welcome back...
13
Where have you been? I've missed You!
15
Glad to see you back.
3
Welcome back, Mr. Blow. Thanks for another thought provoking column.
5
"As for the people, the voters, it is the moral abomination of having a racist, sexist, child-caging, family-separating, Muslim-hating transphobe as president that must remain front and center. That is the only way to move beyond Trump in 2020."
Shouldn't the best case for defeating Trump have it's basis in policy differences that the eventual Democratic nominee endorses?
What Blow, and most other journalists and opinion writers have refused to acknowledge (or even consider) from the beginning is that a huge number of Trump's supporters view him as incredibly flawed, but are willing to support him because they agree with him more than with Democrats on immigration policy, on preserving manufacturing jobs, and on reducing foreign adventurism. That's also a major reason why many Trump voters in rust belt states also considered voting for Bernie Sanders in 2016. Frankly, the immigration policy that Trump has supported is more consistent with what the Democrats and the American organized labor movement supported for most of the 20th century than anything endorsed by Hillary Clinton resembled traditional Democratic stances on immigration, both legal and illegal.
This op-ed can basically be summarized as "Okay, fine, so the accusations of treason didn't work. Time to double down on calling the president a racist!" There is a lot more that the Democrats could do to defeat Trump. Hopefully they are imaginative enough to pursue those strategies and to ignore Charles Blow.
11
And Our President is THEIR Supreme Liar in his 3rd year. Donald Trump has made it abundantly clear that there are 2 sides: Trump-loyal Republicans and You-Might-As-Well-Be-A Democrats.
And the Grand Salesman had been spewing his twisted falsities for decades to become A POPULAR RACIST. How could people close their eyes to Donald Trump's full-page condemnations of falsely accused black youths in the newpapers of New York City?
Knowing what we knew about Donald Trump constantly trolling for Birthers..
https://www-m.cnn.com/2016/09/09/politics/donald-trump-birther/index.html?r=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com%2F
..and yet, PEOPLE WERE NOT PREPARED for his candidacy opener - "Mexican rapists" - staged to a paid audience of actors!
Mr Blow is right about the advancement of racist agendas being a protracted war across the globe. Back in 1968, Segregationalist George Wallace won over 13-percent of the popular vote by vocalizing his hateful words. Wallace spun-off the states of Georgia to Mississippi by flaunting his racism. Reagan and GHW Bush embraced racist ads to further white flight from Democratic Party.
The Republican Party is synonymous with its ardent promoters of racism and segregation, Donald Trump and Jerry Falwell Jr. Many conservative leaders believed "go along, to get along" would work; and it did, you've got the racist vote.
3
Welcome back Charles!
2
The MAGA people are so fearful of a population explosion of brown or black people especially immigrants. Yet they are opposed to birth control or abortion. So inconsistent. Seems like they would be handing out contraception free to all Hispanics, African Americans or immigrants.
9
Amen, and thank you. Please, let's stop pretending that most Trump supporters are not racist. We all hear the dog whistles. Supporting Trump means accepting what he says and represents, whether you do so actively or passively.
9
Mr. Blow may be right about white force and black progress. But, I would argue that much of this is due to the GOP deliberately inflaming racial fears for the political payoff -- a strategy hit on by Goldwater and George Wallace over 50 years ago and reliably used since.
What makes this strategy more potent today is the serious fear much of the country has over a future in which very few can see a clear path to economic security, with the bar being raised higher for potentially fewer jobs. Thus, for the first time since WWII, our country is facing the perception of zero-sum competition for a shrinking pie -- a recipe for further turning Americans against Americans in which race takes on an outsized role as Republicans stoke fears that blacks and other minorities have special privileges that will allow them to take jobs at whites' expense.
Trump came along and tapped into this mindset, helped by the fact that our government turned its back on most Americans to let corporate executives and the wealthy walk away with a bigger slice of the pie. Now, with no other constituency, he is even more desperate for these votes, while the GOP, which is on a path of self-destruction, has so much invested in the status quo that it has no choice but to double down on this vicious and immoral race-baiting power grab.
The irony for white voters is that a Southern-style GOP government would, along with blacks, reduce many of them, too, to poor white trash.
5
As an immigrant Latino man, I would like to agree with the arguments Mr. Blow posits. Yet, if the MAGA hats and the Wall are the new icons of white supremacy how is it that so many blacks and Latino individual wear the hats with pride and support building the Wall? How is it that many white people married to Latinos and blacks and whose children would be anathema to white supremacists also are supporters of those symbols? Yes, I have no doubt that white supremacists have embraced them but to argue that they only represent white supremacy seems like an over simplification.
As to the argument that Democrats missed the opportunity to focus their energy into highlighting Trump’s amorality and instead hitched their wagon entirely onto the “collusion with Rusia” angle is spot on. They need to move on. Trump being Trump will provide them with another opportunity to show why the man is unfit to be president. His anger-filled promise of revenge is just one of the many pearls Trump will put at their feet. Let’s hope they don’t squander the opportunity.
7
Mr. Blow, racism is an ugly word, and a worse attitude to hold. But you sit squarely in the racist corner. Turning a story about a two year investigation into your hated Trump president into another racist rant is beyond abhorrent.
15
As a white person, I want to see black people succeed, because i want to have equality for all throughout our country.
Mr. Blow makes some very good points, but in generalizing about white people, he falls into the same trap that catches white people who generalize about black people.
It's about time we all accepted each other and helped each other for the good of our country.
12
well , it seems the black population never fully appreciated this progress because all I hear is how nothing has changed, i.e. white people are still racist but this racism is now perpetrated by bias. so the white populous feels no matter what the resentment against us is never going to quell anyway because the idea of racism has made certain leaders of the black populous complacent in finding solutions to issues in the black population by laying the blame solely the white population. so that there becomes many incentives to keep this narrative alive. so no matter what we do were never going to be allowed to move forward. most white people understand that we are not in a post racial society, but just because not everything has changed doesn't mean nothing has. and holding this generation responsible by labeling us as privaleged or bias as a whole just fails to understand that race relations are a two way street. If there was all this progress then why all this resentment I hear constantly. These coming generations were the first to be raised with shared culture and no state sponsored segregation. We need to stop burdening these generations coming this widening the gap. because racism may well be the burden of white people to fix but racism is long ago not your only problem, but still your only fixation
5
The author doesn't say why states are pushing for a Constitutional Convention, or what types of changes/amendments he thinks they would bring to the table. This just seems like fear mongering to me.
8
At one level, some might find the Mueller report disappointing. But it converts the 2020 election to a straight fight, without any distractions. Let the person supported by the most votes (people? electoral college? etc.) win. Draw your conclusions on America's "real nature" from that result.
2
You are so right it is bigger than Mueller & Trump. Queen Michelle strongly suggested to the left to take the high road after the election. The NYT and the Left decided they wanted to join Trump in the Swamp. Big mistake. Lost opportunity.
Now, everyone who voted for Trump in 2016 are going to vote for him in 2020. And all the Independents, who voted for Hillary in 2020 and who are sorely disappointed with this newspaper and the Democrats are going to Vote For Trump in 2020. This was absolutely unimaginable in 2016.
6
The truth is, the thing that they all think made America somehow 'less than great' is that we had an African-American president.
14
I have been waiting for someone to start connecting the dots. Autocrats are rising in every corner of the globe in response to migration and inequality. It’s becoming clear that these problems are exacerbated by climate change and can therefore only get worse. What hasn’t been noticed is how this trend toward facism is a cultural response to the problem of climate change. Building walls and locking up children may not be a moral solution but it’s a solution. We only need to believe in our superiority to overcome the moral failings
5
If I were Trump, I would run for Governor of New York, ASAP.
He is going to need that to pardon himself and his family, for all the crimes they’ve done there.
7
If we conclude that anyone who is a Trump supporter is an irredeemable racist, what should we conclude about supporters and apologists for Louis Farrakhan, or for that matter, Jeremy Corbyn?
Is it possible to support a political figure without embracing every stance that figure endorses? If not, should we expect that Charles Blow will be writing some similar pieces soon discussing the many supporters and apologists for Farrakhan and Corbyn?
10
The author mars an article which makes a number of good points when he says "Whenever black people make progress, white people respond forcefully."
This statement is a vast over-generalization which stereotypes "white people" in a way quite similar to the way white (and other) bigots stereotype black people. I happen to know a large number of white people for whom this generalization is completely false.
10
This Constitutional Convention idea: I guess we should be paying some attention. I remember ages ago, I'm pretty sure it was Gore Vidal in The Nation promoting it, from a kind of left libertarian POV, I guess. He seemed to ignore the possibility of rich people hearing about it and wanting to get involved.
We should get some people on the case, to figure out what the right wing agenda would be: a total re-write, or just a few tweaked phrases to benefit the financial sector and strengthen the executive branch? (Of course, look what happened last time, they expected a few tweaks, and got the total re-write.)
Anyway, I'm not volunteering to start studying right away, but we should start giving some thought to what we would want out of it, in case it actually happens.
1
Despite the many problems with our Constitution as written and interpreted of late, I'd rather stick with the devil we know than risk the devil we don't that would spring from a Constitutional Convention.
1
Charles writes:
"The election of the first black president gave rise to the Tea Party, which was formed soon after Barack Obama was sworn in."
But let's be clear how the Tea Party gained political traction. Obama voters congratulated themselves for their win in 2008, but then in 2010 abdicated their responsibilities by not voting. "Our job is done" they seemed to say.
But by being too lazy to vote again within a two-year timeframe, they allowed the Tea Party to win a number of the victorious Republican seats.
The easiest place to defeat people like Trump is at the voting booth -- why bet on impeachment or indictments when you can vote the rascals out, or never let them in in the first place?
Yes, those 70,000 votes Trump won by in three states could have been easily overcome if Obama voters had supported Hillary as vigorously.
6
Trump is accomplishing the one thing I hoped he would. In 2018 and again for 2020 he's keeping this Republican Party from hiding its nastiness in election years. Previously, they only did their dirty work in years when there were no elections when people outside the beltway weren't looking. Now people are always looking and Trump is keeping the spotlight on showing warts, horns, and all.
3
I totally agree. I’ve always said that Trump is the anti-Obama. Can’t wait until this trend dies down.
3
I am glad to have Charles speak out to us again. As a very old 'American' who happens to be 'white', I'm appalled that it has taken all my life to realize that the opportunities and choices, that have benefitted me, and the others like me, for all our lives, result in major part from the damage done to other humans.
The 'American Experience' that we have benefitted from, is founded on centuries of virtual (and actual) genocide of Native Americans, 250 years of slavery, 100 years of Jim Crow and 40 years of 'war on drugs' and focused incarceration. These 'crimes against humanity' were accomplished under systems of 'white superiority and privilege', that are only now being realized, understood and accepted, by people like me. They are the realities which Charles has suffered and explained, and which we try to process. Only now do we begin to understand that, if 'white superiority' is actually being replaced, it is by 'wealth superiority' of a tiny minority, which for the most part uses manipulated 'white supremacy' (MAGA) as a powerful weapon. We have only a few more years/elections/action to create an America and World that are liveable, let alone 'great' for all. It is time for Truth and Reconciliation, Hope and Action.
10
@mfh3. No, the country was not founded on slavery. It was founded by those escaping religious persecution. And if there was “actual and virtual” genocide, who is now living on reservations? So now in your crazy rant you believe wealth is created by white supremacy - you have just insulted in a very bigoted way those immigrants who lead successful and productive lives.
4
Welcome back Charles.
As you point out the forces of white nationalism are spreading around the world, and this is dangerous. And trump is the point of the spear, the leader worldwide of this development.
We are becoming or already a backward country in everything from health care, despite the ACA, to infrastructure and much else. While the Chinese are developing electric cars from many different makers, creating 5G and just about everything else, trumpism is focused on how "great America is." One need only look at our infrastructure to understand how behind we are.
9
You say, "The report would seem to support Trump’s mantra: No collusion." So you appear to have missed a huge underlying premise in the AG's letter.
The AG states that the issue of "coordination" was defined as "agreement" with the Russian GOVERNMENT itself.
So Putin's oligarchs who own troll farms, private Russian front firms that received internal campaign polling data from Paul Manafort, Russian lawyers in Trump Tower meetings, etc., all do not count under that bizarrely myopic definition.
Unless Trump had had a formal "agreement" with the Russian GOVERNMENT to "coordinate," there is no possibility of a finding that he and his campaign worked with Russia in the election. And that is absurd!
The AG was hand-picked by Trump for the purpose of scuttling the full report. We must have the full report.
6
I refuse the see the 2016 election as one of "white power rising".
Surely Trump managed to stir up fears, surely he activated at least several million voters who wouldn't have bothered to vote with his scare tactics about immigrants, but should we then believe the whole election turned on those issues?
There were a good number of Obama to Trump voters, people who voted twice for Obama and then for Trump. We will never know how many, but the numbers were significant. Besides, 2016 was also a change year in which one party had been in power for two terms and voters were ready for something new.
Considered from a distance, our methods of selecting a president are just short of ridiculous. We only get two choices? What am I as a voter supposed to do when I don't like either one?
The primary system is truly rigged, especially that of the Republicans. Trump, never expecting to win, walked in to the primaries tailor made for a demagogic candidate because Republicans award ALL of the delegates from most states to the one candidate who gets more votes, not one who gets a majority. So, Trump could "win" the early primaries with 30 to 35% of the vote.
What if we had three rounds of national voting with four candidates from each party? Seems excessive? Most likely better than what we have in terms of final results.
The way it is now, voters are treated like stooges given a poor choice between A and B, neither of which, in many cases, are worthy.
6
@Doug Terry: You could make a case that the biggest White Power part of Trump's trajectory was exactly in the Republican primaries: that was where he surged to the lead, propelled entirely on incoherent, largely racist demagoguery. Then his surprisingly large showing in the general election was based a lot on the same racist demagoguery, but also on the hate campaign against Clinton that the Republicans had been stoking for years, and what seems to be inevitable "normalization", where familiar patterns like changing parties after two terms seemed to make sense, in spite of his looniness. You still see that: people just don't hear what he's saying. He's an American politician, so they fill in all the American political routine they expect...
Unfortunately, I don't see that in itself, re-arranging the election process would improve things. The power of demagoguery in the new world of social media would be just as destructive...
2
It was always naive to think that the Mueller report would solve any problems. Trump is running a racket not a government and that fact is is plain sight. Proving these issues beyond a reasonable doubt in the format of a legal enquiry particularly in the face of political obstruction was difficult but eventually some mistake will trip up Trump and the whole edifice will come tumbling down. Trump is really the least of our worries. More of a problem is what comes next. As Mr. Blow points out the iconography of a newly emboldened white supremacy is now evident. Once the toothpaste is out of the tube it's next to impossible to get it back in. I'm afraid that this country is on the way to a new Civil War and I'm very afraid of what may precipitate it.
4
Your comments today were spot on. I couldn't agree more.
8
Thank you Charles. The fact that your thoughts are again on these pages was the only positive moment I’ve had since Sunday afternoon.
10
Hey, Charles! It's even bigger than the New York Times!
Not Trumpism so much as the inordinate focus on Trump and the lack of commitment of our media and our politicians to do a darn thing about the muckraking mess we now stand in.
Start politicking and let's cut some deals!
Folks, don't waste your time reading Blow. Let's get something done. Got a politician you can write? I do!
4
This column goes seriously off the rails near the end. Blow cites a 2017 article that raises an alarm against a “constitutional convention” at which, in Blow’s words, “anything can happen.” He means, in the words of the 2017 article, that such a gathering “can make major changes to the constitution and, some argue, even change the number of states required to ratify those changes.” Sounds scary. But it’s not true. Here’s why:
All of this refers to Article V, which does not allow a “constitutional convention.” Instead, it calls for “a Convention for proposing Amendments” to be held when two-thirds of the states apply for one. Despite the “runaway convention” myth dreamed up by the John Birch Society, that conclave can do nothing except propose amendments for ratification by three-fourths of the states (or disband if the delegates can't reach agreement). In a 1984 report to Congress, the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee said, “The framers did not provide an unchecked grant of power to a convention: every amendment proposed would be subject to the same conditions faced by those proposed by Congress ... the notion of a ‘runaway’ convention, succeeding in amending the Constitution in a manner opposed by the American people, is not merely remote, it is impossible.”
If Blow doesn’t want to follow Article V, what other parts of the Constitution does he want to ignore?
2
@Neil Goldstein: Maybe the key words are "in a manner opposed by the American people." Yes, changes would need to be approved, but that would be in the context of a Moon Shot scale public relations campaign (actually several conflicting massive public campaigns). We know for sure that Alex Jones level disinformation would be heavily funded. If somebody like Trump was in office, can you imagine he might mobilize the Army to protect the Convention? Of course he might. It could all get pretty dramatic.
And remember, with none of that kind of thing going on, the American people once readily approved of Prohibition. That time, they got to change their minds...
2
Footage from the 1939 Madison Square Garden fascist rally featured in the chilling doc 'A Night at the Garden' (linked the to Roger Cohen column this weekend) shows the nazi saluting rabid crowd cheering the pledge of allegiance including the words, "one Nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all." and then moments later going wild when the speaker (unidentified, but with a thick German accent) promises America will be "a Gentile controlled white nation". So Mr Blow, as always, is right. It isn't that African Americans and other minorities are held in contempt by the white supremacists among us, they aren't even considered fully human!
6
Here a minimalist version of my first submission.
Charles Blow, will you join me in supporting any move possible to end completely the archaic US Census Bureau system for classifying Americans.
What does a White Nationalist do when faced with a formal declaration by the US government, via the Census Bureau or better yet, by the next President.
We Americans are all members of the only race, the human.
Only-NeverInSweden.blogspot.com
Citizen US SE
Blow -- losing is hard, eh? Look at the bright side. You can now shake off the corrosive hate you've been packing around for years, and go find something POSITIVE to write about. You've made very clear your negativity on Trump the person, Trump's policy positions, and white people in general. Would be great if you could set aside your loftily-expressed vitriol and look for ways to lift mankind, rather than put down what you disagree with.
13
I have long thought that every column by Charles Blow was a covert call to a race war. But with this column he makes it overt and explicit.
Like similar apocalyptics from the right, this kind of writing raises blood pressures while undermining rational thought. It makes it impossible for liberals and conservatives to find any common humanity in one another, much less any political common ground.
Blow’s writings are a symptom of our current political malaise, as well as an ongoing contribution to them.
10
The problem with your argument Mr. Blow is that the Trump Campaign was exonerated making obstruction a mute point. Let’s at least give credit where credit is do shall we, to the Obama White House, DNC, HRC, and you Mr. Blow and your liberal media cronies, who for the past 2 years have push your liberal agenda and waged a war of disinformation in an attempt to cripple a duly elected President and his administration. You list the election and still would not let it go! Who are the real conspirators!
7
"The very symbols of Trumpism — the MAGA hats, the wall, etc. — are more than merely physical objects. They have long since transcended their original meaning and purpose. They are now emblems. They are now the new iconography of white supremacy, white nationalist defiance and white cultural defense."
Red hats covering empty heads,
3
I've missed your anger, Mr. Blow. And what I know first hand: the White Nationalists, at least here in Southern California, are armed. I'm worried that frightening times are ahead.
3
Mr. Blow is absolutely right. However, after reading Neal Katyal's column, I'd suggest that the full text of the Mueller Report, if we can get access to it, may be of much more interest than William Barr has tried to make it seem. Not a magic bullet, but perhaps helpful. In the meantime, it's not too soon to start thinking about what to do if Donald Trump loses the 2020 election and then claims in the face of clear evidence otherwise that he really won and refuses to leave the White House. A good many people of the sort that Mr. Blow refers to here probably would back him in that case. I suspect that we may have a blow up of this sort before we can get to a blow up over a constitutional convention.
3
@Stephen Merritt: He makes a lot of false claims in the face of clear evidence: including pretending that Mueller's report has "totally exonerated" him. You're right, he might deny the results of an election that went against him. (He has even denied the results of the election that landed him in office: he claims to have won the popular vote, in some sense.) We'll have to look very carefully at this as 2020 approaches. Starting now.
2
After this pathetic report, I don't EVER want to see or hear from Mueller again. He just reduced our nation to nothing. Time for NYSD
1
Oh please, what liberal-sputtering nonsense:
“...having a racist, sexist, child-caging, family-separating, Muslim-hating transphobe as president” and “in much the same way that the Confederate flag became a white supremacist signaling device, wearing the MAGA hat and self-identifying as a “Trump supporter” now serves the same purpose”
Now that the media’s relentless pursuit of Trump for Russia collision has met an abrupt end, how about now stopping the whining, false charges. MoveOn...to productive use of your pulpit.
9
It’s pretty hard to obstruct justice when the the crime they accuse you of was never committed. Mr. Blow and the rest of The NY Times should give these conspiracy theories a rest and get back to reporting real news.
8
@Padraig Lewis: No, you don't get to obstruct justice on the grounds of denying that a crime was committed. And if you aren't indicted, that doesn't clear away everything you have done to block an investigation. Barr might have said something along those lines, but his very lenient views that way were why he was chosen by Trump to be Attorney General. They don't reflect the actual laws.
