"WHAT IF TRUMP WINS?"

 “WHAT IF TRUMP WINS?”

The national polls and the polls in the swing states are making me nervous – it is much too close for comfort!  While I still think that Harris will win by taking the Blue Wall states and the one district in Nebraska, I am nervous.  Harris may also take North Carolina, but I will be very surprised if she wins Georgia (though I would love for her to do so).  This will make for a long election night.

So, I must consider that Donald Trump may win the presidential election, and that is a scary thought.  How could such a crude, would-be dictator be so close to being elected president?  I think that there are several factors, and I want to look at those briefly before looking at a future Trump presidency.  First, he has correctly understood how deep is the idea of white grievance, and he is exploiting it strongly.  Those of us who are classified as “white” have felt for some time that we are losing power in America.  The election of Barack Obama as president in 2008 heightened the fears of white people that we were being replaced.  The demographics do not bode well for superiority in numbers for those classified as “white,” and Trump has effectively exploited those fears while fanning their flames.

Second, in this election especially, Trump is making a play for the votes of young males of all racial categories.  His offensive remarks, his threats of revenge against his enemies, his boasting of his (and only his) power – all speak to the masculine side of young men, men who are coming of age in a time when most women are refusing to fit back into the old patterns of the pre-1960’s time.  We who are classified as “male” are not sure what our place is in the modern world, and one prominent alternative that Trump is offering is a call to return to a time when it was clear to everyone that males, especially white males, should be in charge.  The “Make America Great Again” slogan refers not only to racial categories, but to gender categories as well.

Third, many Republicans have lost their courage when it comes to Trump.  They know that he has a 40% base who will follow him blindly, and if they want to have any future in the party, they must stick with him now – here’s looking at you, Nikki Haley and Brian Kemp.  Rather than sit this one out, refusing to endorse anyone, many of these Repubs have endorsed Trump and used their networks to support him.  What should be a landslide for Harris (like LBJ and Goldwater in 1964) has turned into a cliff-hanger because of the lack of Republican courage.

Fourth, the Democrats (especially Joe Biden) have been their own worst enemy.  As I wrote last week, Biden should have announced early in 2023 that he would not seek a second term as President.  His oh-so-late announcement in late July deprived the Democrats of the natural primary process, where the strongest candidate would emerge.  This is not to say that Harris is not the strongest candidate (though I favored Gretchen Whitmer).  It is rather to say that whoever got the nomination had only 110 days or so before the election, putting them at a severe disadvantage, as we are seeing with Harris.

So, if Trump wins, what can we expect?  I don’t think that Trump is actually interested in being President again – he simply wants to win in order to get revenge on his opponents, and he wants to dismiss as many federal counts against him as possible, so that he may stay out of jail.  The sentencing hearing in Judge Marchand’s court in New York in November will get even more interesting if Trump wins the election.  Judge Chutken may refuse to drop the charges against Trump in the DC circuit, even if the prosecutor moves to drop them.  Of course, finding someone to prosecute will be a major problem.  

I do think that Trump will seek some revenge on his political enemies, and he will push for DOJ and IRS to investigate them,  likely starting with Liz Cheney, Adam Schiff, John Kelly, Mark Milley, and Merrick Garland.  And with SCOTUS having ruled that Presidents are virtually immune from their actions while in office, Trump will have very few guardrails.  John Roberts’ scolding of the moderates and those on the left may come back to haunt him, when Trump pulls an Andrew Jackson and tells SCOTUS that he will not enforce any of their rulings that are not in his favor. 

I don’t think that Trump is interested in running the government – he will turn that over to his minions, including JD Vance, Stephen Miller, Jeffrey Clark, and others.  He will direct them to strengthen the power of the executive, all the while seeking to gut the power of the federal government, so as to weaken the regulating power which seeks to hold corporate and private power in check.  In other words, this will be a rocky and scary four years, if Trump wins.  I vacillate daily, but I still believe that Harris will pull it out.  

