not enact a federal abortion ban and would instead leave it to voters in the states.

It's difficult to make the failed former governor of New Jersey appear bold but we live in an age in which the leading advocate for democracy among politicians is- wait for it- the daughter of Dick Cheney.

Of course, Christie is wrong about leaving reproductive freedom up to the states. Legislation is needed to codify Roe v. Wade or to establish a national right to terminate pregnancy through the first two trimesters without exception. Nonetheless, he was right to call out Haley.

But Democrats had a responsibility to their voters and to the country to respond aggressively on this situation.  In the wake of the Supreme Court's Dobbs decision, the right to choose is popular among the American people, who have a compassionate side. Even heartless Haley invoked the need to be compassionate while nonetheless refusing to defend a pregnant woman whose health was endangered by continuation of an unwanted pregnancy.

Less cowardly than unimaginative was President Biden, who should have sent Air Force One to Texas to pick up Katie Cox and fly her to state in which she could have safely procured an abortion without controversy. That simultaneously would have put the Administration on the side of reproductive freedom, women, compassion, and strength of conviction. 

It would have elevated a winning issue for Democrats and, if they were lucky, Republicans would have engaged on the issue and raised the stakes. Instead, individuals such as Ted Cruz can avoid the issue entirely while opportunists such as presidential candidate Nikki Haley can grandstand as "compassionate conservatives" while cruelly denying agency to women.

Share |

Mayor Apologizes (Sort of) for Actually Being Inclusive

The 1950s are calling- they want their decade back because

In what she called an "honest mistake," Boston's mayor apologized this week after an email inviting elected officials of color to a holiday event was accidentally sent to every council member, according to multiple media reports.

Mayor Michelle Wu, the city's first Asian American mayor, said the mistake was made when her aide, Denise DosSantos, sent the email to all officials instead of a select few.

It was indeed an honest mistake for the Democratic mayor, a daughter of immigrants from Taiwan, to suggest initially that council members would be welcome regardless of race, creed, or national origin. And so

"Honorable members: On behalf of Mayor Michelle Wu, I cordially invite you and a guest to the Electeds of Color Holiday Party," read the email, which was obtained by the Boston Herald.

The event for "electeds of color" reportedly took place Wednesday at the Parkman House.....

In a statement to WCVB-TV, the mayor explained the error. "I think we've all been in a position at one point where an email went out, and there was a mistake in the recipient."

Perhaps when her aide sent out the email, she forgot to add "whites need not apply." Responding to criticism

Wu added it was custom for “diverse” members of council to take turns hosting the annual party, which has taken place for years.

“I’ve been a part of a group that gathers, representing elected officials of color across all different levels of government in Massachusetts,” Wu told the outlet. “A group that has been in place for more than a decade, and the opportunity to create a space for people to celebrate and rotate who hosts.”

Holiday gatherings for all elected officials are also planned, Wu said, adding she “looked forward to celebrating with everyone at the holiday parties that we have besides this one, as well.”

It's a safe bet that none of the gatherings will be advertised for "elected white officials" (who comprise 7 of the 13 members) or "elected officials of whiteness." That's a good thing- which, in the world of Michelle Wu, cannot be assumed to be widely understood.

Following the Brown v. Board of Education decision of the US Supreme Court, "White Citizens' Councils" sprung up throughout the southeastern USA. Spoiler alert: they were not established to facilitate integration nor to eradicate discrimination. On a positive note, there is no record of leaders arguing  their cause was legitimate because of the existence of other groups such as the NAACP.

One black city councilor, Brian Worrell, told the Boston Herald "We make space and spaces for all kinds of specific groups in the city and city government. This is no different, and the Elected Officials of Color has been around for more than a decade."

In its 3+ iterations, the Ku Klux Klan has been around for well over a century. The KKK is evil, of course- but that's the point. Having survived does not necessarily lend legitimacy to a group. The Elected Officials of Color presumably has a right to exist and to assemble peacefully, though "White Elected Officials" would prove to be far more than controversial.