2
Dear NYT:
Charles Blow cannot see past his own racial grievance brief to write a column about President Trump being cleared of conspiring with Russia to steal an election -- a narrative this newspaper tried to advance day after day for more than two years.
"Bigger Than Mueller and Trump- Trumpism follows a historical pattern: Whenever black people make progress, white people respond forcefully."
This is deeply irresponsible.
13
More total garbage from Blow.
"The very symbols of Trumpism — the MAGA hats, the wall, etc..... are now the new iconography of white supremacy, white nationalist defiance and white cultural defense They are a form of white pride credentialing."
Blow, here in Texas there are some people who support Trump who don't adhere to your allegation of white pride credentialing.
First is my Mexican-American sister in law who spoke no English until she learned it in elementary school. Very proud of her Mexican heritage, she and her husband are ardent Trump supporters. She has a MAGA hat and she's not exactly what you label a "white nationalist" supporting white supremacy.
You know Blow, she is one of those "brown people" that Trump haters like you use as an example to support the unproven allegation he's a racist.
My millennial age 31 barber is an openly gay male active in Houston LGBTQ activities who tells me he ardently supports Trump because of his economic policies. His rationale: "I'm a self employed businessman and the Democrats propose mindless social programs to giveaway everything and I have to pay for all that? It affects MY bottom line. My gay friends don't always agree, but I don't care..I'm a businessman first and Trump is best for me".
You know, Blow, one of those gay activists that Trump haters allege he is homophobic about?
Looking around Blow, the most prejudiced person on the block appears to be just you.
9
Empires rise, and empires fall. For some reason, each one thinks it has some right to exist forever or, at least, that there is some likelihood that it will exist forever.
Hitler's thousand-year Reich lasted a dozen years? How much longer do we think the USA has? How ironic would it be if the Soviet Union came back into existence under Putin while the USA faded away because of Trump?
3
I believe this effect is real. I'm probably repeating myself, but oh well!
I one made a comment to the effect of this to a friend: "It seems like people are afraid that the blacks are going to take over the country", to which she replied reflexively, "They better not!"
I was just doing what most kids learn in trying to get a person to say something they might be hesitant to say, but when presented with a direct approach, evokes a response that unmasks a very real but often covered up feeling or thought.
Then I had to look ay myself and wonder if I held the same knee-jerk reaction somewhere in my soul. And indeed it was there!
We're really complex beings.
We're sorry for our ancestor's horrific acts of the past. I'm pretty certain I would have been one that hated slavery, knew it to be reprehensible, knew blacks to be the same as whites, and this is why reading Huck Finn as a child resonated with me.
I've paid more than my fair share of dues to the past that I never would have tolerated in my soul. I think many others feel the same, but I think our language and customs are the major impediment at this time to overcoming that barrier.
I don't think anyone should claim that all whites need to pay for the past or anything like that. We do need to pay the reparations in lifting people out of bad situations though. I think Sanders would give the ok to spend many a billion dollars towards that goal. It will take generations to heal, unfortunately, but I hope I'm wrong.
@DudeNumber42
Regarding your reparations comments...today I'm a 55 year old black man and when people ask where my ancestry originated I'm clueless. I'm black which means my ancestors must have come from somewhere in Africa. But where? African Americans have many wounds from existing in this country. The first one received had to be the loss of knowing who we are and where we come from. Maybe reparations for descendants of slaves could simply involve a free comprehensive genealogy, acknowledging from government of what happened to slaves similar to how Germany did after the second World War, and eliminating systemic racist outcomes from government and business. Me personally, I would be happy with that.
2
Dear Mr. Blow: your branding all Trump supporters as white supremacists is not only inaccurate and insulting to millions of people, it puts you in the same trap that Hillary voluntarily fell into when she described Trump supporters as "deplorables," and your assertions will only prove to be counterproductive. Some facts: 206 counties in this country that voted for Obama (twice) voted for Trump in 2016. Are you saying the people in these counties are white supremacists? I certainly hope not, for no one could be that naive. I am not a Trump supporter, but I know many who voted for him - and they are not white supremacists. Many factors were weighed by these people, the principal one being economic concerns. You, sir, are falling into the same mistake the Democrat leadership fell into two years ago - they failed to feel the pulse of this nation, and, as a result, they came up short. Your beliefs, if they are followed once again by the Democrat leadership will only ensure another Trump victory in 2020.
6
For those of us who grew up in the 50’s and 60’s in the United States of America, much of the behavior of the President, certain members of his family, his campaign staff and advisors would have been regarded as treasonous and worthy of prosecution with respect to Russia (then, the USSR). The only useful information we, the American public, have gained from this experience is a painful knowledge of the deep and dangerous flaws of our system of government, and its weaknesses, which are all too easily exploited by vaguely disguised aspiring criminals for the benefit of the few. It is no accident that not only do we have a justice accused of sexual harassment sitting on the Supreme Court, but also recently seated someone accused of sexual assault — perhaps the next nominee will be a rapist —the stench is everywhere, and is it any wonder that the hand-picked AG provided the essential sound bites for the next visit to the polls by the 63 million enamoured with hate and discontent? Given the erosion of principles and morality that are displayed at the highest levels of government, do I believe that a Constitutional Convention could be convened to reconstitute this government to further disenfranchise, exploit and impoverish our citizens? Recent history and the cowardice of our elected representatives has made that easy.
1
Thank you & welcome back, Charles Blow. It’s easy to be buffaloed by titles such as Attorney General, but Barr’s letter should be read in the context of his 19-page-no-obstruction memo & the positions his daughter (DOJ) and son-in-law (office of WH counsel, overseeing Russian matters) recently took up in this regime. And thanks for drawing attention to the possible constitutional convention, underwritten in part by the Kochs. Perilous to count on any institution these days.
4
As dangerous as Trumpism is, reducing the wave of nationalist populism which is sweeping the Western world to the mere whines of a dying, racist white demographic is as foolish as it is absurd.
Via Trump, Brexit, France’s yellow vests, Italy’s Five Star party, Germany’s AfD and other multiple right wing parties gaining traction throughout Europe, hundreds of millions of people throughout the West are demanding a return to national sovereignty. That means control of borders; recognizing the cost – cultural as well as economic - of limitless inflows of immigrants; demanding that trade agreements benefit the worker rather than just trans-global corporations; and that leaders pay attention to the average citizen and admit the downsides of radical globalism which porous borders represent.
Does Mr. Blow believe that half of the Western world’s electorate is going to be shamed or mocked away with worn-out charges of “bigotry”? Doesn’t he realize that this lazy, anti-intellectual reflex of the left is not only not working any more, but is in fact exactly how we got Trump and Trumpism in the first place?
3
Depressingly accurate. To what lengths will some people go to insure white dominance? I shudder to think.
3
This is more terrifying than Trump colluding with the Russians. And it's happening while we've all been distracted by Trump and his crazy tweets. I remember hearing about this on Bill Maher and nothing since then. It's been all about Trump, Russia and the ridiculous offensive things he says. This is why we can't trust the media because they dont' focus on things like this. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rMHPH96Z3ic
1
Glad to see your column again. NYTimes needs to update your picture with the FaceBook version. Agree with you on the threat of a constitutional convention - that's like saying good by United States of American. I do think you need to qualify your overgeneralized characterization of white people dedicated to white supremacy; the word "some" would do.
Trump doesn't have the intelligence to collude. He was swept along by his associates who did it for him. Meanwhile, his stupidity, meanness, racism, misogyny and narcissism has caused real damage to the US and to our standing in the world. His personal collusion with Russia has more to do with money and his business dealings than winning elections. Remember, he never expected to win...he wanted to use the campaign and publicity to better his grasp of money. Collusion was never the problem. His lack of intelligence is by far the biggest threat to our future.
3
It's definitely bigger than Mueller and Trump: It is about an Obama Administration effort to throw the election in Hillary's favor. These efforts including using the obviously fake Russian dossier provided by the DNC to get FISA warrants to spy on the Trump campaign, the whitewashing of Hillary's email misdeeds via Comey's exoneration, and once they failed using the "Russia Collusion" investigation to hobble the Trump Presidency. Dirty tricks indeed!!
1
Mr. Blow you indeed are a master of the art of race baiting. Those with whom you do not agree are bigots, racists, white suprematists or members of the Klu Klux Klan. I agree that President Trump isn't a conventional President, he has an extremely high cringe factor and a healthy dose of self esteem of which greatly disappoints me. However, those who voted for Trump knew what kind of guy he was, just as those who voted for Bill Clinton. They share a weak moral base.
Would it be a safe assumption, since you abhor the white nationalism you see throughout our country and in the White House, that your feelings towards the Nation of Islam and their leaders, past and present are just as abhorrent? Hate speech, bigotry and racial supremacy certainly aren't the chattel of the white man are they?
5
I've missed Charles Blow's columns. He needs to be back twice a week at least. These days the Times' op ed columns with Douthout, Brooks, and Stephens, lists much too far to the right.
3
No one does the truth better than Charles Blow. Welcome back you were missed!
4
As Mr. Blow states, there are indeed forces present that run counter to human progress in general and human rights in particular. And they must be fought against or dystopian societies will pepper the Earth, and eventually destroy any semblance of equality, freedom and fraternity.
White supremacy is a zombie ideology that stalks the planet and yet the same rancid mentality is also present in the Hindu nationalism of Modi in India and the Han march of evil in China under the current leadership of Xi Jinping.
4
As Mr. Blow correctly notes, Barr's letter is the least of our problems. Those of us sickened by Trump will be looking back at this time when all we wanted was the release of the Mueller report - and think how incredibly naive we were.
It is time to partition the nation. It will not be easy. It will not be painless. But there is no alternative. Sixty percent of us do not want to live in a dictatorship. Living under a totalitarian, lawless regime that prides itself on its racism isn't the America I grew up in, and I am in my 60's.
The fact is that forty percent of Americans think Trump is wonderful. They will never change. And Trump may well face state criminal charges once he leaves office. Taking these facts together with Trump's pronouncement this morning that he is going to punish his "enemies" means only one thing: He will not leave office voluntarily, even if he loses an election.
Even worse, he'll simply declare another "emergency" that exists only in his mind, and cancel the November 2020 election. And forty percent of our citizens will cheer him on as he does this. Trump knows that he now has five Supreme Court votes letting him do whatever he wants. He has consolidated absolute power. And he will never leave the White House voluntarily.
This situation will not "improve" with time. And it means just one thing: the sixty per cent of us who are sickened by his regime have some very difficult decisions to make. And we'd better start making them now.
6
Welcome back, Charles!
1
A Jewish cemetery in Fall River, MA, was desecrated last weekend; over 50 tombstones were vandalized, many with the predictable swastikas and Nazi slogans. Far worse, in my opinion, were the words "This is MAGA country," also written in black magic marker on tombstones. Even if Trump were removed from office today, we would still have the people who support him, who approve of his every loathsome action and utterance, and who would undoubtedly work to replace him with yet another hateful person. Time to face up to the fact that America is not the city on the hill, not the beacon of light to all nations. We've become something far, far lower and more sinister. With or without Donald Trump.
6
Welcome back, Charles Blow!
3
Thank you Charles for expressing my feelings and thoughts.
Beyond the Russian question, Trump has indeed lost on moral grounds and has forever changed the presidency and our belief in a Democratic system. Let's face it, the Republicans have won over the past 40 years thanks to the likes of Nixon, Reagan, and Bush the Younger, and mostly, big, big money. Trump is the frosting on the cake.
For all practical purposes, the USA has become ungovernable. A split into two to four countries might make it work. Otherwise, I advise all younger people move to Canada. Let the South secede, and break off the West Coast. The only step that might save this country is to get rid of the electoral college.
4
Charles, you are painting with some pretty broad strokes. I think it is a mistake to chalk up so much of Trump's appeal to racism and to overlook the concerns of poor, white America. Even if their support is misplaced. This column reminds me of the "Basket of Deplorables," and it's not a good look. Your words strike me as more divisive than true. I would prefer that you stick to the facts. MAGA lovers may appreciate mindless slogans, but I for one prefer my columnists and politicians to parse the details with a spirit of truth and fairness.
5
Resident Trump doesn't read. I wonder if he'll actually read the report.
Welcome back, Charles Blow.
Welcome back. reason.
2
Yes Bobby Mueller`s two years report ended with a thud is the truth.Still two years of investigation does not justify Bill Barr`s four page report.
Why was not trump interviewed personally ?
Why Mueller never investigated or interviewed Jared and Ivanka who are running loose in the White House with no credentials and do not have a clean record ?
Saying that trump`s Presidency encouraged the white nationalists or KKK to come out of the woodwork and are showing their faces in the mainstream and calling themselves neo-Nazis. that term will perhaps put them in trouble in Germany now.
But Democrats need to get their act together instead of infighting and elect someone who is strong, powerful to beat trump in 2020 election.
Please all register to VOTE !
3
Yes Bobby Mueller`s two years report ended with a thud is the truth.Still two years of investigation does not justify Bill Barr`s four page report.
Why was not trump interviewed personally ?
Why Mueller never investigated or interviewed Jared and Ivanka who are running loose in the White House with no credentials and do not have a clean record ?
Saying that trump`s Presidency encouraged the white nationalists or KKK to come out of the woodwork and are showing their faces in the mainstream and calling themselves neo-Nazis. that term will perhaps put them in trouble in Germany now.
But Democrats need to get their act together instead of infighting and elect someone who is strong, powerful to beat trump in 2020 election.
Please all register to VOTE !
1
Gotta put this in the rear- view mirror now and absolutely HAMMER him on policy. Infrastructure, tariffs, that tax cut that didn't really help the middle class....there's plenty of grist for that mill. Time to hop on the income inequality bandwagon amd ride it as far as it will go.
2
@metsfan. I don’t know about you but I paid less in taxes this year. And I am definitely middle class. And do tell us what Dems have proposed for infrastructure.
1
This column should be widely disseminated in Latin America and Africa. Then people will not be misguided enough to pay much of their families' savings to coyotes and to risk their lives to get into a country which elected a "racist, sexist, child-caging, family-separating, Muslim-hating transphobe" president and could even reelect him.
4
welcome back, mr. blow. just in time.
2
An overwhelming majority of the migration of people today is from the non-white countries to the ones founded and historically run by the old white males who are the focus of so much criticism. Why, if they have done and continue to do, such a bad job of making a country a good place to live do so many non-white people keep trying to get into such countries?
There must have been something in the way things were run here and in Europe that worked; otherwise the flow of migration would be in the other direction.
4
People I know who support Trump are not racists. They are vigorously anti-abortion. It's very possible that some Trump supporters are single issue voters like unfettered gun access or are anti-abortion or religiously conservative. They look past his hatefulness and lying. They even convince themselves that the sexual assault allegations (p grabbing) were based on lies. To paint these types of voters with the racist Trump brush is unfair. I don't think others can reach them though or show them that Trump is not who they think he is. Some have even gone so far as to believe that God is working through this evil man. That's intractable thinking. And Mueller never found the smoking gun. He is too disciplined to conclude conspiracy without one. No overt act by Trump himself could be proved.
4
Trumpists who oppose ending The Electoral College insist that our current system works well to prevent “mob rule”. By that, they mean prevention of a democracy in which non-whites are permitted the authority of one person, one vote.
3
@Gretchen Wetzel
Trumpists who oppose ending the Electoral College don't have any idea of what it's about -- or that with this administration, we are currently under "mob rule".
1
America is in a war with itself. We should change the name of the United States since we are no longer united but a country divided by hate.
1
I can't help thinking Donald would have been guilty of collusion if only he had been more competent.
As it is, he's a terrible president with bad ideas and no vision of government or public service. In short, he bumbled his way out of criminal charges.
3
@Occupy Government Jeeze and to think he beat Hillary. How did he do it?
What DT did not say that is the real truth is the the Trump campaign was both a willing and an unwitting beneficiary of Russian influence, such at minimum we already knew, and in itself is plenty bad enough!
3
The factor that the Russians uncovered was democratic emails that showed the democratic parties machine working colluding to thwart Bernie and his supporters and force Hilary into the nomination at all cost. Had those emails said Bernie is great for the party and he is giving Hilary a healthy fight this whole Russian interference issue would not be an issue for democrats. Democrats are quick to blame the uncovering of the emails and hide the fact they lost because they were sabotaging one of their own candidates.
1
It seems we have had a two year game; game called for foul ball. The time would have been much more productive working with the 25th Amendment questioning his intelligence and mental state. Being a simpleton would not warrant the 25th; but certainly serious control.
1
The bigger problem we have is that the country is even more divided than it was before and we have trump who has no clue how to bring a nation together, probably because he doesn't care or have the heart one needs to care about humanity.
I guess there were bone spurs after all. And all the lies since then...I guess they weren't.
2
“[Democratic leadership] put too many eggs in the Mueller basket, and allowed Trump to move the goal posts. Indeed, now the goal posts are permanently affixed to skates.”
This! And another Charles Blow fan is born.
1
It's about Black people, for sure, but it's about a heck of a lot more than that, too.
1
Welcome back, Charles. I hope your sabbatical was productive. Looking forward to reading your next book if ready.
Trump has read the dark heart of America and it is not pretty as it is filled with racial hatred, rich privilege and misogyny. It is difficult to speak this truth as Trump supporters immediately brand you as a hater yourself. There are plenty of fine people among Trump supporters, but as with the KKK a white sheet seems to give them permission a group think that is truly toxic and seems to have a life of its own. It was so among those who supported Hitler and we are in danger of going that way ourselves. It was so among the original Salem witch hunters who forgot their humanity and became possessed by ideologgical blindness.
Let's pray that there are enough people in our country that value humanity and cherish what is good in each of us.
3
I am so glad you are back. You write the truth.
4
Thank you!
2
He didn't grope, he didn't have bone spurs, he did not confess obstruction to Lester Holt, he never cheated anyone in New York or anywhere, he is good friends with Putin and Kim Jong Un, he didn't collude, no one needed to be in the room when he spoke privately to Putin, he's really smart and only hired the smartest people since he took office, he barely knew Paul Manafort, and Michael Cohen was not his fixer.
There's more.
6
I agree with Mr. Blow's premise - there is a constant in our culture, running through the fabric of our national identity: that is a notion of protecting our facade of whiteness, a
'Manifest Destiny' that is greater than just the settlement of the west. Rich, powerful, and white is our royalty.
Our relatively short history is riddled, ladened, with holding down, pushing back, restricting, segregating, denying, closing doors, and fleeing. Yes, fleeing... circling the wagons! Not only the earlier horrors of slavery, the vanquishing of the Native Americans, the KKK, lynchings, but since the 1950's..... my lifetime as a matter of fact: the resurgence of voting impediments; "white-flight" from northern cities ( my parents, out of Milwaukee, 1950); anti-busing/civil rights demonstrations, 1960's; the Tea Party, a black president...wait a minute!; soaring gun sales.... and, the election of an ultimate champion of "whiteness", a merit-less scoundrel by anyone's standards, by a substantial minority of our voting population.
This particular democracy is an experiment, it is still being crafted, tweaked, botched and mishandled, and sabotaged...
and nurtured. As President Obama has said, "It's up to us."
Jack from McF WI... A 71 yr. old white guy.
4
I'm all for a REXIT (red state exit) - let them go. If they won't go, then the rest of us should do a BLEXIT (blue state exit). This tyranny of the minority must end.
5
@markymark. But who is going to provide one third of California’s budget? Why don’t we just give you back to Mexico and solve our immigration problems at the same time.
1
I'm counting on Adam Schiff to proceed full speed ahead and issue some supboenas.
I don't trust Barr for one minute - not after his length letter to Trump auditioning for his current job.
Democrats must concentrate on winning in 2020.
9
I think Blow sees the shape of this amorphous phenomenon of nationalism more clearly than many people would like to believe. There is not just one reason why voters in this country remain loyal to Trump, but it is clear to me that economics is not a reason. It is a rationale. The humming economy is a favorite talking point of his supporters even though it continues to exacerbate the problem of wealth disparity and consigns us to a future of extreme deficit spending. The economic power of the middle class is still shrinking, but Trump's middle class supporters are not paying attention to his wholesale betrayal. What do they get instead? They get Trump's many attacks on minorities that give them permission to hold onto prejudice and ignore injustice. It's more fodder for the culture wars brought to us for decades by Republicans.
7
Trump would never have been elected minus miniscule deviant boutique elements hijacking Democratic Party once championing working class.
2
To even suggest we have an actual president right now is an insult. I do not see how even the dumbest among us can rate the present occupant of the WH alongside any former President of my lifetime (which isn't minor).
We are in a pretty sick cartoon.
6
Trey Gowdy and other South Carolinians at Mar a Lago this past weekend with trump to celebrate "the win" on the Mueller investigation.It was Gowdy who headed the committee on "the loss" in the Benghazi Investigation involving Secretary of State Clinton. Looks like a tit -for -tat to me.
2
6 pages does not justify 675 days of getting to the real truth. 48 hours and 6 pages do not cut it.
3
Good to have you back, Charles. Keep up the good work.
