Blog Betty (Thomas Friedman is a Great Man was an online novel): Stop the dog whistles

Monday, October 07, 2024

Stop the dog whistles

Thank you to Mike for covering a Supreme Court development in Thursday's "Donald Treason Trump, the Supreme Court and the great Colin Allred." And thank you to Sasha Abramsky at THE NATION for covering the very real racism that Trump is using to appeal to voters and the threats this puts out on so many of us in this country:

There’s been a lot of talk recently about “understanding” the Trump voter, about not tarring them all with their leader’s fetid brush. Good luck on that front. For, based on that particular interaction between cult leader and cult followers in Pennsylvania, I’d say a significant portion of them, at least the ones who think it a worthy investment of time and energy to attend a Trump rally, are now reveling in out-and-out fascist calls to violence. They’re supporting Trump not despite his propensity to devolve into ugly calls for clearly illegal acts of violence but because of it. And, in these rallies, they are provided the cover of numbers to give their worst, most vicious impulses free rein. That’s the emotional timbre of the lynch mob.

Let’s be clear here: No politician I have ever interviewed is a friend of shoplifters, gangsters (I haven’t interviewed Trump, so I add an asterisk here), burglars, drug dealers. No DA wakes up in the morning thinking of ways to make it easier for criminals to steal from their local Target superstore. But there are better ways to tackle street crime than giving uniformed officers carte blanche to beat the shit out of suspects. There are more effective law enforcement tools than the third degree.

Of course, in reality Trump’s proposals—and the reactions of his fans—have absolutely nothing to do with crime fighting and everything to do with intimidation and hierarchy, with using brute force to make it clear who’s boss.

In office, the MAGA leader sought to invoke the Insurrection Act against racial justice protesters; and he described police violence as a “beautiful thing to watch.” And while his 2016–20 presidency did see some criminal justice reform legislation signed into law, since then Trump has leaned into tough-on-crime policies: he has pledged to dramatically expand the use of the death penalty, to introduce summary executions for drug dealers, and Project 2025, which his campaign is closely tied to, has promised to pull back on federal probes into police violence against suspects. He has also repeatedly stated that he will use the Department of Justice to prosecute his political opponents, elections workers, and even members of the media.

Trump’s base loves all of this not because it’s about crime fighting but because it’s about retribution—against individuals and against groups deemed to be beyond the MAGA pale.

The only thing to understand about a Trump supporter is that they are a racist who feels aggrieved -- that especially includes Black MAGA.

"Iraq snapshot" (THE COMMON ILLS):

Friday, October 4, 2024. We look at the importance of the coalition behind Kamala and we note the growing criticism of 'independent' media's failure to serve and recognize Black people.

Starting with Lawrence O'Donnell last night on MSNBC.

Liz Cheney campaigned with Kamala Harris in Wisconsin yesterday.

"Thank you, Liz!" chants greeted her. Like Adam Kinzinger, Liz is one of many Republicans endorsing Kamala.

I love Jon Stewart and have known him for years. He is very funny and that's his first obligation -- I understand that. There are two times where we did not note him here this election cycle. I didn't want to take part in the national stupidity of 'why violence, why!' You preach violence, you sew it, karma comes after you. Live by the sword, die by the sword, I didn't invent the phrase.

So we skipped that. The other we skipped was the Dick Cheney insult. I am not a Cheney fan -- to put it mildly. We are on completely oposite sides and always will be and I will never forgive him for his actions regarding our attack on Iraq.

Jon was going for the joke and I get that and have no ill will towards him.

But I do not attack anyone from the opposite side of the aisle for endorsing Kamala Harris for president. I have many policy reasons for endorsing Kamala. I also think she has the skill, training and wisdom to be president -- I'm basing that on having known Kamala for many years. And for any late to the party, Kamala and I are not friends. She was in a relationship with a friend of mine and I just didn't like her (probably feeling protective -- and maybe even territorial -- with regards to my friend). But when we started calling for Joe Biden to step aside, I was dictating the snapshot and going over some of the possibilities. I wouldn't have thought she would be a valid possibility. It's while dictating the snapshot -- and you can read it -- that I really thought about what her strengths are and what they are not and realize that not only is she a worthy possibility but she's actually the best possibility.

So I endorse her for her policies and also for her strong traits that argue she could be a great president -- she's immensely qualified from a resume perspective but I've also seen her under pressure and she has the skill set required and the temperament needed for the office.

But before there was Kamala's run, in 2023, I said here that I was voting for the Democrat whoever it ended up being. I said that all of 2023 and I said that in 2024 -- long after everyone announced it was Joe and that that-was-that. No, it wasn't.

Our country's future is at stake which is why I would vote for any Democrat to do my part to ensure that Donald Trump wasn't given the chance to destroy the country. We were talking about, for example, Project 2025 here back in 2023.