"SLOUCHING TOWARDS THE ELECTION"

 “SLOUCHING TOWARDS THE ELECTION”

Over a year ago, many of us were urging President Biden to decline to run for another term.  While most of his policies were decent, he was looking old and worn-out, and I did not think that he had the stamina to run or to serve a second term as president.  As it became clear that Donald Trump would receive the Republican nomination, it seemed imperative that Biden step aside and allow the Democrats to choose a more formidable candidate to run against Trump.  As Nikki Haley put it, “the first party to drop their 80 year old candidate will win the presidency.”  At that time, I urged Biden to announce in a timely fashion that he would not run again.  That would allow the Dems to have a somewhat orderly process to pick their nominee – Kamala Harris, Gretchen Whitmer, Cory Booker, Gavin Newsom, Josh Shapiro, Stacey Abrams or some other candidate.

Biden did not decline to run again in a timely fashion, and his egoistic delay has cost the Democrats dearly.  Only his stumbling debate performance in late June forced him to withdraw in late July, leaving no candidate the opportunity to  develop a strong profile and candidacy to run for president.  This is no knock against Vice-President Kamala Harris – under the circumstances, she is running a fine race.  There simply may not be enough time for the American people to get to know her and her strengths.  That responsibility lies at the feet of one of the two old white men, who seem unable and unwilling to pass the torch to a new generation, which Kamala Harris now represents.

I’m borrowing a closing phrase from W.B. Yeats’ poem “The Second Coming” to represent some of my feelings about this election:

“And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,   

Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?”

I’m using this phrase because it seems obvious to me that Kamala Harris is by far the better candidate for President of the United States than Donald Trump.  Yet, Biden’s clinging to a second term for so long has severely limited Harris’ ability to run an effective campaign.  All the polls show a very tight race, and that makes me think that Trump has a chance to win a second term as president, which is a scary prospect – the rough beast slouching towards Washington to stamp out what is left of American democracy.

Vice-President Kamala Harris is a formidable candidate for President – she was my choice in 2019 before her inexperienced candidacy caused her to drop out.  I am impressed with her ability to learn from her mistakes, to be nimble on her feet in interviews, her commitment to middle class and working people, and with her combination of strength, humor, and insight.  She combines the agility of Barack Obama with the down-homeness of Bill Clinton, and she clearly has the intellectual power to do the job.  I am also impressed with her decision not to pound out the fact that if she wins, she will be the first woman President.  It is as if she is saying that the debate over women presidents is over – get over it, it is no big deal, because women are (and always have been) capable of being President.

Trump and his MAGA movement have made this a difficult time in American politics, and I am hoping that people are simply tired of Trump and all his melodrama – give us a decent and sane person for a change!  The MAGAs will not go away if Trump loses – there has always been a MAGA movement flowing through American history.  But, perhaps a Harris victory will point us towards a time when the multicultural society, that is being forged demographically in this country, will have more legitimacy than it does now.  Right now, we are in a battle to see if white people (especially white men) will acknowledge the multicultural society that is coming.  Indeed, the state of Georgia is already barely majority “white.”  That is a huge sea change, which will need a leader like Kamala Harris to help us negotiate.  If Trump wins, we will continue to have the tantrums of white men seeking to dominate our story.

Caroline and I had the privilege of voting for Harris and Walz on Wednesday, and we were impressed that over 1,300,000 people voted early in Georgia in this first week of voting (5 million votes overall expected in Georgia).  Such a great turnout in early voting has generally boded well for Democrats, but the Repubs have learned from Stacey Abrams and others about the benefit of early voting.  On this day of October 21, I believe (and I desperately hope) that Kamala Harris will win the Presidency, but I am also aware of the high stakes and the close race.  In that sense, rather than entitling the blog “Sailing Towards Victory in the Election,” my gut feeling remains “Slouching Towards the Election.”  You can choose which title prevails by voting for Harris and making sure that all of your friends, neighbors, and colleagues do the same.  As I wrote in the 2020 election, please vote – if Trump wins, this may be our last meaningful vote.  Let’s make sure that our votes continue to count for many years to come.