Truth matters.
1
"Trumpism is bigger than Trump."
It is abundantly clear that the malignant mole in our society has been welcomed by the Republican Party. The cancer that Trump represents would have been stamped out had it not been for Republicans who have harbored Trumpism in their hearts their entire lives. And as Mr. Blow points out, Trumpism will continue long past the time Trump is thrown out with the garbage.
So what is Trumpism? Trumpism is a systemic cancer. As Mr. Blow so well lays out, Trumpism is the political movement of white nationalism, white supremacy. Trumpism is a resurrection of neo-Nazis' pursuit of a pure white superior race to rule all others. But Trumpism is also something more. Trumpism has a religious vein. It mixes white nationalism, white supremacy with white Christian supremacy. Trumpism is malignant evil.
But keep in mind, the majority of Americans are not infected. In fact, the majority of Americans are not even susceptible to Trumpism. Thus, Trumpism can be effectively dealt with. The cure is to stamp out the Republican Party.
That is the realization we must pursue. The Republican Party is the heart and soul of Trumpism. It is the official and officious proselytizing organ of white Christian supremacy. It is an infection, but just as syphilis can be treated, the Republican Party can be defeated.
To those who claim the Republican Party includes "some very fine people," enough. With the lies!
Very fine people do not remain quiet in the face of Trumpism!
3
Manafort
Cohen
Stone
Gates
Flynn
Papadopoulos
Van Der Zwaan
kilimnik
Et Al.
The Republicans are not fooling anyone. More to continue.
11
Who was convicted of Collusion with the Russians to influence the election? The inconvenient truth.
1
I am so pleased to read Mr. Blow's column again on the New York Times' Opinion Page. Invariably, Mr. Blow's incisive commentary is invariably profound and lucid; he sorts out the problems that are addressed with admirable clarity. By shifting the discourse of the moment from a yes/ no question to one that views broader issues consequential for the purported identity of our nation in the long term, Mr. Blow addresses the reader to consider the consequences of the actions we have witnessed in the short and long term.
In all fairness, other candidates have run on similar messages
as MAGA. Mr. Blow may be correct in his premise, in fairness the above point should have been discussed.
@Gary Cohen
Why? What’s unfair about the writer determining his thesis when clearly he goes on to support that thesis? Why must he have named names of other candidates who believe in white supremacy?
Is it possible that many Trump supporters are simply in agreement with his pro-market economic policies rather than aligned with some brand of white nationalism? I think a lot of people appreciate record high employment and rising home values and a focus on tangible results, which Trump has delivered, unlike Obama who chased rainbows with his clean energy agenda and lofty but empty speeches about globalization. Sometimes the race card shouldn't be dealt.
3
@Bill What good is high employment when you have to work harder to afford less and less? How do rising home values help younger people who cannot afford to buy a house? The people who benefit from Trump's economic policies and tax giveaways are the people at the top of the heap who don't need any help.
6
The problem for trump and his mob is that the full Mueller report likely has embarrassing or other legal ramifications that could bring down the curtain on this weird presidency. Barr wants to minimize this by presenting Cliff Notes as if we are high schoolers, the base wants to believe a brief headline and trump's stunted vocabulary, and the rest of us want to know the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.
6
Thank you Charles for speaking my mind. I will, as always, be voting.
Charles Blow, become the voice that must be heard, to declare this message.
The US Census Bureau must end use of the system by which it places each American in a box. Each box bears a label created by racists long ago as the first and necessary step in creating a racial order.
Belief in a racial order in which only a few called white are to reign from on high is the core of white nationalism as practiced in all too many countries. But only in America is that belief given support by a system created by the government.
You, Charles Blow, join forces with Times columnist Thomas Chatterton Williams, Race/Related Editor Lauretta Charlton to begin the discussion of this statement.
We are one people of one race, the human, each of us a distinct individual sharing the same fundamental genome with every other one of us. End classification by race and ethnicity.
Only-NeverInSweden.blogspot.com
Citizen US SE
Sources to be listed in replies.
Welcome back Mr. Blow. We need your no holds barred writing as much as ever, this is not a time to take our eye away from the ball. Troubling, but great column.
4
Charles Blow is back and is blazing! Fantastic article Mr.Blow!
As usual, yyou speak truth to power and tell it like it is!
4
Trump didn't conspire with the Russians for the very simple reason that the Russians didn't see Trump as intelligent or reliable enough a partner to conspire with. Seriously, would anyone with half a brain knowingly conspire with Trump?
5
@Mike B And the crazy thing is, he keeps winning.
I’m not sure how Mr. Blow avoided the topic of the day, but an American president who has been accused by liberals for the past two years of the high crime of treason (colluding with our enemy) was exonerated. And exonerated no less than by a team of special prosecutors that was largely comprised of Democrats. That’s man bites dog newsworthy.
11
I do not agree with your opinion. It's just that, your opinion.
2
Good; now that we "know" he's not a traitor we can just concentrate on exposing The Donald as a liar, an ignoramus, a racist, a misogynist, a xenophobe, a fraud, a narcissist, a blowhard and the most willfully divisive figure in the history of the American presidency. If that isn't good enough to defeat him in 2020, regardless of which candidate we ultimately settle on, we Democrats don't deserve to win.
8
A number of Trump addicts have declared: if you impeach our guy, there'll be a civil war in our country.
Many of these are, of course, the gun nuts. Latter day "patriots" reenacting Lexington-Concord or Bunker Hill. Taking a stalwart stand against "tyranny"--and hey! shades of Governor George Wallace "flinging down the gauntlet at the feet of tyranny and declaring 'Segregation now--segregation forever!' "
But this about a supposed Constitutional convention--to do what? write "white supremacy" into the Constitution?--
--gosh, I don't know Mr. Blow. That seems inconceivable to me.
On the other hand, it seemed inconceivable to me that such a man as Mr. Donald J. Trump--crook, liar, lascivious lout--could even be nominated by a major political party--
--let alone ELECTED.
(So I went outside and took down my "Professional Prophet" sign. Time to shut up shop!)
But to resume--
--IF such a monstrosity were enacted--
--and that IF is bigger and taller than Mount Everest--
--then yes, Mr. Blow, I think there WOULD be civil war in our country.
White supremacy?
I have said this in comments before--but I'll say it again. As a white person, I have many loyalties. To God. To my family. To my church. To my country.
And to people in general. Human beings. Created--as I was created--in the very image of God.
Loyalty to WHITE people? AS--white people?
No, sir. None. Not a speck.
5
Maybe an apology for the wild speculation you irresponsibly posted in many articles about Trump and Russian conspiracy?
3
So good to have you back.
4
Yes, Trump is just a symptom of a greater global challenge. To label that challenge as racism or white supremacy, however, oversimplifies. Those are surely elements of it but the even deeper, wider danger is the world wide resurgence of nationalistic fascism. The fight to defeat that resurgence is likely to be protracted and the outcome is by no means certain, nor does it hinge on the fate of one American president.
1
Wellcome back Charles. Brilliant. And super scary. But you're right.
5
Unlike the overwhelming majority here, I have not read the Mueller report. AG Barr's letter? The same.
Had we been on the verge of impeachment proceedings, nothing in my life would have changed. Does Donald Trump think that this result makes me a supporter? Absolutely not.
I follow the national debt. It grows at 4-5% each year, even though we're positioned to address this monster. So, don't say a positive word about Trump or the Trump economy. That would be a lie.
Things are not great. When they become "real bad", the America you (think you) love will be a distant memory.
2
Constitutional convention you say? Great! Let's repeal the second amendment.
3
There was a time I recall when we were warned not to “normalize” Mr. Trump’s behavior. Now, I’m afraid we’ve allowed that behavior to be enshrined as normal in the law.
7
Anyone who was interested in this so-called democracy had ample evidence before the 2016 election to know that the guy elected was not up to the position, and intact, was as morally and ethically reprehensible as he demonstrated since his campaign and election. That Americans are lazy and do not participate in maintaining their democracy is thoroughly their own fault. I made a couple phone calls to friends in New York City thats told me all I needed to know about the self-aggrandizing, single-celled mutant, and that's his only goal was accruing personal wealth at any cost to the rest of society. As the Democrats engage in dividing themselves, look for 4 more years of the same after the 2020 election.
1
"Whenever black people make progress, white people feel threatened and respond forcefully."
Except the black middle class hasn't been making progress. They were especially hurt during the Obama years. as were others in the middle class.
So in fact it's not simply white racism that gave rise to Trump, it is specific Obama policies that Hillary promised to continue.
Extreme anti black racists were never going to vote for Hillary, but it's 2X Obama voters who elected Trump.
3
There WILL be more of Trump and Trump wannnabes! Time to look at why. Not just the symptoms (racism, homophobia, xenophobia, etc.). But why has he been so wildly successful? There is a burning need in some to feel that they are better than someone else, anyone else. This includes groups of people that need to feel that they are better than other groups. The need to know that they are different from others.
It is often said that anger is a secondary emotion, secondary to fear. Yes sometimes. But not always. There can be great joy in anger. Watch Trump rallies. Listen to Trump fans get together and lamb blast Hillary, President Obama, "libs", homosexuals, black lives matter, etc. Sheer joy. Immediate camaraderie. If you want to get elected in some area of our country, you better feed this anger. Compromise is the kiss of political death. In simplest terms, it's "us against them" always!
3
I assumed Mueller had trump's tax returns. Silly me. I seriously don't know how any decision can be made about trump and his actions without them. ???
5
The hats and chants are a way to seed a fraternity which aims to keep power. As that fraternity becomes more organized, a constitutional convention is something to worry about. This group would want to take away women's choice, spread guns, privatize everything, deregulate finance, drown the rule of law under the pretext of drowning government. The oligarchs at the top will spin patriotism to foment an ignorant mass to do it's biding by preying on it fear of immigrants, fear of the loss of the so-called American (white) way. The ultimate goal is to keep a 1950s Americana ethos -- white and Christian with it's foot on the minorities.
3
I live in the midst of Trump supporters. Most of them seem like nice folks, but they are also members of a local “mega church”. Nearly all support Trump. I think they live in.their own World. It’s a World where Jesus has blue eyes and your “goodness” is reflected in how expensive your car is. I’m too old to move away and.too outspoken to really be friends with most of them. Our small town in California Is jammed with traffic now, and every vacant lot is being filled with “townhouses.”. or convenience stores. Looks like time’s. are booming....Who will buy those “homes” at half a million each? Where will they park all those cars? How long can this go on? And, when it crashes?
7
"And while Trump waged a two-year battle of slander and misinformation to defame the Mueller investigation, the majority of Democratic leadership did nothing to make the case that he had already reached the threshold of accountability, even without the report."
Of everything that has come from Trump, the true fact of this statement is the most sickening.
Democrats overthink things way too much and "speak nicely" to and about their opponents even when their opponents show them absolutely "no respect."
Some quick reminders:
1. Al Gore won the popular vote but lost the election because the Supreme Court decided to stop the vote counting in Florida.
2. Republicans rail constantly against voter fraud, yet consistently implement practices to disenfranchise eligible voters of color.
3. Obama has the right to nominate a candidate for a vacant Supreme seat vacated by the death of Justice Scalia, but Mitch McConnell won't even bring his nominee Merrick Garland up for a vote and then tells Obama he is not permitted to fill this vacant seat.
4. Hilary Clinton allows a severely flawed and politically inexperienced man, Donald Trump, to rename her "Crooked Hilary," then physically stalk her on the debate stage.
5. Donald Trump commits almost every violation of human decency on any given day.
Through all of this and more, Democratic leadership were spineless and muted. Democrats need to put their "man pants" on and tell Republicans, "no more!"
4
Move on, you lost this one. The best case for defeating Trump is his incompetence as a president, focus on that. Also remember that the Dems cannot elect a new president alone, they will need millions of people who voted for Trump in the last election to crossover and vote for a new president.
This is not the time to be tearing the country apart, it is the time for the Democrats to show that they are capable of uniting the country under a new, sane, competent, president who will work with everyone.
6
Although WE THE PEOPLE currently don't have access to the comprehensive information necessary to clearly construct an informative perspective of the findings included in the Mueller Report, WE DO KNOW THIS: Mr. Mueller NEVER stated that Donald Trump was innocent. The Summary that was released by Mr. Barr infers that Mueller came to the conclusion that his investigative team could not prove that Donald Trump was guilty of colluding with Putin and the Russian government. Observing Mr. Trump's behavior and commentary over a life span and his tenure in the Oval Office, Mueller's findings don't surprise me. Did WE THE PEOPLE actually believe that Mueller was going to have the opportunity to question Mr. Putin? Trump is a habitual liar. His manipulative behavior has always been protected by subordinates who cover up his transgressions by buying people off or taking the fall for Mr. Trump. Nixon was defeated when the American People inadvertently discovered & learned that "tapes" existed. Mueller uncovered a lot but could not identify "tapes" or a "smoking gun". It was not for lack of trying. The dangerous fact remains that the current President sitting in the Oval Office has no interest in serving the American People. He serves himself. I believe "smoking guns" exist. There are just too many criminals complicit in this Shakespearean Tragedy. The truth will come out... it is just a matter of time.
1
Trumpism is a multi-front counterrevolution against social progress. We’ve seen overlapping social revolutions since the middle of the 20th century: civil rights, women’s rights, LGBT rights, secularism. None are near finished but they have all significantly changed the power balance of society. The symbolic culmination was the election of a black man to our highest sociopolitical position. Heads exploded all over white, Christian, conservative America. It was an existential challenge to the coherence of their worldview. Hence all the birther nonsense; faced with the reality of his competence they denied his eligibility.
The basic contradiction of Trumpism is this: its adherents feel the world is unfair to them and want a return to a prior, mythical, level playing field. They refuse to see that their prior situation was one of privilege. They mistake the loss of advantage as loss of their rights. Trump is delivering their myth of blameless victimhood and they love it.
It’s going to be a hard job convincing them otherwise.
4
To white people, who have been living off the benefits of white privilege, equality seems like oppression
3
Brilliant, Mr. Blow, and true, and horrifying.
5
Thank god you’re back! My moral compass has been spinning without it’s true north!
Although you bring brutal truths forward about our society, it’s better to be disturbingly enlightened as you allow me to find my own missteps and avoidance of how I function in today’s world.
Thank you Mr.B.
Patricia Sheehan
[email protected]
3
Isn't it wonderful that now, those of us who were not around in the 1930s have the chance to see first hand what it was like to witness the rise of the Nazi party, and one man's grasp of control of the government. Too many similiarities here .
WAKE UP AMERICA !!
5
In a phone conversation with my MAGA Trumper brother-in-law a couple of days ago, we found we have one point of agreement: We both are grateful to be old. He turns 70 in November; I'll be 73 by year's end. He fears...he knows his grandchildren's lives will be characterized by social upheaval, a fact the oldest kids will soon begin to comprehend. I am in better shape in that respect; I have no grandchildren and my sons, middle-aged, have no plans or intentions on inflicting the future on any helpless infant.
Another thing about my brother-in-law, which I sense is endemic in the MAGA crowd: He looks the other way when undocumented workers, most recently a concrete crew, are employed to do work on his farm. He grouses about immigrants, but is among the first to sample the cuisines of other lands when the opportunity presents. His tight-fisted approach of using the cheapest contractor he can find indirectly encourages illegal workers and his culinary curiosity actively supports businesses that he is fully aware employs them. He won't even bother to deny it when it is pointed out.
Don't look to logic when up against the Cult of Trump. Denial trumps logic every time.
11
Our country was founded on the principle of American exceptionalism which really meant white male Anglo-Saxon supremacy. The fundamental problem we have today that is polarizing our nation is the slow, steady erosion of that notion. The whites who cannot tolerate the idea that they no longer exclusively reign supreme are fighting hard to retain their privilege while denying racism at the same time. The wealthy, mostly white, are fighting to retain their entitlement. The dotard in the WH is exploiting this to his advantage. He must be defeated at every turn.
1
I remember hearing that the WASP majority would come to an end in the near future. Being a WASP fully cognizant of the privileges that came with that, I thought- wow, that's going to be interesting. I certainly didn't imagine how "interesting " the backlash would be.
1
As Charles Blow observes, white folks do not like to see black folks rise, an attitude that also scapegoats members of more recent immigrant generations. Insidious networks of the white power faithful work together to keep black people down. Unsurprisingly, black Americans have made comparatively little headway in relation to promises of the Civil Rights movement. Few whites enjoy confronting these historical truths.
By the same token, black Americans have not responded well to their oppression, turning their rage on one another rather than more resolutely pursuing the opportunities that education and employment enable.
Mr. Blow, however, goes awry when he observes that “The best case against Donald Trump and the age of Trumpism has always been, and remains, the moral case. . . . it is the moral abomination of having a racist, sexist, child-caging, family-separating, Muslim-hating transphobe as president that must remain front and center.” America’s history of racist legislation suggests that the connection between morality and legality is tenuous at best. Robert Mueller decided that he did not have sufficient legal grounds to move against Trump. But Congress does possess the power to legislate morality.
Moral positions are not self-evident truths but need to be subjected to public scrutiny and Congressional debate. To suggest otherwise is to diminish the crusade on behalf of morality and weaken the lofty aims of liberalism.
Glad you are back, Mr. Blow. Even when you go a tad too far, we need your carefully derived views , your outrage, and profound morality to avoid settling into a complacent middle ground and merely hoping for the best in these troubled times. You are an important prophet .
2
Welcome back, Charles! Your mind and the words you share have been missed.
Trump remains a grave danger to our nation through his increasingly autocratic nature. As for the Mueller Report, only a full review of the entire document by both chambers of Congress, and by the American people, will even come close to letting him off the hook, at least from a legal point.
But with Trump's daily disregard for truth and diplomacy, while trampling on the Constitution and the Rule of Law, he remains, at the very least, the greatest embarrassment ever for this nation, and at worst, he puts our fragile democracy in mortal danger.
I realize the Mueller investigation has a very narrow focus but, with all the smoke coming out of this White House, there must have been fires of deception.
In the meantime, the moring talk shows will be filibustered by the likes of Jim Jordan, John Kennedy and Mark Meadows, each of whom rarely lets the host of the show get in a word.
Trump's campaign has found new oxygen in the Barr summary and the reality TV showman and con artist will use it to run attack ads 12 months ahead of schedule.
Charles, now that you are back from the book tour, please help us make sense of any of this.
3
“Whenever black people make progress, white people feel threatened and respond forcefully.” The myth of white superiority is destroyed by white people who do not know that progress makes all boats rise. White mythology drills holes in its own boats. It is the exact operation of a religion that wants to destroy other religions for a false cause, trying to benefit itself.
American history is well- and truly-studied and proves that the way to rise is for all to rise. It is proven and simple as 2 +2 to understand, if one is motivated. Ashleigh Adams understands: “Instead, the vast majority of us, including almost all white people, are working for less because some people would rather be paid less and be treated badly but feel superior to someone else.”
3
Scary times for the "others" indeed Mr. Blow.
1
The best case against Donald Trump is economic, not moral and the Democrats had better start making that case soon or they will lose again.
2
Thank you for the much needed dose of reality. While most we’re busy trying to dissect the Mueller report and the Barr letter you reintroduced a much broader lens to this sad chapter. Thanks for helping me remember this is really about racism and bigotry. Forget about this investigation. Like everything else in our society it was tainted from the start. The investigators thought they were following the facts— but they started from the wrong lane.
1
Calvin Coolidge was president when I was born. I lived through the great depression , Pearl Harbor and 9/11, but I have never been so afraid for the future of the Unite States as I am now.
8
Yesterday's NYT included a brilliant and chillingly accurate editorial by Sam Byers entitled "Britain Is Drowning Itself In Nostalgia". While it centered on Brexit and the tragedy that has befallen Great Britain since its passage, virtually every word, every description of the situation, applies equally to today's US. Trump and the GOP are overtly anti-democratic, working feverishly to take the nation back to the 19th century, trampling all progress and the very concept of democracy in the process. As was the case in South Africa, and is currently the case in Israel, democracy is merely a label when millions of citizens, entire segments of the population, have little in the way of rights and equal standing under law. But, as sure as the sun rises in the east, we're going there too. It is tragically befitting that a nation built on the backs of slaves, birthed with slavery as its original sin, appears destined to die upon a cross of racism, hatred, and xenophobia. And, make no mistake, this nation, at least the one envisioned by the Constitution and Declaration, is dying. In fact, it is already dead. I no longer recognize the nation of my birth. And neither does the rest of the world.
3
The best case for Democrats to actually overturn Trump and Republicans is economic. The big-money plutocratic wing of the Republican party chose to exploit racism to get wage-earning whites on their side and they have been winning with this strategy. The moral fight against racism should not be abandoned but the way to unite the majority of the country is to get past racism. Racism splits the 99% - economic interest should unite it.
Trump won the [electoral college] election in 2016 despite his moral transgressions, which included several things such as obvious corruption in addition to racism. What else could be revealed which would change attitudes? Little more will come from the Mueller report. New information has had little effect on Trump's ratings. Democrats must promise real material advantage to all those who have been on the short end of still-increasing inequality.