Donald is a threat to our democracy.

And I see that. A lot of people see that.

Adam and I would not agree on everything, Liz and I would not agree on everything. Dick Cheney and I agree on pretty much nothing. One thing I do applaud him for is taking this stand because it's right for the country but also because it's right for a parent.

We have seen Donald's threats to attack Liz Cheney. Dick doesn't have to say anything. He could be silent. Bully Boy Bush is being silent (though he hates Donald Trump and even he thinks Donald is a threat to democracy). So Dick could have been silent.

But that's his daughter that's being attacked and threatened by Donald. And Dick has spoken out and I am glad he's on the side of democracy but I'm also happy to see that he would defend his daughter because I'm aware of just how many Republican politicians fear Donald getting back in the White House and yet they stay silent for various reasons.

So I'm not going to make fun of Dick Cheney for doing the right thing.

That is what so many Americans around the country are trying to do.

We are trying to save our republic.

We are trying to defend our democracy.

We are trying to save our nation.

And that is why you are seeing people coming together who may have nothing in common other than wanting to defend and save the United States.

In this election cycle, that's enough. That's more than enough.

And I'm thankful for everyone willing to stand together and defend our country.

That's Liz Cheney speaking in Wisconsin and a speech worth hearing but what should especially resonate is Donald's efforts to force Mike Pence to help him overturn the legal election.

I'm not a Mike Pence fan. We mainly just noted him here when he visited Iraq in 2019. I wasn't impressed. But for the post-2020 election, I have to wonder why he hasn't received some official honor from the US government?

He certainly deserves it.

I did not rush to judgment on the January 6th incident. Legal terms should be applied carefully and not in the heat of the moment is how I feel. As one piece of evidence after another has emerged, this was an attempted coup that Donald plotted. It was supposed to be violence. Violence was supposed to create hysteria and stop the proceedings. He spent weeks working on gathering a mob and then he incited the mob on January 6th. He was willing to destroy our country to get four more years in office. That's a disgusting motive and it's undeniable that is what he was doing.

The days after January 6th, I noted here reaptedly -- because I go cold when people try to inflame -- that the story here was that the system worked.

And it did work.

I was right about that.

But I wasn't right on why it worked.

It worked, as the facts now clearly attest, because Mike Pence believed in democracy and loved his country. Again, he deserves our nation's highest honor and I don't know why he hasn't received it. I hope he will under a Kamala Harris presidency. If, heaven forbid, Donald wins this election, I hope one of President Joe Biden's last actions will be to award Mike Pence with some honor recognizing the patriotism that Pence demonstrated.

I am very thankful for Mike Pence. And I am very thankful for all the people coming together around the effort to save this country by voting for Kamala.

In this week's vice presidential debate, JD Vance refused to answer questions about the insurrection and insisted he was "focused on the future."

As though an attempted coup less than four years ago is ancient history?

This goes to MAGA's hatred for books and knowledge. The Trump cult can't stand books or knowledge or teaching. They are the people who, like JD Vance, complain and whine about fact checking. Reality is what MAGA wants to help Donald destroy.

And that's why this is Donald's war on America.

This country has struggled and struggled from the beginning. Our history is not perfect or without blame. And that's why we learn from the past and that's why we strive for better.

And that's why people who believe in this country can come together with Kamala to try to save this country.

I don't usually question other people's love for this country.

It's clear Donald doesn't love the country -- or anything or anyone but himself.

But did you pay attention to our so-called left media? I'm not talking about corporate media which is slimed as "left media" by some -- I wish it were left media. I'm talking about DEMOCRACY NOW!, COMMON DREAMS, IN THESE TIMES, et al.

Yesterday wasn't about Jack Straw's legal filing for them.

I don't know how you ignore that except you just don't care about this country.

At RAW STORY, Matthew Chapman notes:

A former federal prosecutor said Thursday night that the special counsel in former President Donald Trump's election subversion case may have a key response to the MAGA leader's latest attempt to have some of the charges against him dismissed.

Trump is now trying to get obstruction charges tossed from his federal election conspiracy case, arguing that the Supreme Court's recent decision in Fischer v. United States, which erased obstruction charges for January 6 rioters, also applies to him.

But that's not a done deal, former federal prosecutor Elie Honig explained to CNN's Kaitlan Collins on Thursday evening, because special counsel Jack Smith, who recently made an enormous filing detailing explosive evidence against Trump in the case, has one key way he can make a distinction between Trump and the rioters at issue in the Supreme Court's decision.

So RAW STORY is covering the issue.

We hear criticism that Donald's insane mutterings are getting "sane washed" by reporters who try to justify the remarks or down play them or try to instead report what they think he was trying to say. And that's wrong.