Nonetheless, the invitation was extended by the chief executive of a city, an individual elected to represent everyone no matter the constituent's race, color, creed, gender, or sexual orientation. It was an invitation to a segregated event, in which no whites need apply. 

We thought- or at least hoped- that we had put the days of racial discrimination behind us. However, bigotry and resultant discrimination have grown along with the adoption of the principles and policies of diversity, equity, and inclusion. It turns out that "inclusion" means inclusion for our group, not for yours. The damage to the country, and to the party of Mayor Wu, beckons.

 

Share |

Clear, Present, and Ignored Danger

As President, Gerald R. Ford did the near impossible- he liberated Poland. Or if you prefer, he was a quarter century ahead of his time. At the second presidential debate in 1976, with incumbent Gerald Ford in his bid for a full term gaining on challenger Jimmy Carter

Ford was asked about the 1975 Helsinki Accords, an attempt to improve relations between the Communist Eastern Bloc and the Western democracies that was unpopular with many Americans of Eastern European descent.

What Ford meant to say: We don’t officially accept or diplomatically recognize Soviet domination of Eastern Europe.

What Ford actually said: "There is no Soviet domination of Eastern Europe, and there never will be under the Ford administration.’’

Evidently, the awkward, but tactically useful, term "misspoke" was not yet in vogue because

The questioner, Max Frankel of The New York Times, appeared unable to believe his ears. He gave Ford a chance to reverse himself: "Did I understand you to say, sir, that the Russians are not using Eastern Europe as their own sphere of influence?"

Ford dug in deeper. "I don't believe that the Romanians consider themselves dominated by the Soviet Union. I don't believe that the Poles consider themselves dominated by the Soviet Union."

Oh, dear. By the time the news sunk into voters' consciousness the next day, it was clear that Mr. Ford had made a terrible mistake. It was a time before so much information and misinformation was available on social media and one major gaffe could have a determining impact on an election.

In September of 1974, President Ford had made the decision, a major error both in policy and politics, to pardon former President Richard Nixon. Then debating Jimmy Carter, he liberated Poland prematurely and further sowed the seeds of his defeat in November of 1976..

President Biden is particularly prone to similar unforced errors, such as when

visiting a wind tower producer in Colorado on November 29, Biden appeared to confuse Chinese President Xi Jinping with Xiaoping, who ruled the country between 1978 and 1989.

He said: "I've said this to Deng Xiaoping in the Himalayas, and I've said this to every world leader: It's never, never, never been a good bet to bet against the American people." According to The South China Morning Post, the White House transcript was later edited to Xi Jinping, but this didn't stop the original footage being widely shared on Chinese social media.

No one cares about what the President calls the prime Butcher of Beijing or with whom Joe Biden confuses him. However, at an event at the White House on December 11 celebrating Chanukah

Addressing attendees Biden said: "But we know this year's Hanukkah's different. It's been 65 years since the deadliest day of the Jewish people since the Holocaust. 65 years." Biden appeared to be trying to say it was 65 days since the attack, which would have been accurate.

The president went on to make clear he had been referring to Hamas' mass assault on southern Israel on October 7, 2023, which killed 1,200 people and saw another 240 taken to Gaza as hostages. He continued: "After October 7, my father, a father, returned to his kibbutz to salvage what was left of his home. What was left was rubble and ruin."

"After October 7th, my father returned to his Kibbutz to salvage what he could...."

Joe Biden's father died 20 years ago.pic.twitter.com/Wav2VqXXF8

— Lowkey (@Lowkey0nline) December 13, 2023

Joe Biden's father has been deceased for over twenty years. And mistaking 65 days for 65 years- twice- is the kind of material late-night comedians would kill for. 