@skeptonomist "The big-money plutocratic wing of the Republican party chose to exploit racism to get wage-earning whites on their side and they have been winning with this strategy."
So how do we get wage earning people of color on our side?
1
Very good to have your voice back on this site. Your intelligence and analysis has been missed.
2
The fact that the duly elected president of our country is in fact duly elected should be good news for all Americans, regardless of ones politics. Opinion pieces like this, as a take on the news of the day, are evidence of what the Right love to call Trump Derangement Syndrome.
The president is a bad man, undoubtedly, but calling everyone who has ever worn a MAGA hat a white supremecist is surely as wrong-headed and racist as anything he has said. It’s the “deplorables” comment all over again, but Mr. Blow has decided to go beyond Secretary Clinton’s critism and put every Trump supporter in the same basket. This is a holier-than-thou, small-tent, political approach that is likely to get him elected again if it is allowed to spread throughout the Democratic Party.
7
Welcome back, Mr. Blow! Just last week, I was in a store and an older white man wearing a MAGA hat smiled at me. After I recovered from shock, I said, "Are you KIDDING?" to which his smile turned into an angry stare instantly. He must have thought that because I am white, I would find him endearing or something. Ew. Then I was in line to check out and he was behind me seeming nervous. I apologized to the black clerk on behalf of white people that she was about to see that hat and wait on that man. She smiled at me and said, "Just like the confederate flag t-shirts. What's new?" Indeed.
It's ENTIRELY up to all white people of conscience to stop this train. I knew the Obama presidency was too good to be true. They wanted to kill him from Day 1. McConnell led the way. So many people are responsible for this nightmare. Trump is merely the result.
5
I always understood that the Mueller investigation was too narrow in scope to be the magic bullet that many on the left were hoping for. Mr. Mueller was simply charged with finding out whether or not Trump or anyone on his team had actively coordinated or conspired with the Russians. That was going to be a very high bar to clear, legally.
However, Trump and his financial dealings are a much different story. I always argued that the SDNY and related investigations pose a far greater threat to Trump, his family, and his cronies than Mueller ever did. It seems that Mueller set out to answer conspiracy-related questions regarding Trump, but in the process, encountered the stink of corruption and financial crimes everywhere. I'm patiently waiting to see what comes out.
1
The very best thing we could do is get rid of the electoral college. When it allowed Trump to assume office, the very purpose it was created for, it became useless.
Let the popular vote decide who and what should be the rule of the land. I am tired of tiny factions having outsized say in everything.
Enough! Why should we all suffer because a small group of angry semi-illiterate, entitled white people think they should run the show.
1
@mj First, have a Democrat take over of the Senate. Next, add 7 liberal justices to the SCOTUS. Finally, correct everything wrong in the US Constitution.
Bada bing, bada boom. Problem solved.
@mj That could well be a result of the Constitutional Convention that Mr. Blow fears so greatly.
It's truly bizarre to follow the Mueller report with a tirade on racism and something called "multinational white tribalism".
Huh ??
The only message getting through is an intense, unhinged hatred of the President.
That's OK--he will be removed from office by force of law--in January 2025.
5
(Still in Lent. Listened to the Muslim call to prayer and the prayers in the New Zealand Parliment. From Ranky Tanky: “Oh death. Why don't you spare me over for another year?”)
Mueller aside, we who are spared pray and ask what next? Build mutual support: use short video clips (NowThis) of Democratic House hearings from Rep, Katie Porter on credit, interest rates, privacy dangers; AOC on legislative process, ethics; Rep, Underwood chairing a committee, maiden floor speeches, dropping bills in the hooper—all of this is real evidence. It's cheap, takes the money out of politics, makes the decisions to reflect real work to make healthcare available to all, to reduce debt, lower tuition, build housing, reform justice. The Presidential candidates should not separate the Congress, esp. the House, where the grass roots wave turned Orange County, CA, and swung GA, NM, CO, FA, IL,MI and WI; FL and OH have momentum as well. This new unity shows support for common goals and conveys confidence and strength. It will attract voters. It will build registration.
This is the new paradigm. It put 40 new Democrats in the House, and stopped one corrupt election in NC-9.
2
Thank you, Mr. Blow: The words "moral abomination" summarize so many other words to describe this corrupt and failed president.
1
I can’t say that I agree with the idea that trump is primarily a leader or a stooge of the white supremacist movement, and that this is what motivated his run for president. Like all true demagogues, trump cares first, foremost and exclusively about trump. He aligns himself with white supremacists because he can, because no one else in political leadership has both the moral depravity and the egotistical chutzpah to go public with this position at the national level to the extent that he has. And he knows they will stick to him like sludge because they have no alternative. He has created an unshakably loyal tribe from whence his power arises.
And yet there are many who support him who are not motivated by the idea of white supremacy. I think of them as the sick-and-tired. Tired of the old boys club of government, tired of what is perceived as the self-interest of the “elites”, tired of money pulling all the strings of power. Despite his supposed wealth, he appears to these people as a maverick, someone who will demolish every ivory tower, slaughter every sacred cow, and return the country to the control of “the people”. They are unwilling or unable to see the blatant self-interest and anti-populist attitudes that underpin his every thought, word and deed. They see his appalling behavior as no different from what many in power have done in private.
He is a traitor and a thief hiding in plain sight. What will it take to remove the blinders from those who do not want to see?
1
Among other things he lacks, Trump has no sense of irony.
Trump pitied himself for having been subjected to the Mueller investigation and also calling himself the victim of presidential harassment, without a thought to what he put President Obama through with his birther lies.
3
Too many sat on their hands, then failed to vote their interests in 2016.
Blacks in Pa., Wisconsin, and Michigan are complicit in the Trump disaster.
Third party nihilists and fake "independents" too.
Why should I care about careless people?
Mr Blow writes: “The report did not, however, exonerate Trump of obstruction of justice.”
Our judicial system never “exonerates” anyone. The best it can do is say “not guilty.” Innocence is presumed by the Constituion, the same Constitution that allows a columnist the right to call a President a “racist, sexist, child-caging, famili-separating, Muslim-hating transphobe” without proof and without consequence.
3
Please do everything you can to make sure people vote in 2020. Most recent presidential elections have been very close, closer than most remember or ever knew. It's sad that, the way our electoral system works, what becomes an obvious victory early in a night, is still often a very close one when you look at how many voters needed to vote differently to get the opposite outcome.
I'm not just talking about 2016. This has been true for awhile (not all, but many recent ones). This doesn't take much work - look at the actual numbers from the states that were close. You can bet GOP campaign are, and they will do whatever they possibly can to diminish voting where necessary.
A huge problem is that the senior Democrats in Congress have done nothing obvious to highlight the grave problems Trump has created by his executive actions. They should be introducing bills and condemning him roundly for the harm he is doing to the interests of his base, to the environment. They should be actively addressing health care, the growing gap between the rich and everyone else, growing corporate control, etc. etc.
Given all else you write may be true, especially those MAGA hats as shorthand for racism, I totally disagree with your fear of a Constitutional Convention. If Trump, the Republicans in Congress, recent Supreme Court decisions, have done nothing else, they have pointed out the absolute necessity of updating our 230 year-old set of outlines for governance.
Can a sitting president be indicted? Is money speech? Elections won by majority, House and Senate to set their own rules, tax money taken to support any/all religions...
How badly do we need an update, clarifications - “let me count the ways”. My fear is that we will continue to allow 9 unelected people to “interpret” the hopes, best guesses from a world so far distant from our nuclear, global world. It will be messy, scary. But it will also be on PBS, Twitter, Facebook, on front pages across the country. We can do it. Must do it.
Great to see you again, Charles. As always, this is such an insightful piece.
There's little doubt now that trump's enabling and cheering of white supremacists and all its ugliness is energizing some Americans and other right wing nuts around the world.
This really is a relatively small, but very vocal, visible and violent minority of very angry people, many of whom are just like trumpsters. Thugs, bullies and closed minds - sorry, just reality.
All these people- probably 99% - show up. They all vote and that is their real only advantage. Sure, they have guns and bullets and kill people. Very few are that crazy.
Imagine if all the loving, peaceful, diverse, caring, community and open minded American Citizens - of all colors, languages, origins showed up. What if we all voted and simply crush trump and the spineless and corrupt Republicans in Congress. If we simply show up, we win and get on with life and the new future. If we don't show up, you can be the others will and they and trump will win. As Charles so smartly say, this is not nearly s much about trump the criminal - it's about trump the immoral, corrupt shallow thus who should be in jail, not occupying our oval office. Vote
1
A small quibble: shouldn't "As was reported on Bill Moyer’s website in 2017" be "As was reported on Bill Moyers's website in 2017?"
Otherwise, welcome back Mr. Blow! Great to hear your much needed voice.
Our country is in a state of abomination. How anyone pretending to be Christian can wallow in it would be beyond belief were it not for the fact that this is the default condition of humanity en masse. Genesis tells us that when Moses departed to ascend the mountain, the Israelites reverted to idolatry and degenerate practices: it is, therefore, an old story. From then to the present day, humans have practiced human sacrifice, all kinds of savagery, murder, torture, war, and exploitation. Throwing our hands up at Trump is naïve. We have to beat him. Stop whining. Democrats, stop maneuvering for electoral advantage against Democratic rivals in primaries. Unite. Combine. Compromise. Collaborate to win.
2
It's over fellow citizens. The next election is rigged. The forces that caused 45 to happen have been in place along time. The government I knew and loved is gone. Most crooks get caught, not 45. We are the United States of Putin now. Get use to it.
4
As always the best solution to this problem: "Don't boo, Vote!."
2
Nice to have you back. Your voice is needed now more than ever. I cannot believe how this country and its representatives have fallen for what the con man in chief has put forth.
2
You can speed your car at 90 MPH down a street with a speed limit of 25 and not be prosecuted. Why? No evidence on the record to support a charge. That doesn't mean you didn't do it, it just means you didn't get caught.
As a matter of ethics, you still were speeding dangerously down a street. As a matter of law enforcement, nothing can be done about it.
To charge and hope to prove that Trump and the Trumpsters worked with Russia to steal our national election, you'd need overt acts preceded by agreement to act on one or both sides. Conspiracy, in other words. If you can't identify these overt actions and tie them to written or spoken plans, there isn't much hope for prosecution.
We know that Russia had an active, on-going campaign to warp the results of 2016. We know that Trump's people had numerous meetings and contacts with the Russians. We know that the Trumpsters welcomed, eagerly, what some of the Russians said they had to offer. Just because this doesn't add up to a legal case that would stand up in court doesn't mean it didn't happen. That is both the beauty and often the fatal flaw of legalisms because the law reduces human experience, sometimes to absurd levels.
In the case of African-Americans and other persecuted minorities, like the poor, generally, the law isn't so careful in who gets slammed and who gets off. Charges are filed and the poor defendant, lacking resources, is offered a stinking deal: accept a plea or face a long prison term. Case closed.
4
Great to see you back here again, Charles Blow! We, your choir these past years, have sorely missed your words. Yes, "white pride credentialing". the red MAGA hats (like Mao caps) are the very symbols of Trumpism. The Stars and Bars (Confederate flag) was the symbol of white supremacism since 1861; today it's a symbol of Trump's racial hostility.
White nationalism is rampant among the nations with "strong men" leaders admired by Trump. Trump and his people wielded the white power fist against President Obama the entire 8 years we were blessed with Obama's presidency.
Jim Crow's power is today's threat against our democracy. Donald Trump and his followers are raising their fists. The question is can we change the tragic trajectory we're on towards dictatorship by an unfit president with millions of followers? Will votes against Trump in 2020 free America from his ignorant loyalists hijacking our presidental election again?
3
Absolutely correct.
What is white? What is the “idea” of whiteness? What is white nationalism?
Commentators easily shift between referencing “white” as a race (color of skin) and “white” as a culture (a set of beliefs, attitudes, behaviors, practices and ways of being).
Race and culture are not the same constructs. And, by the way, we have one biological, genetic race, not two. Can “whiteness” be both a race and a culture?
This odd conflation and confusion underpins America’s ugly dilemma with race and racism.
If “white” people could not be white, who would they be?
1
All too true, but missing an important observation. The forces viscerally repulsed and morally horrified by all that trumpism symbolizes and stands for are not sufficiently unified, nor even cognizant of the necessity to be unified, in order to pushback effectively.
Far too many progressives, based within their own
identity oriented groups, in and outside congress, are isolated in their own echo chambers of justified moral outrage to realize that they themselves are incapable of defeating any feature of trumpism.
Moreover, they seem oblivious to
what a divide and conquer political strategy, conducted with
skill and resources, is capable of doing to gain electoral
advantage in swing districts/states. Such moral blinders are major blunders that are going to be (and already are) ruthlessly exploited.
Large coalitions are key to doing this. This
means reaching out, engaging others outside the reassuring comfort zones of class or race or educational level, and coming up with a coherent and broadly acceptable set of
principles that are meaningful and resonate with those who
are passive, not activist, in behavior but who refuse or cannot swallow the magic elixir offered by trumpism.
This is hard and difficult work that does not seem to be an
important priority. The democratic party spent two years
ignoring this vital need under the illusion that Mueller was
going to permanently keep trump in a play pen of his
own design and making. That was a gamble that failed.
3
"As for the people, the voters, it is the moral abomination of having a racist, sexist, child-caging, family-separating, Muslim-hating transphobe as president that must remain front and center. That is the only way to move beyond Trump in 2020."
Welcome back Mr. Blow. Fortuitous timing, a chance to attack Mr. Trump, or in your case continue to attack.
Based on your column and columns in the past, one might argue that if one supports Mr. Trump who is "guilty" of the above, then they too are guilty by association.
So what there is in the US, based on your description is a race war; white tribalism, white nationalism (all nationalism you seem to describe as white) responding to any progress made by black people.
"And we will be engaged in the fight long after Trump has vanished, or has been vanquished."
Would you like the Trump supporters to also vanish?
If one is engaged in a war, Mr. Blow, do not then be surprised when the "enemy" responds in kind. Nobody likes to to vanish.
3
But most of the immigration is toward historically white countries. The optics of that are tough for many reasons and to talk about those optics would be politically correct suicide. So much of your writing seems to equate white supremacy with white pride. Can I not be proud of being white? Because I am. My family has been here for generations and we worked hard and I am pretty sure, Mr Blow, that you would consider them “good white people.”
I am hoping for more writing in the NYT that brings us together instead of dividing us by race. Please. Together we can vote out trump. Apart we are sunk.
1
"They are a way of cloaking racial hostility in the presentable form of politics."
You nailed it, Mr. Blow. Who ever admits to being a racist, or a sexist, or a homophobe?
The Trump supporters think it's about getting tough on crime & illegal immigration, which takes away jobs from legal immigrants & the legitimate citizens of the U.S. (us white folk).
Or it's about nostalgia for hyper-masculinity such as displayed in movies, TV shows, and politics of yore. And wives obeying their husbands, as Paul commanded back around the 1st c. when women were owned by their fathers, then their husbands.
Or it's about being a devout Christian (without ever realizing that Christ never said anything about homosexuality in the 4 Gospels, & that the number of possible references to homosexuality in the entire Bible are fewer in number than the times Christ criticized adulterers, rich people, & religious hypocrites).
But these are all cover for white supremacy, male supremacy, & straight supremacy, as your article states.
Straight white men, especially old straight white men, have, as a group, held the majority of power for...ever. People never give up power willingly; it has to be taken from them.
So, as you said, we are at war.
Together, women, African Americans, & LGBTs outnumber straight white men. If we were a true democracy, the war could be fought & won at the ballot box. Alas, we are not a true democracy, & drifting further from it every day.
What will it all come to?
3
The schizoid liberty-to-enslave US Constitution is no longer credible, but forces are in place to reinforce liberty to enslave at any constitutional convention that might be convened. The US has painted itself into a corner.
3
Charles, while I entirely agree with what you write in “It’s Bigger Than Mueller and Trump”, that it’s awful to engender a global race war on ungrounded fear of ‘immigration’, and that it’s always been destructive for Empires to employ “divide and conquer” deceit in the service of self-serving elites for sociopathic greed and power — it’s less than fully correct that “Trumpism follows a historical pattern” based only on past Empire methods.
IMHO, Shoshana Zuboff‘s recent book, “The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power” is prescient of a radically new model of global Empire, which, while consistent with Professor Robinson’s diagnosis in “Global Capitalism and the Crisis of Humanity”, adds the factor of being beyond even imperial human control.
“Just as industrial civilization flourished at the expense of nature and now threatens to cost us the Earth, an information civilization shaped by surveillance capitalism and its new instrumentarian power will thrive at the expense of human nature and will threaten to cost us our humanity.”
While Shakespeare in “Othello” could envision a world beyond race and religion, and in “The Tempest” beyond anything but young love, as A. Quiller-Couch wrote, it is hard to envision humanity beyond human communication and touch.
1
@Alan MacDonald
In order to distinguish Zuboff’s extension regarding the crisis of humanity from Robinson’s earlier work, here is Robinson on the Crisis of Humanity:
“The U.S. state is a key point of condensation for pressures from dominant groups around the world to resolve problems of global capitalism and to secure the legitimacy of the system overall. In this regard, “U.S.” imperialism refers to the use by transnational elites of the U.S. state apparatus (hard & soft powers) to continue to attempt to expand, defend, and stabilize the global capitalist system. We are witness less to a “U.S.” imperialism per se than to a global capitalist imperialism. We face an EMPIRE OF GLOBAL CAPITAL, headquartered, for evident historical reasons, in Washington.” [Caps added]
Global Capitalism and the Crisis of Humanity, 2014 Robinson, William
Cambridge University Press.
1
The arrogance Trump has blatantly displayed post-Mueller, falsely claiming he's been "exonerated" of all wrongdoing, will be but another nail in the coffin precipitating the decline and fall of both his presidency and the downfall of his criminal business empire.
We lifelong New Yorkers who know Trump best know this pathetic excuse for a human being has been getting away with "it" his entire life. The buck now stops with Pelosi. It is extremely incumbent upon her and a Democratic Congress to right this teetering ship of state, and restore a semblance of justice to this nation's justice system. It is not mere speculation that our very democracy depends on it.
DD
Manhattan
1
A colleague, white privileged, aged, like myself recently commented to me that in a few short years we would be a minority and that's fine by me, would have been fine years ago for me although I am embarrassed to say I never really got it - the abject horror and suffering our African American fellow countrymen and women endured and what it all meant(i.e., that wasn't part of the curriculum). I never really got it until this loathsome, cowardly, evil man became president and I saw his bigotry, hate, and cruelty spawn and unleash the latent, festering unresolved racial discord that has hardly gone away in this land. I don't know what its like to fear that my white grandsons have to live with the reality of discrimination, or every parent's nightmare, the unnecessary and untimely death of a black child... and this has what Trump has wrought, this is Trump's world and these demented white supremacists and blind sanctimonious followers are very much his brethren, his base and in a perverse way he has shown his who we really are when we look in the mirror. I sure hope I live long enough to see him removed from office, not by impeachment, but by the voice of the people who must take action and vote lest we sink even further into the swamp he drags us all into.
2
Yes. But. Trump has a solid base much more because he trolls the libs than because he is specifically racist. There is no question that he is indeed racist, but most of his supporters like to think that he and they are not.
Likewise, most Trump supporters like clean air and water and universal health care and a fairer tax code. Most Trump supporters also like legal immigrants, even those with brown skin.
What unifies the denizens of Trump world is a desire to hurt the liberals and the so-called elites who have disrespected them for decades. Trump IS their voice. When he tweets things that rile liberals and elites, his base loves him for it. The content of his tweets is secondary to the effect. A Trump supporter may not be overtly racist but he loves how a racist tweet annoys the libs.
Troll loving aside, Trump supporters are also afraid of change and want to preserve the world they grew up in - that's why they fear illegal immigration. In and of itself, that's not racist. Nearly all NY Times readers want to reverse climate change, save open spaces and preserve endangered species to likewise maintain the world they know.
Over the past two years Charles Blow has done a magnificent job of expressing my anger and disgust with Donald Trump. But when he casts all Trump supporters as overtly racist he misses the important point that most of them are no more racist than a typical white Democrat living in NYC or West Los Angeles (!) - they just have different priorities.
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I agree with this, and I also think his awfulness goes beyond racism. The fact that he got elected after the grab 'em by the [blank] tape became public points to deep-seated misogyny in this country.
The Trump supporters want to go back to a time when straight so-called Christian white men, not white people, had all of the power.
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The clarity if this article resonates with me. Its frightening and I agree with it wholeheartedly. I never expected much from our republican special counsel robert mueller and my cynicism has been vindicated from what I can tell. The amount of stupidity, cruelty and mean-spiritedness among the masses in this country has been obvious to me my entire life and I expect little will change. While there are bright moments in our history like the dual elections of Obama, the victory of the civil war and unity against Nazism in WWII most of this nation's history is as shameful as the current resurgence of white nationalism, the criminality of its current leader and our president and the disloyal underhandedness of mitch mcconnell. Democrats must steel themselves for the future and unite like never before because it certainly won't be pretty. It's time to circle the waggons and prepare for the onslaught of divisive attacks and, hopefully, a breakout in 2020.