But it's also wrong that DEMOCRACY NOW!, COMMON DREAMS, IN THESE TIMES and so many others are ignoring what's at stake.

They don't like Kamala, these outlets. They're too busy grudge f**king America to argue on its behalf.

Many of them are telling and hoping Americans will waste their vote on Jill Stein. She's not going to win and you're throwing your vote away because you're supporting MAGA and Trump because that's who has provided the legal support and the financial support to Jill Stein.

Your inflamed over Gaza to the point that you can't see reality. Trump's not going to help Palestinians. He would make things much, much worse.

Not only are they voting to harm Palestinians, they're also harming support for Palestinians -- support in the US. They don't know what they're doing. And when those of us who were covering it regularly (here, it was daily) stepped back because the Jill Stein crazies lied to America that it was supporting Gaza or supporting Kamala Harris, we saw how interest in the issue caved.

Because they don't know how to sell the issue, they don't know to structure the narrative.

The killing in Gaza has not stopped. But most Americans are not as tied to the issue as they were. It's become a I HATE AMERICA movement with the crazies in charge. And hate is never going to rally good people. It can frighten and trick stupid people -- and often does.

So they offer their hate. And they join with other haters like Glenn Greenwald who can't shut up about, for example, Dick Cheney. And people do realize that Glenn helped sell the Iraq War, right? He was for it. And yet today, he's the virgin protecting his maidenhead from Dick. Ed Snowden's also attacking Kamala Harris. From Russia. As is Tara Reade. From Russia. Seems the more you hate America, the more you flirt with Donald Trump.

I don't know what COMMON DREAMS, DEMOCRACY NOW! and others think there future is. I know that one of the biggest things we're discussing right now -- those of us who have funded independent media -- is their behavior currently. And we're not planning on funding this garbage again.

We're a month away from a US election and DEMOCRACY NOW ignored Jack Smith's filings to give us a film ALJAZEERA made and broadcast about another country.

In a Donald Trump administration, other nations will not be pressured regarding human rights abuses or anything else.

I rightly criticized DEMOCRACY NOW! in 2009 for doing an inauguration party for Barack Obama and I had spent 2008 noting how the program tilted the scales and flat out lied -- Melissa Lie Face Harris you are not forgotten nor do I ever forget that Amy Goodman knew she was campaigning for Barack -- knew it by appearing on Rev Jesse Jackson's program with Lie Face -- and then brought her on DEMOCRACY NOW! and lied to the audience by presenting Lie Face as a disinterested college professor.

That I called out.

That's not journalism and it's nothing to be proud of.

They should be ashamed to this day.

And I am not calling for them to provide that kind of treatment to Kamala Harris campaign. (Although it is worth noting that they and other outlets celebrated Barack Obama as a Black candidate -- remember David Lindorf's infamous quote? -- while today refusing to celebrate Kamala as the same.) All I'm asking is that they cover the news, actually cover the news. And Jack Straw's filing is news. And Myrlie Evers-Williams endorsing Kamala Harris was news. But DEMOCRACY NOW! couldn't even note that in a headline -- despite having had this Civil Rights pioneer, the widow of Medgar Everts on their program before.

You're not doing journalism.

So-called 'independent' media -- that begs constantly for money -- either whores for their favored candidate or they ignore the one that they don't care about.

There's no balance, there's nothing between the two extremes. And this is not journalism and should not be mistaken for it.

As Stacey Abrams notes in the video above, "There could not be a starker choice."

Stacey Abrams . . . who's been a guest multiple times on DEMOCRACY NOW! in the past. But endorsing Kamala means she's vanished.

I've talked about why I support the coalition building around Kamala. Maybe Amy doesn't? Could be. But how is this coalition not worthy of a debate or segment on DEMOCRACY NOW!?

We know who Donald Trump is. We know the damage he has done. We know the damage he wants to do. I don't see the point in ever giving another dime to DEMOCRACY NOW! or any of the other outlets that are working to get Donald back in the White House.

What I'm hearing as I speak with one group after another every day this week is that 'independent' media doesn't care about Black people. They complain about the way DN! and others refuse to celebrate Kamala Harris' run as historic, they complain about how their views and their opinions are not being embraced. I'm going to note Betty's post from last night:

At the end of C.I.'s snapshot -- which I'll repost in full at the end -- she notes Will Bunch's column about Trump's desired "purge." I want to note that here to give him credit for writing about it because very few White people have. C.I. and I have covered it -- see my "" -- and C.I. not just written of it but also posted a huge number of video reports about it and you should have noticed that the people addressing this very serious topic in videos were overwhelmingly Black. As both C.I. and I have noted, that's the community that would be hardest targeted in Trump's purge. So thank you to Will Bunch -- who is White -- for writing about it.