"FROM ONE STORY TO MANY STORIES"

 “FROM ONE STORY TO MANY STORIES”

In 2009, Nigerian-born author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie gave a TED Talk entitled “The Danger of One Story.”  I was still doing a lot of anti-racism workshops at the time, and we sometimes used her TED Talk as an entry point into the danger of one story coming to dominate all others.  Her point was that the white, Western sense of racial superiority was born of one story:  the story of the system of race, which tells all that those classified as “white” are superior to all other racial classifications, and “white” people should be in control of all things.  Her TED Talk is quite remarkable – if you are not familiar with it, check it out at https://www.ted.com/talks/chimamanda_ngozi_adichie_the_danger_of_a_single_story?subtitle=en.

Today is Indigenous Peoples Day, and it comes at the end of Hispanic Heritage Month, with Native American History Month beginning soon in November.  Why all these different months?  Why recognize Hispanic Heritage, Black History (February), Women’s History Month (March), Asian American Heritage (May), along with many others?  They serve as reminders that there are many stories about the many branches of humanity – a truth that white, American culture has long sought to deny.  Today is also known as “Columbus Day,” celebrating Italian-American heritage, but also celebrating the European who “discovered” America.  It took me a long time in my journey to recognize that the lands that came to be known as “America” were already populated with many different tribes of people, clumped together as “Indians,” as “Native Americans,” as “Indigenous People” – in Canada known as “First Nations.”  So, Columbus did not discover America – rather he was the vessel for the transfer of many Europeans, who would come to the Americas.  In so doing, those of us of “white” heritage would annihilate the native peoples living here, import enslaved people from Africa to work the land, then grow immense wealth from these activities.

Growing up, I was proud of my Scotch-Irish ancestors who were the tip of the spear for the movement of white people westward across the South.  Killing or removing Cherokee people, Muscogee people, Creek people, Choctaw people, Seminole people and others – we marched relentlessly across the South to establish a “white haven.” And, yes, there is a suburb in Memphis known as “Whitehaven,” populated ironically now by mostly Black people.  As I have learned more about my heritage and my history, I am not so proud now.  Yet, that story must be told.  We “whites” must know about the Trail of Tears and the “Indian Removal Act,” not to make us feel guilty but to help us to understand our history and to understand  that there are many stories.  Many Native American peoples have struggled long and hard to recover their cultures, to celebrate themselves, and to thank their gods that they have survived.

In these days, we are invited to consider that there are many stories, and that we can all learn from one another’s stories.  The hegemony of white culture and expansionism has made this a difficult task, but we may be at the inflection point of needing to hear the power and truth of other cultures’ stories.  For many years now, I have been impressed with the Native American idea that the ancestors can be found in the living beings on the earth.  Our “white” approach has been to see beings like trees in a utilitarian way:  we see trees, and we think of the houses that can be built from them.  When Native Americans see trees, they see the locale of their ancestors.  This does not mean that we don’t cut down trees to make houses and firewood, but it does mean that we should shift from our utilitarian view of nature to a more wholistic view of us and nature.  The recent monster hurricanes remind us that the time for making this shift is over, that nature is now seeing us as we have seen nature:  something in the way, something to be torn down.  Yet, we always have an opportunity to shift our perspective from one of exploitation to one of partnership.  

Lest we think that this is only an outdated, tortuous exercise, let us recall that it is at the heart of the division in America in these days.  Donald Trump helped bring the “one story” idea back to the surface of American life, but it has long been there.  I have it in my own consciousness, breathed in through the air of white, male supremacy.  “Make America Great Again” is a call to return to the days of one story: the white, male story.  If Donald Trump wins the election, we will see a much more concerted effort to re-establish firmly the power of white patriarchy.  Yet, even if Kamala Harris wins the election, the power of “one story” will continue to resonate and have political power.  Harris represents a small but significant step to expand the American narrative from one story to many stories.  Her election would be an opportunity to begin to have a different narrative about ourselves and to begin to celebrate the multicultural nature of American history.  Many of us who are classified as “white” feel anxious and afraid, because we know that the demographics are not in our favor.  Trump has brought this brooding sense of grievance to the surface, and this election has now taken on much more importance than it might have.  So, make it your point to vote and to make sure that at least ten of your friends, neighbors and colleagues vote.  