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Please don't generalize that all white people have a hand in the supremacist movement because there are plenty of white people out here that miss Obama and what he meant to the marginalized population.
With the influx of Latinos, businesses and supremacists were happy about the cheap labor squashing the employment opportunities for blacks and many Latinos also fit right in to discriminate against blacks. But, white supremacists couldn't stand for the reported Latino population that would out number the white population in the near future, and therefore, the wall.
The experience of our country with Trump exactly mirrors my personal experience as a white mother with Free Masonry members that have destroyed my life and the life of my children the same way supremacists destroy blacks.
We cannot let the Free Masonry/Supremacist disease have control of this country any longer, and we get rid of it by cutting it out with scapels as doctors do with cancer. We are the scalpels.
Welcome back Mr. Blow. I for one will not be satisfied until Nadler's eyes has been on the full report and Mueller has testified. PERIOD.
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All of what Blow writes is true, but making the moral case against Trump was what Hillary Clinton did in 2016--and she lost.
So when it comes to the practical matter of winning the next presidential election, maybe, you know, make the case that President Trump didn't fulfill his campaign promises and didn't make the lives of some of his supporters better.
There's always going to be his base which supports him no matter what, but maybe we can chip away those former Obama voters who weren't in the personality cult and still aren't. And that means Democrats running on having a better economic vision and making rhetoric that they care about the working people, ie, what Trump did in 2016.
Charles Blow is spot on. I have been saying for years that Trumpism is just rebranded Lost Cause Ideology. The wounded ego politics of white folks who have felt victimized by the alleged overreach of big government ever since that government took away their rights .... to own other people. They have been bitter and convinced of their self-righteousness ever since.
It won’t go away easily either because unlike Germany after WWII, our system didn’t mandate that future generations get taught about the wrongness of their crimes in school. Instead our system told them it was a fight over state’s rights and gave them statues and streets named after traitors to add validity to the lie of confederate nobility and white victim hood. I mean, there is literally a state park named for the founder of the KKK in Tennessee that has signs and off-ramps to lead folks to it on the interstate. Those signs glorifying the name of the Klan founder are maintained with federal dollars.
Trumpism is just the culture of white southern victimhood come to roost. It won’t go away until we flip the script and do exactly what the marchers in Charlottesville were afraid of - we need to erase them by erasing their false history from our highways, parks, public schools, town squares and anywhere else that monuments to their lies still exist to taint future generations of Americans with their hateful alternate facts.
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So for all the white supremicists out there, let's see if I get this straight. Your forefathers came to our shores and took the country from the existing population, killed many of them off and shoved the rest of the people onto reservations. So what you are afraid of is "what goes around, comes around?" And now you want to form a constitutional convention that will legislatively prevent that from happening. And, essentially, making it legal to ignore the 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments. And you don't have to worry about what will be the reaction from the minorities that are soon to be majorities. You have all the guns. It's not government overreach you are afraid of and for which you are arming yourself. It's minority overpopulation that you are arming yourself against. Certainly sounds like a model for the rest of the world to follow. Wait....or are we following them? Forming a more imperfect union.....
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Welcome back.
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Preach, Charles. You are correct on all points.
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Trump won in 2016 because he was opposed by a candidate even less appealing that he was. Yes, it was a referendum on Hillary. That this outcome has remained so vexing to so many Democrats speaks poorly about their temperament for nominating a candidate capable of garnering 270 electoral votes in 2020.
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The Mueller investigation rests on legalities. The media -- and all of us -- followed this line of thinking. But what we've skirted is all of Trump's dealings amount to Massive Scandal. Scandal. No exoneration from obstruction is something to hang a two-penny nail on -- but scandal, properly defined, outlined, and underlined is far more powerful. And his racism is the biggest variable in the entire make-up of Trump's maleficence. We have to reframe all of Trump's dealings with America in the context of widespread and destructive scandal, and put the Mueller Report in the rear view mirror.
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Not all Trump supporters are bigots, but all bigots are Trump supporters. Add to those, the millions of Americans who turn a blind eye to his moral depravity and obvious mental health issues simply for a tax cut, or a conservative judicial appointment, and you’ve got yourself a two-term President.
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Elsewhere headlines read, "Trump going after enemies." If anyone needed any more verification of what Mr Blow has written, they need only look to the T and his white buddies.
I hear there is a run on white sheets at Walmart... :-O
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Charles Blow is back!
A bright spot in today's dismal news.
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I keep thinking of the movie Chinatown and the ending statement to Jack Nicholson, "It's Chinatown." An impenetrable wall of political corruption epitomized by Barr.
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Sad to see this doubling down with identity politics..2yrs of false narrative Russian collusion accusations falls apart and now smearing Trump supporters vile false narratives? Other than green new deal Democrats have no issues to run with except this stuff?
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With regard to states calling for a Constitutional convention, this piece is a stark warning that the Koch brothers, et al, have not been funding the GOP takeovers of state governments for the mere purpose of having GOP state attorneys-general bring lawsuits to challenge Obamacare. We are dealing with subversives here, pure and simple, enamored with the Putin model of state power supporting oligarchy, for the benefit of both, which, 90 years ago, was Benito Mussolini's definition of Fascism. Couple that with the willingness, the necessity, to find a scapegoat for all the demagogic promises that can't and/or won't be kept, and you have, under a more palatable label, National Socialism, aka Nazism.
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The Mueller report is not about race and yet Mr. Blow claims it so. He claims everything is about race. He diminishes his arguments when he paints every voter who did not vote for Hillary Clinton in 2016 as a racist or white nationalist. This blind spot for racism will undo the Democrats again if they do not face reality and start solving America’s problems instead of incorrectly stereotyping half the country.
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@Sean Trasker
The op-ed is not about the Mueller Report; it's about the unfortunate phenomenon of Trumpism, in which race and the coddling of racists plays a huge part. Try reading articles first before commenting.
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Is there any bigger threat to America than Trump and white supremacy? We need to stay on path so we can regime change Trump in 2020 (i.e. vote him out of office). And then we can undo the damage he did in office and put America back on path from where Obama left it. I still can't think of a president who has done as much for minorities as Obama.
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This is a very chilling piece because it is so obviously true. I noted yesterday that I have never felt fear like this, not even after the 9/11 attacks. Those attacks, infamous and terrifying, were still external threats to our life and our country. If I as a privileged white woman am terrified, I cannot imagine how POC and immigrants are feeling this morning. As Blow points out, the threat from Trump and Trumpism, his rabid supporters, is corrosive to our democracy, our norms, our nation. It is a dire threat from within. “The call is coming from inside the house.”
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I believe a constitutional convention remains highly unlikely. Were it to happen, it might be better for those of us in blue states to secede, taking our capital with us.
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An unfortunate case of near-hysterical fear mongering. Most Americans (including legal Hispanic immigrants) just want a sound immigration policy along with effective border control.
Western Europeans want the same, along with more assimilation, rather than large groups coming in for safety and trying to recreate the culture they fled.
Our divisions are caused by pundits like Mr Blow who ascribe everything to racism.
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First of all. Welcome back to these pages Charles Blow.
Your arrival couldn't be better-timed on this eve of political turmoil after the much-anticipated Mueller investigation has finally concluded.
It's as interesting and revealing to see how Americans are reacting to this -- as seeing Donald Trump claim total "exoneration", when nothing could be further from the truth because there's still the fact that he obstructed justice during his presidential campaign.
And there are the several guilty pleas and indictments of his close associates to prove it.
But getting back to white people and their meed to reassert themselves when feeling threatened.
There's no way to deny it.
Especially since this tendency is hard-wired into this country's DNA.
It's no mere coincidence that a unrepentant racist like Donald Trump should come into office after the election of America's first non-white president.
It's also no coincidence that as a candidate he was endorsed by the Ku Klux Klan and other white supremacist groups who openly acknowledged him as "their" leader.
Of course, most Americans are still in denial about this, which is why the race problem in this country has never been clearly recognized or reconciled.
But one thing is certain. The days of Jim Crow are over.
And we're not going back.
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“In America, this recent rise of white nationalism follows a historical pattern: Whenever black people make progress, white people feel threatened and respond forcefully.”
The problem with this piece is one that is common to much historical writing. The historian perceives a pattern in the events and thinks this pattern is real rather than a product of her own mind. Then she uses that pattern to explain the present and even projects that pattern into the future. Blow does not realize he is caught up in an imaginary delusion of his own making, and he uses this delusion to explain almost all of modern history and even prophesies what will come in the future. That many of the commentators agree with this piece is evidence that they too are caught up in Blow’s mythical cosmic drama.
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Dear Mr. Blow. Some of your conclusions are jarring to me:
"In much the same way that the Confederate flag became a white supremacist signaling device, wearing the MAGA hat and self-identifying as a “Trump supporter” now serves the same purpose."
That may be true for some, but it's the kind of stretch that DJT indulges in. I'm frustrated too, but let's not do what he does.
Sort of doubt that a Constitutional Convention will be called for. But as Charles says, in this day of the Ten Tooth Rube Cult and the obsequious politicians they elect, anything can happen. By the numbers: the deep south, all in. Then MO, KS, TX, OK, probably OH and definitely IN. So you might get 20. The problem is this 20 can make a whole bunch of problems. (as if they haven't already) Like a home run ball at Wrigley Field from a visiting team or the fish that was just too small we should have thrown'm back after the Civil War. The Deep South has just not been worth it. And worse, their disease has lingered and spread to the rest of us.
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As usual Mr. Blow says it best. I'm an older white woman, and I have been watching in horror as this rise in lethal white supremacy started with the reign of Ronald Reagan and now culminates with the foul Donald Trump. Heaven help us. Certainly our allies are not going to want to stand with us after Trump has spit in their faces.
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Want to read the full Mueller/Special Council Report. Have read and closely studied "House of Trump - House of Putin. Well documented, well supported, recaps 30 years of Trumputin connections to the Russian Mafia. Now, collusion seems to be the chosen word here. But, when you go to your Thesaurus and look up the synonyms you come up with: Conspiracy, intrigue, deceit, complicity, connivance, and secret understanding. Take your pick. Then think of money laundering, fake financial statements, flipping of loans at Deutsche bank, paying off at least 2 women to hide infidelity from the American voter. Multiple bankruptcies, stiffing suppliers, etc. etc. The jury is still out on this narcissist. But, he learned deception and cutouts ago. I think of Trumputin as the ultimate God Father. Thus the hiding of his tax returns. So, further investigations will now flow forward. Suspect that judiciary and legislative investigators have lots of trails and leads to follow. Exonerated -- not by a mile.
It is clear that the Constitution needs amending in places. However, a constitutional convention is a frightening prospect.
The Dems have to focus laser-like on making absolutely sure that this horrific cancer called the Trump Administration goes no further than Jan. 20 2021.
Who here can even think about another 4 years of this?
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Bravo!
It is about time someone just wrote it like it is!
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Welcome back, Mr. Blow. As an illustrative note, I would recommend Joe Scarborough's recent op-ed piece in the Washington Post, suggesting a different kind of amendment, to "Bring back Obama." Oh, if only . . .
Hoping the Mueller report would do the work of democracy was cowardly. If the American people can't wake to their civic duties, the republic will be lost, not because we have a racist president with racist supporters but because good citizens failed to come to the aid of their country.
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It's bigger than Mueller and Trump. It's bigger than race.
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It's only war, Mr. Blow, if we let ourselves get provoked into war. That's just what some crazies want, in order to justify declaring a state of emergency. Do you really want to play into their hands by talking their language?
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A doctor once told me that if you want to change the practice of medicine, you have to wait for the current generation of doctors to die. In a similar vein, we may have to wait until the current generation of whites die before real progress can be made in what’s left of American ideal.
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So glad you are back! we missed your writing.
Trump is immoral, neither is his family or all the people surrounding him.
Immoral people obstruct justice and are unfit to be a president.
Bernie would have beat Trump in 2016 and he will beat him in 2020.
Unfortunately, it also bigger than white supremacy, and it's been growing here 'in the land of the free and home of the brave' for centuries, aided and abetted by a soon to be minority committed to preserving its corrupt, destructive and hypocritical practices against all those who dare to disagree. Yesterday's thus far successful attempt to legitimize an already illegitimate presidency that has been consorting with our country's most formidable sworn enemies has already begun to tear at the fabric of our democracy and shows no signs of curbing its swift, corrosive and relentless to path to ruin.
Vote.
Welcome back Charlie. You couldn’t stay away for this one I presume. I actually agree that Trump was able to successfully “move the goal posts” essentially by bidding the Democrats to overreach re: the whole collusion falsehood...and they went for it; they always do. The manner in which you paint your opponents as racists is troubling. I’m sure there are plenty of racist Trump supporters, but not all of them are. A person ought to be able to show support for the President of all Americans without being called names.
I agree however I feel that Trump is a very dangerous person right now. His 'victory' will only bring out his worst - his hate, bigotry, cruelty, desires for vengeance, racism and resentment for our Constitution and rule of law.
Mike Pompeo's words last week to the effect that Trump was 'sent by God' were surreal to most of us but apparently very believable for the 'base'.
The Mueller report does not and never did erase the fact that Trump is an ignorant, hateful and self-serving man who does not serve the country. We need to focus our actions on defeating him at the ballot box.
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Thanks. I think I finally have a handle on Trumpism. Why did they deny his obvious moral and personal failings? Because of the visceral racist fears they have.
Fabulous to have you back, Charles. On a regular basis, one hopes.
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"They are now the new iconography of white supremacy, white nationalist defiance and white cultural defense.".
That sums up the atmosphere that surrounds Trump and his cheer leaders at his hate rallies.
Sadly for our country Trump will engage his white supremacist supporters with much more force than we have seen as he possibly feels he is now unfettered and has no fear of any prosecution.
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Welcome back Charles from your book hiatus .... this column is one of your best!
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"Trumpism is bigger than Trump," and here is one of the reasons why.
Do you believe in the Second Coming of Jesus Christ? All of us who were brought up as Christians have that notion tucked inside us, a notion implanted when we were children in Sunday school.
Many Christians in the red states of the Confederate South and in rural areas from coast to coast have a parking space reserved for Jesus, a parking space that has been empty for 2000 years. If you want to understand the Republican base, first you must accept that it is futile to argue with them, because right now, in 2019, the Republican base is 100% irrational. They believe in the Second Coming. They believe that God has a plan for them. They believe in heaven. They believe in Trump. It was in Sunday school that the groundwork was laid for accepting the irrational as gospel truth. The 100% irrational Republican base has allowed Donald Trump to park his tour bus in the space reserved for Jesus. To the Republican base, Donald Trump is the Second Coming.
Welcome back! Your voice has been sorely missed, and to see your byline today was the best news of the day.
Yes, Trump is the genie and he has unleashed his poison. Putting it back in the bottle and sealing the bottle will be a massive task.
Welcome back Charles. Well said.
“Democratic leadership did nothing to make the case that he had already reached the threshold of accountability, even without the report. Instead, they put too many eggs in the Mueller basket.” And now we have only them and the legal system to keep the pressure on and to cage the criminal in the White House.
My guess is that the Democrats will choose to tread lightly with 2020 on the horizon lest they appear to be continuing the "witch hunt." They will concentrate on the election and shy away from the distraction of going after Trump with everything they have - which, in light of the Mueller conclusion, will stir up Trump’s emboldened base even more. I hope that's not the case, but given their track record of lack of spine...
“What we are living though is not a battle but a war.” And are the Democrats a strong enough army to fight it?
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John, there is nothing fake about the danger of a right- wing republican constitutional convention. It is a grave threat.
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Yes, it’s a struggle against reactionaries, but it cannot be fought as a war. The metaphor does not hold. The falcon cannot hear the falconer. The rough beast—slouching—toward Bethlehem—must be met, not with destruction, but with creation, with institutional force and civil behavior, with an open mind and genuine care for our fellow human beings.
Cut the war nonsense. Whites are not at war with blacks, nor are progressives at war with the right-wing. Is it any wonder that we’re often seen by others as a terrorist nation, with wars on poverty, wars on racism, wars on anti-Semitism, wars on Trumpism? We shouldn’t aspire to being pit bulls, we should aspire to being puppies.
Or are we facing puppy killers? Really?
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This didn't happen overnight. Slavery started in the New World about 500 years ago. Whiteness had an innate right to own people of color. In the slave states, white people used to bible to justify the ownership of people of color. Over two hundred years ago, the doctrine of manifest destiny took hold where it was thought that the white European had a God given right to conquer the New World and eliminate the native populations, and they did. By the late 19th century, the US government paid bounty hunters to murder native Americans to clean out the West for the coming whites. Then came Jim Crow, segregation and all that those policies entailed.
White people have been practicing this for 500 years now. Trump is just the latest demagog to use it for political gain. It worked. He has many followers, at least 30% of the nation.
The reasons of white anxiety, white economic disparity, and being left behind are all subplots of a much larger and overarching theme, which is white christian male domination over all. These three subplots grow out of the main motivation, which is white power.
Trump promises his people white power. He is delivering on that promise. His people love him for it. Nothing else matters. They rejoice at the prospect of regaining white power. They are only too happy to excuse all of the lies, incompetence, hate and even crimes, because Trump is leading them back to the top of the pile. They gleefully follow him.
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We are on verge of Mussolini’s Fascism just American style. However media -Dems and intelligentsia dismiss signs of that Authoritarianism by comparing Trump’s chaotic behavior to Mussolini at his zenith. It is Mussolini’s beginnings where parallels to Trump’s present actions and also enabled by similarly followed sycophants, that parallels should be inferred..
Pretty brilliant piece. Just one cautionary word: without actually having numbers at hand, I believe that a majority of people with “white” skins in this country are as appalled by what Blow defines as “white credentialism” as anyone else is. The MAGA emblem speaks for a minority.
Like any other minority, they’re a part of this country - but they don’t speak for all of it.
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2020 will go down in history as the most openly racist Presidential campaign in history. I wouldn’t be surprised if Trump advocates for the rights of states to implement Jim Crow in an effort to gin up turnout among the racist Christians the form the base of the party.
The problem isn’t Trump. The problem is the party of racists he leads.
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Now what was it that the fathers of our country were so fearful of that they revolted against the King? Was it paying their fair share of taxes, and the rising British movement against slavery?
Terrific inspirational essay.
The nation is collapsing due to sensational television networks tripping over each other and racing to become even more sensational in a grand collapse of moral civility in our nation.
I have often thought how television will one day blow up the world. It seems the nation will go first.
We are all of the same color brains beneath the surface if only we could realize that. It's ironic that our species can love the differing appearance of the opposite sex, yet hate variations in the color of our skin.
Mr. Blow; rest assured, I am an albino black man whose ancestors in Africa we share. Our brains are very much alike and of the same color and shape. I am your brother in the future. Thank you for your brave writing.
This is true, but wasn't it a mistake to invest so much in the Russiagate angle in the first place?
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Too right Mr. Blow.
This Barr-Mueller Report is the kind of nonsense we should see straight through. Mr. Trump, his campaign staffers, his family, and mega-donors such as Mercer, clearly accepted a large, non-refundable campaign contribution in the form of a mass marketing operation, from foreigners. This is flat-out illegal and obviously required a wide conspiracy to be as effective as it was.
Let us stop all the moral huffing and puffing. These individuals must be stopped, prosecuted publicly, made to pay an appropriate deterrent penalty, and made to pay reparations.
That is a system of justice in a democracy. Trying to get us to accept anything else is trying to pull the wool over our eyes. Again.
My fellow Americans, I beg you to keep paying attention, and follow the lead of leaders you can trust such as Congressman John Lewis.
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One major political party has kicked the white male minority in the teeth. They are the only unacceptable minority in the US. Where are they supposed to go? How are they supposed to feel? Turnabout may be fair play (and self-satisfying) but in the current political climate it’s very risky.
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Very disappointing, but Barr was suspect from the onset. His memo against the possibility of political corruption from a president and anti Mueller diatribe was an open clue. Barr's history at the end of Bush 1 covering up scandal and promoting pardons should have been analyzed at his confirmation hearings. One does not need a law degree to know the stench from the WH is immoral and needs consequences. Hope justice is performed in the NY courts and our Nation is saved from 4 more years.
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Welcome back, Mr. Blow. You'd been my first stop and then you vanished. I sincerely hope that all is well with you and hope to continue reading your columns into the future. They rank among the best.
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For leaders of the "Resistance" like Mr. Blow, no amount of factual investigation, not even from someone as principled and fastidious as Mr. Mueller, will change their minds.
So now we see the beginnings of a meltdown. Outraged "Resistance" partisans must deal with their disappointment that the Mueller investigation found no treason or criminality by our President.
So far, it is not going well.
Mr. Blow writes, "What we are living though is not a battle but a war." Seriously? The finding that our President did NOT collude with Russia to throw the election is seen as a lost battle?
The most disturbing part of the Op-Ed, however, is the fact that the word "white" appears 20 times in Mr. Blow's relatively brief Op-Ed about his war. Making me wonder, who does he think is the enemy?