At SALON, Tatyana Tandanpolie (Black writer at general public outlet) covers the purge:

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump recently claimed that "one real tough, nasty" and "violent" day of police brutality would bring an immediate end to crime in the nation, raising alarms for experts on authoritarianism about the danger to democracy should Trump's remarks ever translate into policy.

[. . .]

Geoff Eley, a University of Michigan professor of contemporary history who studies nationalism and the far-right, told Salon that Americans should take Trump's comments seriously even if it's often hard to know his true intent.

"We need to take his comments very, very seriously, partly because this time he's bull-in-a-china-shop determined to get his way, partly because (by contrast with 2016) he's surrounded by a core of smart and ruthlessly committed helpers and ideologues, whose ideas are most definitely coherent, thought-through and focused," Eley said in an email.

Trump's "political accomplishment," Eley said, has been in imparting to large swaths of the country that "democracy, proceduralism, civility, speaking across differences, and the rule of law have outlived their purposes — they're fictions, illusions, tricks, and they no longer matter."

Despite Trump's insistence both at the rally and throughout his campaign that crime "has gone through the roof," data indicates that the opposite is true.

Recently released FBI stats show a 2.4% decrease in property crime between 2022 and 2023. Preliminary data comparing periods of 2024 ranging from the first quarter to the first half to the same periods of 2023 also indicated a drop in violent crime following the COVID-19 isolation-era uptick, suggesting this year will see a continued decline in the nation's crime rate.

I am sick of the failing White politician trying to scapegoat to win an election. Donald Trump's entire campaign is a Willie Horton ad. For those new to the Willie Horton aspect of a campaign, from WIKIPEDIA:

During the 1988 presidential election, US Vice President and Republican nominee George H. W. Bush brought Horton up frequently during his campaign against Democratic nominee Michael Dukakis who was the governor of Massachusetts. He was commonly referred to as "Willie" Horton, despite never having gone by the nickname. The renaming of the African-American Horton has been speculated to be the product of racist stereotyping.^[2] A prominent PAC ad for Bush about Horton has been widely characterized as a textbook example of dog-whistle politics.^[3]^[4]^[5]^[6]^[7]

In other words, when you can't win on your own, demonize Black people.

And thank you to Tatyana but, again, she's Black. It would be nice to see more people like Will Bunch -- more non-Blacks -- grabbing this very serious story. Instead, it comes off like yet again Black people are on their own. We're expected to speak on behalf of all groups but when we're targeted White left goes silent too many times. But thank you to Tatyana and to every Black person who has rightly raised their voices to call Trump's deranged proposal out.

Black people are already the most targeted with police violence. Trump is threatening us and he's threatening us because it feeds his racist base. It plays to their hatred and racism and resentment. He's painting a target on our backs.

If you're not getting how empty and desperate Trump and his MAGA are, ATLANTA BLACK STAR NEWS reports:

A white Republican running for Congress in Nevada was caught on tape Monday telling supporters, “I’m from North Las Vegas. I’m not worried about Black people.”

John Lee is seeking to represent Nevada’s 4th Congressional District, where 15 percent of the population is Black. His opponent, incumbent Democrat Steven Horsford, was recently named chair of the Congressional Black Caucus, a promotion that drew ridicule from Lee, formerly mayor of North Las Vegas.

“They made him chair of the Black Caucus. Whoop-de-doo,” Lee said on an audiotape obtained by HuffPost.

Lee went on to denigrate the CBC, following a pattern of insults over the last year. In August, he said they were comparable to a “blond-haired caucus,” and he had previously called the group “stupid.”

[. . .]

Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee spokesperson Lauryn Fanguen condemned Lee’s remarks in a statement.

“John Lee’s shocking comments about Black Nevadans and CBC Chair Steven Horsford are not only deeply offensive but betray an utter disdain for a large swath of the district he claims to want to represent,” Fanguen said.

Ava and I have spent a lot of time in Georgia with Betty (Betty is exclusively speaking Georgia -- her home state -- and has taken time off from her job to do so).

Donald Trump is using Black people, threats against them, insults and targeting them for violence. And that's disgusting. But where's our 'independent' media in this? They aren't rushing to defend.

We were speaking -- Betty, Ava and I -- near Johns Creek yesterday to a group and a Black woman from Johns Creek stated she felt as though the left media -- she named COMMON DREAMS -- was playing the oppression olympics and giving all this credence to issues outside this country while ignoring the very threats to Black people in our country.

Betty is correct in her post that Donald's doing dog whistles and Willie Horton-ing Black people. He's playing to and promoting racism. And apparently White-White-White 'independent' media can't grasp that -- can't grasp what Black people are seeing and feeling.

Let's note that THE BLACK COMMENTATOR is back from its summer hiatus:

The Black Commentator Issue #1012 is now Online

Hurricane preparation, survival and cleanup

delayed publication of this issue

October 3, 2024