"THE MIDDLE EAST"

 “THE MIDDLE EAST”

Today marks the first anniversary of the horrific slaughter of Israeli civilians by fighters from Hamas.  The Israeli response has been the killing of 35,000 Palestinians in Gaza, and now they have added Hezbollah in Lebanon, with likely attacks on Iran to come.  It is a dangerous, dangerous time, with these events baked into hundreds of years of history.  The leader of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu, seems intent on pursuing the violence until all the enemies are not only defeated but also destroyed.  He also faces legal difficulties of his own, and I would hate to think that he is stretching out the war to preserve his own skin legally, but there is a strong hint of that.  He seems similar to Trump on that score.

Because of the Jewish connections that my Mother and I had in my hometown, I have always leaned towards Israel in any Mid East conflicts.  But, over the last few years, Israel has gradually turned into an apartheid nation, and that has given me great pause.  Having grown up in a land where the original residents were either killed or dispossessed of their land by my ancestors, and then that same land was worked by people who were enslaved, I have trouble keeping the same level of support for Israel, which dispossessed the original Palestine peoples without compensation.  The “Palestinian problem” continues to plague the nation of Israel, and it led directly to the horrible and brutal attack on Israel by Hamas on October 7.  

     Israel became a modern  nation in 1948 in some of its original territories as a result of lobbying by Jewish leaders, but most of all because of the horrors of the Holocaust, horrors which were a culmination of centuries of mostly Christian oppression and brutal policies toward Jewish people.  The problem is that there were people already living in those lands, and for the most part they were removed.  They have become known as the Palestinians.  Since Israel took their lands 75 years ago, no adequate provision has been made for the Palestinians.  They have been squeezed into the West Bank and into Gaza, much like the Native Americans were squeezed into “reservations” in our country.  There does not seem to be a viable solution to this issue, though the “two state” solution has come back in to diplomatic and public conversations. In the meantime, Israel continues its repressive policies towards the Palestinians – Jewish settlers continue to move into Palestinian areas.  

    Even those who support the Palestinians were shocked by the brutal, terroristic nature of the attacks by Hamas on October 7.  It is hard to justify the killing of so many civilians at a music concert, and nothing justifies the killing of babies.  Yet we must also recognize the level of desperation and rage that was at the heart of those attacks.  That level does not come because the attackers are savages, as the mainstream Western media has called them.  That level is reached because of a deep and continued wounding of the human heart, a wounding so deep that it makes the attacker willing and able to do inhuman acts.

    I am not justifying the Hamas attacks, but I put their rage on the same level that Nat Turner, Denmark Vesey, and John Brown had in their attacks on the institution of slavery.   Until there is adequate compensation and justice for the Palestinians, these attacks will continue to rise.  At least two things must happen in the Middle East for any semblance of peace with justice to arise.  First, the nation of Israel must be recognized as a legitimate state – many Palestinians still see Israel as an occupying force over these 75 years.  Those who attacked Israel on October 7 did it as a liberating act against the occupying oppressor.  That can no longer be the rubric of the Middle East.

     Justice must be found and established for the Palestinian people.  I don’t know what that would look like at this point, but Israel and the West must make a strong commitment to it.  I have not seen such commitment from the leadership of Israel since Yitzhak Rabin was assassinated in November, 1995.  Yet, that commitment must be renewed, or the war that is now playing out in Israel and Gaza will be deepened to a level that may lead to WW III.  Both Israel and the Palestinians are now saying “Never Again,” and without a bold diplomatic solution, the future for the Middle East and for all of us looks grim.