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@Unconventional Liberal
"The finding that our President did NOT collude with Russia to throw the election is seen as a lost battle? "
this does not mean that Russia didn't try to manipulate the 2016 election in Trump's favor. Plus, Trump's campaign chairman Manafort wil soon be in jail for a lengthy term as will Trump's lawyer Cohen also. (If 3 years is lengthy enough There are a few others who are indicted and some already convicted.
There are a couple of easy solutions to stop what Charles Blow (and Bill Moyers) suggest is the possible future. 1. Remove our president's Twitter account. This would seem reasonable, as he has used it to twist and mangle truth every which way. 2. Stop the ridiculously controlled rallies, where Trump supporters are carefully vetted and placed in the background while he speaks. Allow half (or more) of the audience as "normal" voters, and see how that dynamic of galloping euphoria evaporates. 3. Have the media (other than this paper and a couple of others) point out whenever statements are outright or even slight mistruths. Stop calling them that. They are lies. 4. Burst the bubble. Trump travels in a bubble, where he changes routes when there are protesters and visits only those parts of the USA that his cronies can marshall support of the MAGA group. Have him visit Trump Tower on Fifth Avenue, and see the other side. There are more, but I'm out of words here...
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Agreed, @William Menke
And what you're describing is to blunt his ability to disseminate propaganda and lies.
And to those who would argue that's against free speech, please explain to me how excluding people from his rallies who disagree with him is not squelching free speech?
@Mike So true
The core dilemma for the Republican Party is and has been how to convince 50 percent of voters to abandon their own needs and vote to protect and enrich those who are robbing them. Divide and conquer has worked for a very long time. Their toolbox includes race, religion, immigrants, gender and class.
President Obama was a real threat, a decent, intelligent, well educated man with popular support. The GOP had to bring out every dividing tool in the box. This Is Not New.
Countering the ugly will require controlling the message. Show that we are in this together. Celebrate immigrant neighbors and the value they bring. Ease irrational fears with stories of community and collaborative effort. Practice supporting each other by listening to each others hurts and wrongs and know that fixing the problems makes life better for us all.
Too much time gazing at Trump Inc. is toxic. There is work to do and it is has its own rewards. In the words of Kamala Harris, "We are better than this."
Between Mueller and the Dems there has been an endless game of hot potato with basket eggs. Both of them, Mr. Blow, keep putting the rotten eggs in the other's basket.
The bully has succeeded in making everyone afraid with his defamation, lies, and threats of violence. And now, thanks to all our pearl-clutchers on the Hill, he may continue to do so for six more years and—given all that time to attend to well-trained militias—maybe many more.
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In 1976, as an undergraduate student at The College of Europe, the rector, Jerzy Łukaszewski, a Polish refugee, presciently predicted that the real struggle to come was not East/West (though Putin unnecessarily re-kindled it), but rather was a North/South battle, between the so-called 1st and 2nd Worlds, vs the 3rd and 4th world.
The refugees fleeing oppression (like Prof. Łukaszewski did) have been perceived as an "invasion" of Europe and led to a vicious, racist reaction to them, as societies have been unwilling or unable to assimilate them.
Here, the fear of "invaders" from South of the border, and from Muslim nations in civil war, aren't seen by the President and his followers as what they are: refugees.
We aren't New Zealand that has closed ranks around its Muslim brothers and sisters, who, ironically, were murdered by another "foreign invader", who happens to be an Australian White Supremacists. That's our shame.
2
"The very symbols of Trumpism — the MAGA hats, the wall, etc. — are more than merely physical objects. They have long since transcended their original meaning and purpose. They are now emblems. They are now the new iconography of white supremacy, white nationalist defiance and white cultural defense."
This is true. The MAGA hat has taken the place of the Confederate Flag. The Confederate Flag is too overt, but in its place comes the MAGA hat. The racism continues on. Just look at the apologists for that high school kid that wore the hat recently to challenge the Native American man. They said the kid did nothing wrong. Well, he certainly did: he wore a racist hat.
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Blow makes a number of very important points here, things that go far beyond the events of the weekend.
He's right that, "they put too many eggs in the Mueller basket."
He's right that, "The best case against Donald Trump and the age of Trumpism has always been, and remains, the moral case. Criminality is only one facet of that . . . it is the moral abomination . . . That is the only way to move beyond Trump."
He is right that this is something deeper, "Trumpism is bigger than Trump. It is a rebranding of a consistent and increasingly resurgent strand."
He may be right that, "the MAGA hats, the wall, etc. — are more than merely physical objects. They have long since transcended their original meaning and purpose. They are now emblems. They are now the new iconography of white supremacy." That has developed, emerged while the focus has been on Mueller. I think many of us are a bit surprised to see it now for what it has become. It was just a campaign hat and slogan, but now it is something more. How did it get to be that? The ill feelings have fueled it, sped up what it otherwise might have been.
He's right that Trump's own campaign symbols have now become only, "tangentially connected to Trump, but they also transcend him."
Blow is in error to go back to the mistake that helped this emerge, when he writes that Mueller is wrong, "I submit that we witnessed that Trump obstructed justice in open view." That was always too narrow, and a danger to the moral battle.
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Now you can turn to the essential work of banning hats.
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The moral case against Trump should be simple: he has no integrity and therefore cannot lead our nation. His thousands of lies to the public disqualify him. He should be impeached on the grounds that he is our employee and yet he lies to us daily.
3
The war has never ended. It has its ups and downs and thanks in large part to voter complacency and the tireless efforts of racist libertarians it is currently in a steep downslide. To be fair I guess whether or not it is a downslide depends on which side of the battle you support. Any decent caring American who considers the welfare of all people important view it as a severe downslide. Racists and bigots own the thrown it is up to the rest of us to take it away.
2
"Donald Trump took the anti-Obama energy the Tea Party had stirred and fashioned it into something more dangerous: a theology whose singular principle was white power, the power of white people to defend a country they believe they built and own, and the power of white people to excel even when they’re awful."
Nobody else could have summed up exactly what Trumpian is all about
1
If President Trump now approves of the Mueller Report because it didn’t find any Russian collusion, etc., does this mean he agrees with what he has repeatedly called a “witch hunt?” If so, what “witches” does he have in mind to “burn at the stake?”
3
The fact that trump has not been exonerated from obstruction of justice by the Mueller report and that it appears he felt the need to obstruct justice means to me, that he is guilty of something aside from being the most derisive, racist, person to ever hold the office of the president.
As always, follow the money and cherche les femmes.
4
Welcome back, Charles!
Important as it is for the Mueller report to be made public, frightful as it is to conceive of a president having been put into office with the help of a foreign adversary, the facts remain that, daily, we see incontrovertible proof that Donald Trump is grossly unfit for office, and his abuse of power is even more disturbing than how he came to it.
2
This is a sad sad day. Trump is getting away with it all. For those who say no collusion, while not seeing all the collusion out there already, are willfully blind. Was there a smoking gun? No. But he was aware of what Russia was doing and DIDN'T CARE. Didn't want to upset his potential big money project in Moscow at the minimum. And yes Charles, his appeal was in fact a huge backlash to a black president, no doubt about it.
So think about this America...all we have right now is the 2020 election. If he is re-elected, I'm not sure I could have an ounce of hope left for our country.
4
I agree. Still, one of the descriptive words is facists. People completely lost in terms of mortality and reality, capable of horrendous acts.
2
The fact is that the white population is no longer a majority, if they ever were.
We are a country founded on immigration, white immigration, whose population committed genicide on the American Indian population.
The only way forward is to listen to the newly elected Democratic women and men, who for the most part believe in equality no matter race, gender, economic status. And it is Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren who are responsible for this movement, ironically older and white Americans. What they have in common with the new folks are principles and ideals that they live by every day. They are the two people we need to look to now.
We need to stop worrying about age and look at experiences and wisdom.
Two virtues lacking in this Administration and the GOP.
And while we’re at it, nag every State to sign on to get rid of the Electoral College. That is the only way that Majority rules. And the Majority in this Country are sick and tired of unequal treatment, tax reform for the rich and the constant threat of safety net programs being threatened by the Republicans in Congress. Also tired of the NAR and it’s fake “guns are not the problem, people are” declarations
If New Zealand leaders can get rid of Automatic weapons so fast, why can’t we. Take away the Citizens United decision and it will be amazing how fast this could happen
All we need is the political will. And the GOP does not have that.
Gun reform only means backgrounds checks and banning automatic weapons
4
I so much wanted Trump to have conspired with the Russians, who then won the election for him. Now I have to face the uglier reality: some very large percentage of Americans, near 50, actually wanted him to be president. They wanted an openly racist, ignorant, lying con man to be president. That's just the way it is, in America, in 2019.
I'm now also reviewing my sense of the Obama elections. Now I think that a lot of people are correct: he won because he made such great speeches. I'm getting more and more convinced that, as the interned years grind on, entertainment value becomes ever more important in our candidates. How else to explain Beto?
We begin with a real split in the electorate, 44% unreconstructed racists and proto-fascists, 44% unalterably opposed to all those things,
Then we have the remainder, whose political loyalty goes to those who amuse them.
Only since Reagan have we been forced to deal with the forces of celebrity in our lives. When I look at Brexit, though, I see the emergence of star power in Boris and Nigel -- particularly Boris, whose "scamp" image won so many votes.
2
Welcome back. We've missed your brilliance and clarity.
1
None of us have seen the Mueller report yet. Assuming Barr’s summary to be accurate, it does not conclude that there is evidence of Trump or his associates committing any crime relating to Russia or obstruction of justice, over and above those already indicted and convicted.
Everybody was celebrating Mueller and the process so long as they thought something impeachable or indictable was going to come out of the report. So now we have to accept the report and move on to the next phase.
Mueller may not have found anything criminal, but the report certainly doesn’t exonerate his immoral, unethical, at times unhinged behavior; his love of murderous dictators and thugs; and his attempts to anger our closest allies and destabilize the world order.
Gather your energy, your drive and your commitment to a moral and ethical government, and vote this two-bit failed conman and grifter out of the White House in 2020. And take out his Senate enablers as well.
2
"They are a way of cloaking racial hostility in the presentable form of politics." Wonderful to have Charles Blow back to make such observations as this one. Over the weekend, I visited the International Civil Rights Center and Museum in Greensboro, NC. I learned from the tour guide that "Colored" was not intended to exclude just African-Americans, but ANYONE (i.e., Latino, Asian, Native American) who was not white.
This is the defining issue of American society. White supremacy, nationalism, or whatever you want to call it is racism and oppression, pure and simple. "Make America Great Again" is code for "Make America White Again." It might just as well be "Make America Hate Again." This ugly aspect of Trump's appeal is something we need to address, directly and openly. Journalists like Charles Blow help us do just that.
2
It's even more - it's about someone in the Oval Office who is a narcissistic, bigoted, racist, misogynistic, lying, cheating, immoral, fraudulent, divisive, chaotic incompetent. Did I leave anything out? Please feel free to contribute...
2
Thank God you're back.
5
Welcome back, Mr. Blow. I have missed your incisive and passionate prose. May your words be a call to action. Vote.
6
Thank you Mr. Blow and welcome back we missed you!
Yes this is war and Trump and all his paraphernalia and symbols represent that war. It took Trump in office to wake me up to the sheer hugeness of all that Trump represents.
And now we see what lengths the white supremacists will go to to protect and preserve their dominance.
I personally believe Mueller (whether consciously or unconsciously) is part of it. He had plenty of evidence of collusion. What stopped him from including collusion in the final report? What else did he need? Or was he just incapable of fully denying Trump his privilege? Could he not bring himself to fully castigate - legally or otherwise - this glaring symbol of white supremacy that is Trump?
Yes we are in a war. This current iteration of the war is a continuation of the war on non-white people that has gone on since the invasion of this country by white Europeans (my ancestors among them) hundreds of years ago.
Those of us who hang on to a thread of hope that we can still achieve a more perfect union that is inclusive, multicultural and peaceful must wake up to the war and fight back with the strength of votes, intelligence and all that democracy (while still intact) guarantees. God help us.
5
None of this is new. Before during and after the Spanish American War, there was a heated public debate in Congress and the print media as to whether the US Constitution was meant to exclusively protect the rights of white citizens of the continental US, or whether these rights should be extended to Filipinos, Hawaiians, Alaska Natives, Commoros, Cubans and Puerto Ricans. The dilemma was strictly about race; whether brown people should be full citizens of the US.
4
Yes, all I could think of with the conclusion of the Special Counsel were the egregiously loyal MAGA population, red caps, and "Lock her up" rants. I truly believe Mr. Mueller's team did all they could. And the words "not exonerate him" re obstruction of justice are written in scarlet-lettered capitals within my mind.
I am viscerally sickened by Trumpism. Even if there were no Mueller investigation and report, I ask, "Would it make any difference to thinking Americans who are truly concerned about the trajectory of an equal and just democracy? Do we not have enough evidence to metaphorically prosecute this man and his band of bandits from his own family to his Cabinet and many of his GOP Congress? Charles has mentioned the "crimes" of this president: caging refugees, separating families at our borders, misogyny and sexism, nativism, racism..to which I add disregarding global warming for industrial greed, denying us the means toward decent health care. That is just on a domestic front. Think about our international relations: alienating our allies, befriending brutal killers like Kim, Putin, and MBS.
We must march on, and think 2020. We must support whomever is our Democratic nominee with all our hearts and souls. We have a responsibility to this nation now and for the future. We can no longer afford to tolerate such blatant amorality and corruption.
9
Give me this one thing:
SIE at Seagate should use the Kanban model rather than the Sprint model!
This is affecting global data security! We love our jobs, but don't make us miserable! We have limits!
Kanban over sprint will make everyone so much more productive!
"Donald Trump took the anti-Obama energy the Tea Party had stirred and fashioned it into something more dangerous: a theology whose singular principle was white power, the power of white people to defend a country they believe they built and own, and the power of white people to excel even when they’re awful."
Who else but Charles Blow could have condensed Trumpism into one precise sentence? thank you Charles, your voice is sorely needed today.
This movement to rewrite the Constitution shows the determination of conservative zealots to get what they want in such an arcane way. After reading your column, I did some research that showed the Kochs (who else?) behind this with the goal of mandating a smaller federal government.
How they would get there leaves much to the imagination. When you watch Trump language at rallies, the subtext is, throw minorities (and immigrants of color) out of the country.
Your voice returns to the NYT at a time of great peril. Already there is talk of "revising" libel laws. The next step might be for an emboldened president who admires autocrats is to end press freedom, just as they do.
If you think day that can't happen, reread this column and consider the Mueller Report: its author bent over backwards to offer technical legal purity. Problem is, look who he gave it to.
8
I said in another comment on Saturday that I hope William Barr is an honorable man. I had my doubts after watching his confirmation, but I was hoping, hoping hard, that he would do the right thing.
Obviously, our Attorney General is a big part of the problem of America. With this 'victory' Trump may very well be re-elected and that, I fear, will be a devastating blow to our country progressing forward. Trumpism will rule. America is fading away. Trumpistan is coming into stark view.
8
Can media or someone please address these questions?
Why do only some public workers like elected officials, appointees, judges, soldiers and police officers take ‘oaths’ of affirmations before assuming employment roles whereas other civil servants do not?
This is obviously a double standard so there must be a reason!
1
Neal is one of our most skillful knowledgeable and unbiased experts. I totally agree with him. As a forensic evaluator I concur Barr shows bias self interest and possible aiding and abetting a political cover up. Shame.
1
MAGA hats stand for the lowest unemployment for African Americans ever. You are right, though, that they may be under social pressure not to wear one, when they go to vote for Trump.
5
Somehow this whole thing is about race? For some who have a hammer, it seems, everything is a nail.
8
"Cultural forces are being marshaled against waves of immigrants from the South — primarily from Latin America in the United States and from Africa and the Middle East in Europe."
As with many conversations about race, I notice that Asians (like myself) are always left out of the picture. Asians in the US are often considered (and may consider themselves) "white-adjacent," and are often used as tools against other communities of color -- as in college affirmative-action lawsuits, or in the alt-right fandom of Democratic candidate Andrew Yang (who, to be fair, rejects those fans).
But this is an illusion. Asians in the US have been the subject of brutal discrimination in the past, and will be again, when it suits the white establishment to paint us as the enemy once more. We have to make common cause with other minority communities, and we MUST be included in conversations on racial justice, or we will be isolated and without allies when the white nationalists decide we've outlived our "model minority" usefulness and finally come for us.
4
Your voice has been missed. The idea that a Constitutional Convention could be used to drastically change our system of government is even more frightening than the unbalance Supreme Court.
"There are no magic bullets, no devastating facts, no pivotal events that can undo what Trump has wrought."
It is going to take a strong coalition of Democrats and whoever else has any smidgeon of respect for "our" values. It is going to require political victories for future elections to move the Tea party remnants and the absurd right out of power.
But while the white supremacist types are a growing influence, somehow the American white "middle" has to be brought to see that their interests do not lie with skin color, but with the policies that allow for more freedom of opportunity for all of us. The danger isn't with immigrants or black Americans - or East Coast liberals - but with power elites and fascists. And How do the democrats manage that?
Trump demonstrates who he is right in front of our faces every single day. Mueller couldn't provide any surprise.
2
I would have hoped that after the Mueller report you'd be less over-the-top and less hyperbolic. It seems in that regard, hope is lost.
6
I doubt Barr read the report. This is a cover-up, unless all report is released.
2
Yes, I guess that Trumpism cannot be explained on the basis of just one white supremacist called Donald J. Trump. This sentiment has been brewing for a long time, likely since this republic was born, after the plundering of the Natives and the land, a white colonization 'with some extra help'...by Black slaves brought from Africa. And now comes the raw entitlement and self-proclaimed privilege based on the color of one's skin, a shameful proposition and yet far too real to be dismissed. This nationalism is dangerous and not conducive to any justice, or democratic values, thus far claimed the basis for peace in this society. If we are this bad with each other, it is just to accept our decline as a matter of course. Solidarity and ethics, and some healthy pragmatism, seem to escape our grasp far too easily in these Trumpian times. Is that really what we want? It certainly ain't what we need.
1
This is expected. Now the attention moves to the 2020 election. I am appalled by the use of computers in our elections. I voted in a state with a paper ballot only to find out that no one ever looks at the ballot. If the result is questioned the stack of ballots is simply fed into another vote counter just like the first one. What good is it.
Frankly most people and newspapers are too ignorant about computers and what they can do... They are cheating machines. Totally honest until the wrong person is wining and then just a few fake votes put in to push the chosen candidate over the top. A very close election. You are being fooled.
Every time I see a very close vote I am suspicious of it. And it happens a lot.
I still think they will not get a new constitutional convention. The problem is no matter how you slice it the country is becoming a no ethnic majority country and no set of laws will preserve the current control. More over it is not about loosing white majority but the lack of accomplishment of the lowest class of white poeple coupled with the extreme wealth of hedge funds and plutocrats who see a chance to take everything for themselves and trash our Constituion. It is now clear that Trump is enabled by the GOP.
The next election will determine the kind of America that most Americans want. If you want a progressive America that believes in the rule of law. That celebrates and welcomes cultural and religious diversity. That believes that a president must have integrity and respect for his political opponents and supports freedom of the press. The Democratic candidate would be the choice. If you want four more years of darkness and insults and personal abuse from the WH Trump is your man.
3
@Milton Lewis
Yes, Milton, I find that making a choice in 2020 should be fairly easy — whether to vote for a person who acts like a virtual Emperor, and is making America act like a global Empire, or for the other person who seems like they believe in democracy.
2
What makes this white backlash so politically powerful in the US is it is aligned with a religious backlash against same sex marriage, etc. The people who mainly support Trump because of white supremacy have been joined by evangelicals in supporting Trump even though Trump is not a religious person. Both groups blame liberals for what they don't like about the way things have gone in the US. This certainly is bigger than Trump. To keep the US from becoming a white supremacist Christian nation will take winning elections by Democrats as most Republican politicians seemed to have abandoned democracy and joined the backlash. The election of 2018 showed that Democrats can win even in somewhat conservative districts. Building on this success in 2020 is the big challenge for pushing back against white supremacy and a shift toward Christian nationality.
4
@Bob
Yes, Bob, as Sinclair Lewis said, “When Fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross"
2
A vision of what was to come by Farah Stockman and Nick Corasaniti in the NYT on 5 november 2016 : https://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/06/us/politics/world-reaction-campaign.html
"Forget the Cost to the Candidates. This Campaign’s Cost America More."
(...) The United States has always attracted its share of international criticism on foreign policy, especially during the Iraq war. But rarely has its political system been subjected to such widespread scorn and ridicule. Eight short years after the nation was lauded for overcoming its deepest prejudice by electing a black president, this campaign has laid bare an ugly underbelly of American politics. And it has exposed the capacity of a nation defined by its democratic ideals to fall victim to the same antidemocratic forces that have stymied third world countries.
1
We Americans will never forget that Donald Trump openly sought the vote of White Supremacists.
It was out in the open for all to see.
Clearly, no collusion, it was ALL out in the open, for all to see.
And --- he dares to use the word "disgrace" more often than any of us care to hear, over and over.