Joe Biden's re-election prospects are not only imperiled, but are gradually becoming a longshot. However,  

Michael Dukakis, a qualified and decent individual (already a problem there) was harmed by the silly photo of him riding around in a tank during the 1988 presidential campaign. When minor, superficial incidents occur during debate, they may have an even greater effect on elections. Gerald Ford inexplicably denying Soviet domination of Eastern Europe;  incumbent President George HW Bush "glancing impatiently at his watch" in 1992; the sighs, interpreted as "petulant," of Al Gore in 2000; Richard Nixon's 5 o'clock shadow in 1960.

The same fate may befall President Biden. Nonetheless, a clearly pleased veteran Democratic strategist, Karen Finney, has remarked “When you had people who were trying to test the waters” for a presidential bid, “the party rose up and made it clear to those individuals — who were mostly white men — that to disrespect the vice president would not be well received by women and people of color within the party. They got a little bit of a smack in the face.”

That was not only a statement- it was also a warning. Joe Biden is liable to say something absurd, as he did a few days ago, and be forever ridiculed by Republican politicians, comedians, pundits, social media “influencers,” even legitimate journalists, and lose the next presidential election decisively. But not to worry: at least “women and people of color within the party” will have the satisfaction of knowing they were not disrespected en route to Donald Trump becoming the 47^th President of the United States of America.

 

Share |

Speech, Not Violence

With her avid, even emotional, interrogation of the presidents of MIT, Harvard, and the University of Pennsylvania, it was easy to mistake US Representative Elise Stefanik for an ardent foe of anti-Semitism. However

For those who see Elise Stefanik as sympathetic to Jews, remember she avidly supports the guy who dined with this murderous Nazi, and said not one word of disapproval or protest. https://t.co/2LiJfiuEft

— Norman Ornstein (@NormOrnstein) December 12, 2023

 

In May of 2022, Annie Karni of The New York Times wrote

Stephen K. Bannon, the former Trump White House official who now hosts an influential podcast on the right, said Ms. Stefanik could not care less about criticism from the left, using an expletive for emphasis.

What keeps her up at night, Mr. Bannon said, is any threat from the right.

“She’s in a competition right now with Representative Jim Banks about who is going farther right,” he said, referring to the Indiana Republican and chairman of the Republican Study Committee, who has also refashioned himself from a movement conservative into a Trump acolyte as he seeks to rise in power in Washington.

Some of Ms. Stefanik’s recent moves, people close to her said, appeared to be motivated by her internal competition with Mr. Banks.

Attacking top leaders of prominent institutions of higher learning can only ingratiate Stefanik with the hard right she has been courting, as well as with the disgraced ex-President whom she prays selects her as a running mate.  

Yet the cause of ending- or of even examining- the culture and circumstances on college campuses which have led to the toleration of anti-Semitism which appeared to enervate Stefanski was not well served by her performance in committee.  

In July of 2017, in response to a movement which has only grown since, social psychologist Jonathan Rauch and FIRE president and CEO Greg Lukianoff noted

Aggressive and even violent protests have erupted at some of the country’s most progressive schools, such as Berkeley, Middlebury College, and Evergreen State College. Are these schools brutal and toxic environments for members of various identity groups? Or has a set of new ideas on campus taught students to see oppression and violence wherever they look? If students are repeatedly told that numerical disparities are proof of systemic discrimination, and a clumsy or insensitive question is an act of aggression (a “microaggression”), and words are sometimes acts of violence that will shorten your life, then it begins to make sense that they would worry about their safety, chronically, even within some of America’s most welcoming and protective institutions.

One of the ideas which concerned Rauch and Lukianoff may have been, presumably inadvertently, promoted by Stefanik's condemnation of calls on campuses for "genocide" which have never been specifically made. They note

Of all the ideas percolating on college campuses these days, the most dangerous one might be that speech is sometimes violence. We’re not talking about verbal threats of violence, which are used to coerce and intimidate, and which are illegal and not protected by the First Amendment. We’re talking about speech that is deemed by members of an identity group to be critical of the group, or speech that is otherwise upsetting to members of the group. This is the kind of speech that many students today refer to as a form of violence.