7
Exactly @Paul.
If you chose to vote for a candidate who was strongly endorsed by a past Grand Wizard of the KKK, and perhaps the most well known white supremacist in America for decades, and that candidate basically tacitly accepts that endorsement by first lying that he doesn't know who David Duke is, then when finally backed into a corner issues a half-hearted and defensive disavowel of the endorsement, as a voter, and a human being, you need to take a look in the mirror and do some serious soul searching.
1
"Whenever black people make progress, white people feel threatened and respond forcefully."
Some do, some don't.
Some feel a sense sadness that progress is still so necessary, and at least some sense of relief whenever progress is made.
1
Let’s face it - Trumpism is another variant of fascism mixed with white nationalism and Fox News is his propaganda arm. We are in trouble folks.
Mueller had a chance to save the Republic and send a signal to those considering getting help by cheating on elections and he abdicated, applying a less thorough approach to Trump and his family (no interviews and abdicating from ruling on obstruction) than to lower level campaign workers, and reinforcing the idea that there are two justice systems - one for Republicans the powerful and one for everyone else.
The time to take to the streets in mass protest has come.
2
It seems that Trump may have obstructed
injustice.....not justice
1
Trump is the no-nuance, no-collusion Twitter king, ideally chosen to lord over a public with no mental capacity for details and no attention span to connect dots. One point is best. Two dots --- ok, maybe I can connect them. Three! Oh gosh, no one told me I had to juggle!
Meanwhile, Mueller is analyzing evidence, splitting hairs, and writing long reports.
Truth is too complicated.
Barr distills to an executive summary, and Trump provides what the no-nuance public can digest: a tweet.
There you have it. Case closed.
3
A convention would be great. Get rid of the right to bear arms and the electoral college.
2
Too many eggs in one basket - yes, yes, yes.
Now to concentrate on finding another basket before November, 2020, please.
2
I guess it's tough to eat crow or anything else for that matter when one's jaw is squarely on the floor.
3
We don't know what the report says. We have what amounts to a press release from Barr. There is not one complete sentence from the report. Not one.
There can't be blanket statements about what the report. No one who needs to see the report have been so fortunate. The AG, who wrote a 24 page audition to receive the AG appointment, could only muster a 4 page press release about the report.
Again, the report exonerates no one. We haven't seen the report and William Barr is not an honest broker.
5
The only thing that Mr Blow gets right in his article is that it would take 38 states to ratify an amendment [there is also another way under article 5]. Article 5 does not call it a Constitutional Convention, a scare word used by those who fear the States regaining some of their power from a big central govt. And a state with a couple of hundred thousand farmers would have just as much weight as say a California with 3 million extra clueless voters.
1
Welcome back! Look forward to your critical voice again. Great column.
2
We are now fully engulfed in a war which will determine whether white supremacy shall be our governing and guiding principle. Lincoln knew well that the outcome of the Civil War did not mean that the South was defeated. He knew that there would be much blood spilled to eradicate slavery, and its long-lived after effects before our sins would be washed from the nation. As he said, less than a month before he was shot down by a white supremacist: "Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsman's two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said "the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether." Any Democrat who mindlessly urges other Democrats to "reach across the aisle," is asking us to shake hands with the Devil. Always remember that.
2
This piece has an enormous historical error which needs to be corrected. The TEA party’s origin has nothing to do with race. It’s an acronym for Taxed Enough Already and it started at the end of the Bush administration. Obama’s indifference on a policy basis to raising taxes even more only put fuel on an existing fire.
3
Reading many comments on this piece, I'm struck by the sense of disorientation, even panic, on the left. Why? Because Dems knew their strongest argument was that they were righteous and Mr. Trump was a bad person who needed to be turned out of office. It's now proved that he is not, but that their leaders were shamelessly fearmongering in an attempt to manipulate public opinion. OK, so what? This means Democrats must now get off the 'Trump is a bad guy' track and start campaigning on their real, practical plans for moving America forward. The trouble with that is those plans are mostly hot air: Free everything, wildly impractical climate activism, open borders, supposed racial injustice, a job-killing Green New Deal. They have to put that nebulous fantasy-world political animated-cartoon up against Mr. Trump's actual booming economy and rising stock market, solid employment numbers, sensible international policies. That's a hard sell for the Dems. Why should the voters choose their fantasy-world over Mr. Trump's actual solid accomplishments?
3
@Ronald B. Duke, amen!
1
"The best case against Donald Trump and the age of Trumpism has always been, and remains, the moral case."
Mueller hasn't changed our problem. He simply didn't make it more depressingly bad. The fact Mueller was appointed owes to the abnormal psychological character of Donald Trump. Mueller has confirmed that Trump's election may be the result of Russian interference in our election, but investigators were unable to find material evidence that Donald Trump, directly or indirectly, participated in it.
Trump is already claiming he's now pure and above reproach.
He is not. He was, and remains, by culture, choice and psychology a criminal who is a coward, a bully and an authoritarian who cleverly approves of violence, racism, misogyny, discrimination and repression, even threatening attack, of his opponents. Mueller hasn't changed that.
When Trump goes up for re-election in 2020 he'll remain the compulsively untruthful, narcissistic, psychologically disturbed human being he's been since he lied his way out of possible service in Vietnam, and has chosen to act as in every aspect of his life since. This investigation may not have implicated him in conspiracy, but it spun off investigations that reveal Trump as a business cheat who has surrounded himself with criminals in every aspect of his life.
As bad, arguably worse, is that this hopelessly flawed man, so clearly revealed, remains popular with many "Christians" and White Americans. Mueller never could change that.
744
@John F McBride
An excellent point...thank you for stating it so well.
61
@John F McBride yikes. Well said and very scary.
48
@John F McBride
The most succinct account of our state of being distilling everything necessary for a clear view. Thank you.
51
like others here, i am really happy to see you return, and to hear your powerful voice. i'd nuance the problem slightly differently from you. when you said it is bigger than trump and the u.s., i was very happy. but "race" really has to be reconfigured. if, for most americans, it conveys black vs white, that avoids the more complex place occupied by latinx people, but also arabs, not to say "muslims" more broadly. even in the u.s.., "immigrants" convey much that isn't simply identified by racial categories. in europe that is even more the case. religious difference, vilification and hatred of islam, conflated with "fundamentalism" or "terrorism," is not grounded in racial prejudice. ultranationalists and xenophobes can hate on more than simply racial grounds.
3
@ken harrow: Racism almost invariably justifies itself with religion. No KKK rally is complete without a cross-burning.
1
Thank you for this editorial. You have identified the key (and most frightening) issue. The lack of a moral foundation threatens the entire construction of our country. While I can only hope you are wrong, there is every reason to believe you are correctly forecasting our future. G-d help us all.
4
Of course there are cases of racism and xenophobia in all countries. What makes their presence in America particularly dangerous is the widespread violence and ubiquity of firearms. There is too much Islamophobia in Québec, where I live and where Arabic is the third language, but people are not armed.
5
I found the election of Barack Obama uplifting and a sign that the US was finally growing up and becoming a modern country. It seems that a large number of my fellow whites saw it quite differently, as a sign of their defeat. Trump is not the cause of this problem but just a sleazy grifter who came along and capitalized upon the hatred and prejudice already present in this country.
I have seen the US act badly in the past but somehow I always held the belief that at its core the people of the US were good, honest and fair. But by electing Trump and now reveling in his hatred and discrimination I have lost hope for the future of the US.
2020 will either cement this view forever in my mind or give me the hope to push on toward a better future, despite the many obstacles that we face. I'm not sure about the country at large by I personally am at a tipping point in my support for this experiment in democracy.
5
Charles, this is how Democrats lose elections.
Not everything is about race. Donald Trump is an equal opportunity abuser.
Tens of millions of white Americans voted against Donald Trump in 2016, and many more will vote against him in 2020.
The more that we make this next election about race, the more it plays right into the Southern strategy that Trump and his GOP want to keep using to distract a nation from the systematic diversion of our collective wealth to a tiny, amoral elite.
They want us to make this next election about race. We need to instead make it about economic sustainability and justice for all.
That's how we win in 2020 - by focus on those things that unite us instead of those that divide us.
5
Welcome back, Mr. Blow. We have missed you.
The over-arching truth, above investigations, AG summary conclusions, etc. is that a large minority in this country knowingly voted to put a moral degenerate in the White House, and will knowingly, enthusiastically, do so again in 2020. Even if Democrats can unify aound a candidate enough to defeat Trump, we are still left with Trumpism; and an ascendant, energized, Trumpism at that.
Perhaps now that all that is hateful and ugly about human nature has a unifying word, Trumpism, more of our better angels will be inspired to get off their complacent duffs to at least get to the polls, and hopefully become at least as much as or maybe even more engaged in the political process than the Trumpists.
This is not a time to merely hope for the best.
5
From Washington to Budapest, from Moscow to London, from Brasilia to Rome - unfettered capital (money) is on the march. Putin, Trump, Mercer, Farage, Murdoch, et al are not about to allow the unwashed to share in the profits from their labor. It will be as satisfying and rewarding to resist as it has ever been.
3
This is a stunningly good column. It gets to the heart of the matter -- another transformation of the country's direction powered by fear and ignorance. Trump's election -- even with Hillary Clinton's 4 million-vote lead -- exposed the character of a huge part of the country's population whose mindset has been shaped by celebrity worship and a disgracefully flawed public-education system.
3
Charles, welcome back! You were sorely missed! This middle-aged, white woman from middle America ages with you, 100%. I am afraid of my country. I’m no longer sure that what has been done to it can be undone. I am worried that this ends in bloodshed on a national scale. That was my first thought on election night 2016 when the result become obvious. I am a hair’s breadth away from begging my grown children to flee the country for Canada.
3
My soon to be 95 year old mother warned me 40 years ago that one day, like today, would come along. She told me that nobody thought that this country could split along lines that might tear us apart like it did during the civil war. She warned me that powerful people in high places can make almost anything they want to happen, happen, no matter how repulsive it is. She warned me to watch out for people who hate, blame, and run in fear of those different than they are. She told me to fight for what I believed in but don't do it too loudly if things start to get ugly because they could eventually come for those on the left.
I don't believe we are where my mother warned me about just yet, and I don't know in my lifetime if we will ever get there, but I'm sure looking over my shoulder and waiting to see what happens next. The great Satchel Paige had a saying..."Don't look back. Something might be gaining on you." As much as I have agreed with Mr. Paige all of my life, the time might soon come when we need to look in every direction to head off a tsunami of hatred, bigotry, and greed that could tear all of us apart.
5
Good to see your column again. “As for the people, the voters, it is the moral abomination of having a racist, sexist, child-caging, family-separating, Muslim-hating transphobe as president that must remain front and center. That is the only way to move beyond Trump in 2020.” Add in the inept handling of the economy, foreign policy, environment, education and health care. I hope Democrats do not spend the time between now and 2020 fixated on the Mueller investigation. Like Benghazi it will only strengthen Trump with his base and alienate Americans who wish for solutions to the problems in their lives. 2018 was pivotal because Dems focused on bread and butter issues with a moral underpinning. Continuing to do so would seem to be the way for 2020.
251
Welcome back. We missed you!
2
While I agree with the full scope of this column, I have to replace the focus on 'white people' with one on 'white evangelical Christian people'. And by the latter I mean those whites who are more or less subject to the brainwashing of Bible literal-ism.
There is indeed a real mean streak in the GOP that enables it to employ its "means justify the ends" rationale to its political activism. That is the hallmark of the rightwing, and it becomes the operating principle for its extreme elements. We see it all the way from McConnell to the really sick gunmen.
Blow raises a good question: "Are we indeed better than this?"
Given the unchanging worship of Trump in the face of his openly hideous character, by some 45% of voters, I do not expect a better America any time soon. We have shown the world what we really are.
7
Mr. Blow, thank you for your article. I am stunned; I did not know about this whole business about constitutional conventions. My bad, no excuse for my ignorance. What you are saying is terrifying. I’m 66 and I still think we will see a civil war in this country before I die. Your article points to that. Thank you for enlightening me.
3
Completely agree that Dems made a bad decision by putting everything into the Mueller report. The president has already demonstrated, over and over, that he is unfit for the office. How was he not formally censored for his response to Charlottesville? His debased performance in Helsinki groveling in front of Putin? Now there is nowhere to go but 2020, with an energized Republican base crowing about the reports findings, and a pretty lackluster field of Democratic candidates. I can see the dismal results already.
2
Trump can be seen as the last white hope whose rise to power is not to be questioned even if aided by an enemy of the US. Which begs the question of whether this last hope will willingly relinquish power. Trump is the last stand of white flight.
4
In my opinion, ardent supporter for Trump is attributable to two main factors: tribalism (as others have noted), and a Trump personality cult.
3
I am that elusive voter. I am aggressively in the middle. So when I read a column that doesn’t accept the reality of what just happened, and instead predictably returns to grievance, I am sickened. As a person in the middle I just want our Congress to accept their mandate. That mandate, as of today, is to address climate change, economic inequality, social justice, and immigration. Continued paralysis meant to saisify the aggrieved's need to continue an outraged self-stimulation is a political death wish. Delmcarats, do something or you will never get my vote. I won’t vote for Trump, but I will stay home.
108
@ThirdWay Yes, you outline the important issues, but who do you think in Congress is going to address them? The Republicans? Never.
111
@ThirdWay
Yes, there are serious problems, but if you "stay home" you guarantee they won't be addressed. What would be accomplished by your opting out of the electoral process?
140
@ThirdWay, I too am non-partisan and fiercely so. Allow me to observe, however, that there is no such thing as neutral ground here. Someone WILL win the presidency. People abstaining from voting is exactly how we got Trump in the White House.
I WILL be voting for the lesser evil candidate, because they don’t come any more evil than our incumbent.
And welcome back, Charles!
142
Mueller answered the questions he was tasked with, and created a massive report, from multiple sources, over two years. We have NOT seen that report. What we HAVE seen are a few brief sentences, that purport to summarize its contents, as framed by a man who said he did not believe in the process before he ever hit the door. At the time, Democrats wanted an AG who would not shut down the inquiry.
Mueller did his job, but that job was narrowly defined. What he leaves is a treasure-trove of evidence, and investigations in progress, in many other offices. Barr allowed him to complete his narrow mandate, without the sticky fingers of the president on it, to derail it before it left the door. This, too, was a narrow mandate, and it is done.
Muller's evidentiary findings will become known to us, and are already known to the offices of federal and state prosecutors, who continue their own mandates. Fortunately, prosecutors will procede forward as far as the evidence takes them, to the end, if there is such a thing, because this president and lackeys can't seem to control their needs to commit more, and ongoing offenses. The House will continue its own investigations as far as they have questions left unanswered. Mueller, Rosenstein and others will be subpoenaed, a slow process, just barely been started.
Waiting for the Mueller report, is now a thing of the past, allowing all other interested parties full-steam-ahead, without fear of disturbing an ongoing Mueller investigation.
5
A Constitutional Convention is a libertarian dream to reshape the country in to something we won't recognize. This predates Trump and is part of the strategy of ALEC. It is very dangerous to democracy as it may sweep away the amendments that were critical to the ratification of our constitution in 1788.
If the Constitution is re-written, we may as well officially change our name to the American Corporation Collective. If you are an ordinary citizen, kiss your country good-bye. This is insidious, anti-democracy in its intentions, and revolutionary. It will be sold to us by the best advertising money can buy and peddled by Fox News and Sinclair network. It will make Russian efforts to undermine us look puny by comparison. Historians, fuel up your pens!
As a bright note, Bernie drew large crowds in California this weekend. Attendance at his rallies topped 37,000. Take that, Trump!
137
@nora m Darn! You had me, until you brought up bernie. bernie and trump are the extreme in both left and right politics.
3
@nora m Trump is a distracting machine made up by the Koch Brothers so the media never reports on the things that really matter. I can't help but wonder whenever he uses the phrase "fake news" if he's trying to warn us to not look at the shiny objects but to do our own digging to find out what's really going on. The sad thing is, most people won't.
8
@nora m
To me the Bernie phenomenon is also cultish as it is with Trump (in fact many Bernie supporters voted for Trump, as they must have seen in Trump a similarly polarizing and immodest firebrand worth having for president instead of bland HRC). Sanders, like Trump, is very dogmatic and uncompromising. Trump may be un-re-electable because of moral and competence failures, Sanders because of unreachable and unaffordable goals in the short term and oversold to an ignorant public. The multiple issues facing this nation and the world are complex, difficult and expensive to address and need to be prioritized. This the progressives have not done, as we cannot afford to address all acute issues with equal urgency and speed. Their goals of income for all, universal public health care, the Green New Deal, new road and grid infrastructures, economic resurgence through sustained increases in government sponsored R&D are all highly commendable goals, but they also compete with the need for a sound, yet more efficient and nuanced national security demand in an rapidly changing world dominated by autocratic regimes waging economic and territorial expansionism. The democrats need to set realistically achievable goals for the short term and the long term, and make theses understandable, desirable and realizable for the voters. Instead the progressives have opened an opportunity for the Republicans and their business supporters to paint them as socialist and anti-business.
9
This particular column seems overwrought, overstated, and needlessly alarmist.
I'm a fan of Charles's; glad to see him back: He is so darned interesting. But his absence may have given me time and space to see that he may be making mountains out of what are just large hills.
In my home states -- Texas for 60 years ago, Florida for four -- I didn't and don't see or feel much racism. I see mixed couples everywhere. I see most people having a good time at the beach, going to movies, and eating at restaurants. Laughing, talking, drinking, smoking.
Race never even comes up in my circles. We're Democrats, too. In fact, I'm once again sending monthly contributions to Bernie, the man who could, I really believe, turn America into its best self or incarnation ever, which means, of course, that he won't win. But I digress.
Yes, America suffers from some racism, sexism, ageism, and xenophobia, but by and large these problems aren't epic, at least in my locality. I could, I guess, exaggerate what I see and live in deep paranoia.
Yes, we do need to improve. We'll always need to improve; neither life nor people are perfect, nor will they ever be, I don't think.
In short, maybe we need to dial it back a little? Of course, I could be very wrong, but so could you. We can all drag up anecdotes and even studies and statistics to prove the validity of our positions. But maybe our conclusions are just products and projections of our overwrought minds, of which I'm as guilty as you are, no?
55
@Jim Muncy Suffers from "some racism, sexism, ageism"? That means that you have never personally been confronted with any of those issues, but as someone who has, I can say, they most definitely do still exist and your blindness is a part of the problem. People have friends of a different race does not make you "not a racist." Only if you acknowledge that these elements exist and are issues that need to be confronted will they go away. Most men I know were shocked at the pervasiveness of the sexual harassment women face until all the women they knew said "me too."
40
@Jim Muncy you might not see racism in your own daily life, but it still exists. White supremacist terrorrists are not going to announce themselves to us. They hide on the dark web and elsewhere. If trained law enforcement agents didn’t know about the maga bomber, synagogue shooter, or New Zealand attacker ahead of time, then obviously you and I wouldn’t either.
27
@Jane
In regard to your second post, yes, my knowledge is certainly limited: I don't know all the bad things or all the good things for that matter. My views and conclusions are necessarily subjective, as are yours.
The media lives and breathes on conflict, so if it bleeds, it leads. Who cares that 99.99 per cent of the people in your town slept all night, got up, and went to work safely?
No, we care about that robbery, fire, car wreck, or murder. Psychologists have long known that news junkies are significantly more paranoid than someone who rarely watches the news.
Most of life is boring, I've found; and I did four tours in Vietnam. Most of the time, we just hung out waiting for something to happen. Granted, others had it much worse: We read about them, but not the bored troops.
You right, of course, that if we see a problem, we should try to remedy it. I'm just saying, Are we really living in a hellscape? Overall, at least in America, I would say no; however, that's just one man's opinion -- but what else can I say? That which I don't find? I gotta call 'em like I see 'em, as do you, of course. We just, apparently, disagree.
4
Please don’t make this about race or any identity-based prime variable. This is about right vs wrong. we don’t need to divide along any other fault lines to condemn the poison that is Trump and his capricious, hollow movement. You will loose many important allies. The fight is too important.
68
@Mario Quadracci Your statement that acknowledging racism as the defining aspect of Trumpism would result in the loss of "many important allies" suggests that you understand the severity of the problem to a greater extent than you want to admit.
17
@Mario Quadracci --when it concerns trump, it is by definition about race. it is part and parcel of his "brand".
14
@Mario Quadracci
It is all about race. rTump's goal, and Republican leaders that come after his, is to "Make American White again". This is the only promise that he has not violated. He's not bringing back manufacturing job. Coal will not once again be a dominant energy source. He is not building the wall. He is not giving them great healthcare (fortunately, for the poor souls shooting 'repeal and replace', McCain gave the famous thumbs down). The one promise he has not violated is his promise to 'Make American White Again'. At the end of his run, white rural America will by worse off, rTump and his family and his already rich supporters (not the MAGA hat wearing masses) will be richer, and all his supported will have to show is a red hat that marks them with the same stigma as a confederate flag license on their truck (or hanging in their closets for the city dwellers).