They explain that "the idea that speech is violence is so dangerous" because 

It tells the members of a generation already beset by anxiety and depression that the world is a far more violent and threatening place than it really is. It tells them that words, ideas, and speakers can literally kill them. Even worse: At a time of rapidly rising political polarization in America, it helps a small subset of that generation justify political violence.

Stefanik might have assisted the consideration of speech codes had she been intellectually honest. Rather than condemning calls for genocide- which have largely, if not completely, been absent- she could have invoked the danger inherent in the common chant of "from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free," a call for the elimination of the Jewish state of Israel.

But she did not. Similarly, in covering the testimony of the three college presidents, the media has obsessed over how badly the college presidents did at what the news media implicitly views as a performance, a failed one. Instead, newspersons should have focused on the controversial and debatable issues of diversity, equity, and inclusion and especially upon the harmful impulse of equating speech with violence. It turns out that neither they nor Representative Elise Stefanik was interested in shedding light on a very important topic.

Share |

Foes of Higher Education

In the wake of the politically disastrous appearance before the House Committee on Education and the Workforce by presidents of three elite universities and the resignation of one of the leaders FIRE (the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression) is alarmed (pun intended). It notes

New York State Gov. Kathy Hochul sent a letter warning the presidents of colleges and universities in New York that failing to discipline students for “calling for the genocide of any group of people” would violate both state and federal law. The governor promised “aggressive enforcement action” against any institution failing to prohibit and punish such speech.

Colleges and universities can and should punish “calls for genocide” when such speech falls into one of the narrowly defined categories of unprotected speech, including true threats, incitement, and discriminatory harassment. But broad, vague bans on “calls for genocide,” absent more, would result in the censorship of protected expression.

That's an accurate understanding of the Constitution, corroborating testimony of those three presidents, each of whom cited the legal importance of "context." It was also irrelevant to Elise Stefanik, who got a great soundbite out of her questioning. Characteristically succumbing to the temptation to slam Israel and to invoke race, Will Bunch remarked

How much of this is about antisemitism, and how much of this is about something else? — such as the fact that the college presidents who testified on Capitol Hill don’t look like the 300 years of school leaders who came before them. Bill Ackman, billionaire hedge fund manager and deeply disgruntled Harvard alum and donor, said the quiet part out loud last week when he made the repulsive allegation in a tweet that his alma mater’s first Black president — a child of Haitian immigrants, an award-winning scholar — was only hired to satisfy diversity goals.

Stefanik's sincerity is questionable when

her passion as an anti-antisemitism crusader was nowhere to be seen recently when her conservative allies were out in the schools banning books like The Diary of Anne Frank. Far worse, Stefanik, in 2022 campaign ads, seemed to be endorsing the racist “great replacement theory” that mass immigration is a liberal plot, using inflammatory rhetoric about a scheme to “overthrow our current electorate and create a permanent liberal majority in Washington.”

Only Lisa McGill of the University of Pennsylvania- one of the two administrators who is white- has been forced into retirement as of the time of this post (minutes after the end of Sunday Night Football). Race may have played a role but Bunch is closer to discerning the motivation of GOP members of Congress when he notes

And the likes of Ackman, Stefanik and their allies won’t stop at reversing a half-century of diversity on campus — not when their bigger strategic goal of weakening the already tottering American way of higher education suddenly seems within reach. Last week, Sen. J.D. Vance, the billionaire-backed Ohioan, tweeted that “if universities keep pushing racial hatred, euphemistically called DEI, we need to look at their funding.” In the swirling vortex that led to Magill’s resignation, these calls for financial retribution will accelerate — and students will suffer.

We need to look at their funding. Republicans aren't fond of diversity, equity, and inclusion and the tolerance of major universities toward anti-Semitism on campus compared to the the slightest affront to groups designated as "marginalized" is striking. However, prominent Republicans are not primarily interested in ending DEI or antagonism to Jews. For the most part, these issues are subterfuges, intended to divert attention from the GOP's goal to undermine and weaken colleges, especially the most eminent institutions of higher education.

Share |