14
Democrats have a serious problem; the Mueller Report which they always worried might not be strong enough for their purposes, has turned out worse than feared, it pretty decisively favors Mr. Trump; he's not the bad guy Dems want us to think he is. Democrats had made a heavy political investment in the report, now they have to hustle to find new angles of attack; expect them to be trying everything they can think of in the days and weeks ahead. Mr. Blow's effort here to paint not only Mr. Trump, but all white people everywhere in the world is racists is just an attempt to see what arguments, if any, will gain political traction (I'm inclined to think this one won't). I'd say Democrats are up against a skillful, determined opponent who's now in a very strong competitive position.
39
@Ronald B. Duke
Where does he attempt to paint all white people in the world as racists? I'm white, and you'll never catch me in a MAGA hat or self-identifying as a Trump supporter.
Do you care about the environment? Do you fear for our country and the world when the President calls the press the enemy of the people? If so, there are a couple of reasons to believe the President is a bad guy that has nothing to do with the issues discussed in the Mueller report.
36
@Ronald B. Duke the headline on Washington Post read: "Legal experts question William Barr’s rationale for exonerating Trump. The attorney general’s personal history and his reasoning make this fraught." ny times missed the boat here (again).
23
@Ronald B. Duke
Trump's base character is reflected in his actions every day- last week it was lambasting a dead war hero who can't answer back. Meanwhile, he still hasn't released his income tax returns. The Mueller report doesn't rehabilitate him- until the full report is released, we can't be sure his offenses aren't impeachable. And please, Mr. Blow is not indicting all white people- only those who feel that their pigment makes them superior to those with a darker pigment.
24
We the people can't look to a third-party, Mueller, to do our job. For the sake of decency, the American public has got to come forward and unseat him in 2020.
4
Mr. Blow,
You and others in the media and elsewhere have made the accusation of “racist” and “xenophobic” so often that these words have now lost a good measure of their significance and gravity. Over the past several years, you’ve cheapened these words for political expedience to describe tens of millions of American voters. They are now carelessly used as labels for anyone who doesn’t ascribe to a certain political point of view. Racism is a truly serious accusation. We Americans of all colors are not perfect human beings but I truly believe that most of us are trying every day to be better and to look beyond color of skin as a measure of our fellow citizens.
56
@Karen J. You act as though Charles Blow has sounded the alarm of racism and xenophobia for no reason. Where have you been the past 4 years? Were you under a rock when Mr. Trump characterized Mexicans as rapists and drug dealers? What about when he said a judge couldn't be impartial towards him because of his Mexican heritage? Or when he attempted to enact the Muslim ban and referred to African countries and Haiti using a word not fit to be repeated? Does that sound like anyone trying to be better to you? People know this about Mr. Trump and vote for him and attend his rallies, anyway. Are they trying to look beyond the color of one's skin?
21
@Karen J.
A co-worker told me his 50 year old white, male relative wears a MAGA hat. My co-worker asked him why. Did he wear the hat because he honestly wanted America to be great again? If so, what did that mean to him.
Here's his explanation: He said the only problem he has with new immigrants is that they won't assimilate to American culture. They dress, eat and live by the cultural norms of the country they emigrated from.
Why it was pointed out that most immigrants do so and that's why, in NYC, we have Chinatown, Koreatown, Little Italy etc. He then said that he guessed we'll have to wait 2 generations till the children absorbed the American culture,
My grandparents came from Scandinavia, Norway to be precise and by the second generation, the children didn't really speak Norwegian, and except for Christmas cookies, neither did the 3rd generation or 4th.
I consider that a shame. The logic was that they were now American citizens and wanted to be treated as such.
I consider it a loss of culture. My cousins lived in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, which for years was ann enclave of Norwegians. Not any more.
It would have been nice to have been able to learn the language and customs. Ah well.
But, I now understand a bit better what the MAGA hat wearing contingent has against immigrants. At least that one man.
To me, it still symbolizes a lack of acceptance of anything not white or male.
We've got a long way to go.
11
@Karen J.
And yet if one attends a party and finds that half of the people there are clearly racist and xenophobic and the rest of the attendees don't mind rubbing shoulders with them, if you stay at the party you are implicitly siding with the xenophobic racists.
If the racist and xenophobic hat fits then - wait, explain again why you're shopping in the racist hat store?
13
The war you speak of started with the Constitution's enshrining of slavery, coupled with the genocide inflicted by us white people on indigenous people of this land.
We need some kind of Truth and Reconciliation process to bring us to our senses. Racial animus is leading us to the very bottom in this world, with an educational system far below other countries' ability to prepare people for the future, millions of people on opioids and unable to work, a medical system dependent on Wall Street, incapable of providing the healthy outcomes produced by universal systems elsewhere, and a crumbling infrastructure that attracts no new industry. Add to that climate change denial as a pledge dictated by politicians whose jobs are more important than our survival on this planet, and you've got a failing state.
Trump says bring the guns, old boys, to insure his continuance and the survival of coal. Insanity. Racial hatreds brought us to this precipice.
68
The thing that always gets under my skin as a white person is the people that do not realize racism against minorities is not only morally abhorrent but, also, it really hurts the vast majority of white people who do not fit into the straight-white-rich-Christian-male box. There is a reason most of the south still struggles economically, and it is slavery and its legacy. By dividing the workforce, setting groups against each other, and giving poor whites a false sense of superiority, the wealthy whites were able to steal from everyone; people of color did not have the numbers to fight back, and whites were too caught up in feeling superior to realize they were being exploited.
It still happens today and it is incredibly frustrating. What kind of a lifestyle could the average American live if the Right finally understood the game? We'd probably look like Norway. Instead, the vast majority of us, including almost all white people, are working for less because some people would rather be paid less and be treated badly but feel superior to someone else. They live in "them vs. us" instead of reality, which is "US."
Racism. Against. Anyone. Hurts. Almost. Everyone.
158
@Ashleigh Adams
“...racism against minorities is not only morally abhorrent but, also, it really hurts the vast majority of white people...”
I take it that your statement is limited in scope to some town in Colorado. A better, more accurate statement, is simply: “racism is morally abhorrent”. If it helps your perspective, try imagining that there are places in this world where there are no white people. Could there/would there be racism?
1
@Ashleigh Adams Truer words...This is the Deep South in a nutshell. Factor in the divisive issue of abortion and this will be the political landscape for the near future. The Tea Party got its momentum when white conservative Southerners finally left the Democratic en masse. End the Electoral College and American government can start to look more like her population. Until then things will not change.
7
@Ashleigh Adams you are so correct. Columbia history Professor Eric Foner book Reconstruction should be mandatory reading for everyone. Unquestionably, after the Civil War, the poor whites and former slaves were pitted against each other by business interests and property owners. They played upon the poor white fears of now free labor ex-slaves, and they've been doing it ever since. Until white people wake up and realize that they're pawns in the same game, which is destroying their economic viability along with black people, then we as a country will make no more progress towards resolving the issue.
11
Where have you been? We need your voice. I have always believed that the Mueller investigation was irrelevant, at least in relation to the chaos that is taking place in America today. You, and a few other editorial writers, recognize that the overarching problem is racism, not only towards Blacks, but also against Muslims, LGBTQ citizens and Latinos. Mueller was not in a position to impact this issue. Unfortunately, I have abandoned hope that anyone can address this issue, particularly when a SC Justice claims that it doesn't exist. If seems that Americans were only able to accept people as equals regardless of their race, religion or national origin when people were White, Christian and of European descent. If that attitude does not change, we are a doomed democracy.
52
@Disillusioned: How does one distinguish between racism and religious schisms?
1
I think Mr. Blow has summed it up nicely. We are now in dangerous territory, and there is so much about our situation that is reminiscent of Weimar Germany in the very early 1930s that attention must be paid.
We are only fortunate that Trump is too lazy and mentally chaotic to have planned out what is happening in any organized way. Had he done so, we'd be even worse off. As it is, he appears to have never thought he would win the presidency, and has no clue how to make our huge and complicated government work. But even though our situation could be worse, it is quite bad enough.
We see what we're up against. The election of 2020 is coming, and we, the people, must not waste it.
5
Wow, Charles Blow is back! How we've missed you.
But after reading this, I'm really confused about whether it's the "emboldened, unfettered Trump" we have to fear--the authoritarian president who is free to do whatever--or this constitutional convention we're close to having.
I wasn't even aware of that! One can only imagine what sorts of "amentments" white resentment might produce.
Either way, I think we can pretty much agree this "grand experiment " of self rule seems to be drawing to a close.
Because democracy no longer can exist when one side decides it no longer should and won't--and they have the power to make that happen.
5
Arguably the best, most insightful commentary on our situation that I have read or expect to hear. Also an excellent display of the superiority of the print media. I am reminded of the simpleton at the end of Boris Godunov, bewailing the condition of Russia. We can now expect to see the opposed media channels beating cynically on “the other side” about the opposed point of view. The article makes me think the Democrats need to select Kamala Harris and Corey Booker as their standard bearers.
1
This is a frightening scenario we’re in. I hope more people wake up to white nationalism and its dangers. Seems like Barr is whitewashing (pun intended) Trump’s behavior, especially regarding obstruction.
2
There is a very good way to combat the “theology" you describe, and you have the means to employ it: #coverexcellence in all its remarkable and powerful diversity as you and your peers make an excellent case for #ourtopstory told by The New York Times and other top tier news organizations. I want to unite around the story of the best within us told by the best among us. That story is truly colorful when you dig into it — which you and your peers have the power to do for your economic benefit and ours. Do good, feel good using two hashtags. Words win this battle.
All of this is disturbing but we need not forget the drubbing that Trump and the GOP experienced in the 2018 elections. I am hopeful that the continued awareness of the majority of the American public for a fairer and more decent government will prevail in 2020.
3
It’s possible that Trump, feeling emboldened by the selective letter released by Barr, will ramp up his offensive rhetoric and actions and cause his own demise.
One can only hope...
18
It never always gets worse. Perhaps, just maybe, we are at rock bottom. It will be all uphill until 2020 but we will crest that hill and see a new horizon.
11
So much was placed on Robert Mueller being supremely honest, patriotic to a fault, just a good all around scout, with the expectation that this man will provide the answers to all our desires that trump could be convicted of charges and removed from office. I myself fancied the thought many times with he being removed in disgrace and humiliation to the same degree the country suffered.
It's possible Charles, by the way welcome back, you've been missed, that the report may not be quite the dud you claim. trump's closet is overflowing with skeletons, that one day, one will fall out and open the flood gates of corruption. If conviction is not quite in the cards before the 2020 election the American electorate will make the final decision on where they move forward. Ultimately, our destiny has always been in our hands.
15
Mr. Blow,
You have written another powerful and insightful opinion piece. I appreciate and respect your insights. The release of Attorney General Barr’s summary is indeed a travesty, as you depict. Anyone who believes in the values of democracy, integrity, equal opportunity and decency must work together to defeat this President. Also, even with the current Congress, we must press for the full portion of justice to be served.
It is not a minor point, though, that it is too easy to use the terms “whites” and “blacks” too broadly, as I believe you have here, since neither group shares singular beliefs or views.
In such confusing, uncertain, and even evil times, your words are more important than ever.
14
Thank you, Charles, for a wake up column. Pinning everything on the Mueller report enables Trump to crow that an investigation he trashed and discredited now clears him from all past and future wrongdoing. When all the time Trump has been violating the constitution in plain sight. Political interference with the rule of law? Just about every day with the firing and trashing of the FBI and the AG's office the most egregious. Conflict of interest that compromises American security? How did a two year investigation into Trump's activities manage not even to obtain Trump's tax returns? Please for the sake of the country, may the democrats not be lulled into silence or any slowing down of their oversight. Trump has turned the American government into a moral abyss and now we need America to regain its moral compass as a world leader in support of democracy more than ever.
14
The electoral college victory by Donald Trump in 2016, aided by the intervention of Russian dirty tricks, was only part of the problem created for our democracy.
The bigger problem was the ability of Republicans, who would soon show themselves to be meek sycophants for the obviously unfit Trump, to hold onto majorities in the Senate and the House.
Who would have thought, just a few years ago, that virulent racism would become a successful rallying cry for the party of Lincoln in the 21st century?
We placed too much reliance upon Robert Mueller to rescue us from an ignorant, unbalanced demagogue, who seemed to be selling our national security down the river – to use a 19th century phrase from the age of American slavery – for personal profit.
Perhaps Robert Mueller, so tied to the self-imposed procedures of the Department of Justice, was the wrong man to lead the rescue effort. Mueller is a good man who produced good results and then, out of a misperceived sense of institutional duty, snatched defeat from the jaws of victory.
The results of the 2018 midterm election were encouraging, but whether we can build on that after being disappointed by Robert Mueller remains to be seen.
There now is only one game in town. Saving our democracy is up to two groups: the U.S. House of Representatives and the American voters.
14
I'll work on the first formula within the next 'sprint'. That's how we're supposed to work, right? Everything is done in a sprint? Some local humor, as South Parkish is is seems!
It's painful to continue to understand that people in this country think Democrats are going to save us. Until we acknowledge that it is money that drives them, we'll continue to accept lip service and incremental progress. Witness the minute-long standing ovation for Hoyer when he addressed AIPAC and practically disowned the newly elected women of Congress, some of the very few fighting for people. We can no longer accept any politician simply because there is a D beside their name. People like Hoyer need to go and the sooner the better.
5
@Ross I don't disagree, but unless your focus is on beating every Republican and only THEN shifting the party to where it actually tries to represent what Americans want, you are going to make that goal even harder to achieve - and a lot more people will get hurt along the way.
1
I have never been a big fan of the Constitution of the United States, one reason being that it fails to exert any sufficient control over the actions of the politicians. We are suffering through the tenure of perhaps the worst president in history and the only means of removing him from office appears to be the extreme measure of impeachment which will never happen. Trump won his round with Mueller and will crow about that for the remainder of his tenure. I fear that it's all downhill and further into the abyss from here.
3
A very thoughtful argument by Mr. Blow. I agree with his points. Bu today, I wondered if the Russian kleptocracy (also a white supremacy regime) has infected, very successfully at that, our democratic republic. The Muller report will shed light on this aspect albeit indirectly. The question on my mind has been if the virus has killed the host? The midterm elections indicated not yet. Barr’s memo definitely is a boost for the virus. Now, we have to rely on the Congress and the Americans. The road to recovery will be hard and will require vigilance of the people informed by the free press. Like Obama said in his last presidential remarks: “it’s up to us.”
60
Mr. Blow,
You have written another powerful and insightful opinion piece. I am a fan and appreciate and respect your insights. The release of Attorney General Barr’s summary is indeed a travesty, as you depict. Anyone who believes in the values of democracy, integrity, equal opportunity and decency must work together to defeat this President. Also, even with the current Congress, we must press for the full portion of justice to be served there and in the courts.
It is not a minor point, though, that it is too easy to use the terms “whites” and “blacks” too broadly, as I believe you have here, since neither group shares singular beliefs or views.
In such confusing, uncertain, and even evil times, your words are more important than ever.
3
I don’t think That compounding conspiracy theories are going to create any improvement in America. We already have Trump’s false allegations of an illegal investigation. There is no need for a fake conspiracy about a constitutional convention.
4
I fully concur. To just about half the country, the first non-white President was a betrayal of everything they quietly believed in. It was not supposed to happen, ergo the ascendancy of Trump and the far right. As far as I am concerned, there is zero doubt that most white Republicans would be just fine with enshrining white christian supremacy if a constitutional convention were to occur. Most of them have stopped pretending to be for civil rights and openly demand and support its dismantling which Trump is more than happy to do. The sooner the rest of us rise and unite to confront this existential threat to who we are, the better our chances to resist such a debacle. This is what the end game of the Resistance has to be about.
17
@JJ: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion" is the most crucially neglected law in this land of praying for divine intervention. Separation of God and state was the most fundamental and crucial innovation of the US revolution.
In fact, we've never had a constitutional convention, and therefore never had amendments introduced that way. On the other hand, 33 amendments have gotten through the 'Senate' pathway (6 of which were never ratified).
Never say never (e.g., just because it has not happened in past doesn't mean it won't happen in future), but is Mr. Blow's concern really a convention? Or is it really ratification of amendments which could erode progress we've made to-date?
Either way, it's worth noting that 3/4 of states (currently 38) must ratify before it can be considered official amendment. In other words, the threshold of ratification is higher than the threshold to call a convention (as it should be).
2
A well-articulated essay on 'white power' for a good deal of the piece. I believe the deeper truth is not racial per se, but rather wrapped up into the political; white Americans are predominantly Republican and see nonwhite voters as likely Democrats and fear the loss of political power (and its related socioeconomic effects) with the related demographic changes. I'd bet that if you could show that immigrants would be Republicans there'd be an entirely different narrative. The ending of this piece also goes off into goofiness; there is NOT going to be some kind of new Constitutional Convention. Aside from the institutional obstacles in the Constitution, those who Mr. Blow fear see the electoral college as a bulwark against the demographics they view as ominous and there's NO way they'd imperil it by launching such a process. I'll finish by saying that - as a white guy - I know I have a different view of race relations in America, and I don't discount racism and its pernicious and corrosive effects here. But it seems to me that economics dominate race nowadays; and I am pleased to observe how much more easily and less self-consciously people of differing racial and ethnic backgrounds interact and mingle in my own little part of the world compared to when I was a good deal younger.
8
The Democrats put forth a false narrative to explain why Mr. Trump was elected because they did not want to admit that Hillary (the Democrats) lost the election. This myth, propagated by the media with the hysteria about the firing of the Special Prosecutor (which never happened), all ended yesterday. Looking back, Mr. Trump's success was simple - he carried the rural votes which the Democrats have long ignored.
10
@Mark You are absolutely correct about the Democrats ignoring the rural votes and may I add that faction of voters in the rust belt who have seen their lives go down hill with no one speaking for them. That was a serious and unsympathetic mistake. But this now old saw about the Democrats and a false narrative and Democrats not wanting to admit the loss of election is only in the minds of Republicans. Clearly by the results of the med terms the Democrats have moved on. It is time for the Republicans form a new narrative themselves.
12
@Mark: James Comey's bloodless assassination of Hillary with Anthony Weiner's computer elected Trump. That's why Trump had to dump him.
1
What a dispiriting occurrence. Having to observe Trump gloating is too galling to bear.
We are indeed in a cold civil war. It's going to get much worse from here, and a fair outcome is far from assured. Mayor Pete and Speaker Pelosi are correct: impeachment would only make Trumpsters that much more virulent, and they have many more guns than we do. We are in for a harrowing two years, at least.
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@Carter Joseph -- they don't have more guns that matter, but nobody sane would want to see a shooting insurrection.
The (state) National Guards are today's militia as specified in the Constitution. Their purpose is stated in the enumerated powers of Congress: "15: To provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions."
You may speculate about states seceding, etc ... at which point it is a full civil war; short of that any insurrection that grew to the magnitude the police forces were not managing would call out the national guard.
Remember, they fought in Iraq -- go look at the what happened when the Jihadis attempted coordinated small-unit guerrilla tactics with small arms -- it was suicidal. They retreated to sniping warfare, and lost that. They retreated to IEDS.
Further, no rebellion or insurrection succeeds without both at least a substantial fraction of the indigenous military joining it, and outside support. Where is the outside support (their France) for a MAGA revolution? Do you posit it would be Putin's Russia? What do you think the consequences of that would be?
If you posit a true civil war with secession by states history offers MAGA no solace, and a very stark warning.
1
Black people should work hard, takes tests, and succeed. When they will have the power of numbers behind their success, equities such as social and financial will very likely follow.
While concerns about social deprivation are valid and should continue to be voice, there seems to be too much of them, and perhaps them only, and the ratio 'complaints to working hard, taking Math and Science now' perhaps needs to go south, way way south.
8
Am I misreading this? It looks like Vsh Saxena is saying black people's problems are caused by insufficient work ethic? Please tell me I'm misreading this...
1
@Vsh SaxenaYour statement that black people somehow are not working hard falls into a racist, stereotypical trope. It has been around since inception ....
1
I don't know why there is controversy over whether Trump colluded. He did and he did it in plain sight. What is at issue is whether he realized the significance of what he was doing, whether he actually intended to do it and whether he was able to indirectly induce someone like Roger Stone to work things out with Wikileaks and the Russians by some kind of hints and underhanded signals and on top of that whether anything can be proven in a way that meets legal standards. To those of us who sensed what kind of fraud that huge concupiscent orange mass of self justification, rationalization and deception really is this is no surprise.
27
@Bill H
There are too many unanswered questions. Too many Whys. Why didn't Trump's campaign alert the FBI that Russian's were trying to make contact with them. Why did they lie to Congress when questioned about contacts with Russians? Why did Trump need to tell his son what to say about the purpose of the meeting in Trump Tower? They think we are stupid.
Fortunately, I don't see those right wing nuts getting six more states. But, then again, I never thought I'd see the day the likes of a Trump would be elected.
On a more hopeful note, while there is no doubt an historical backlash, if you look at the overall direction of the ups and downs towards progress, it is slowly on the up.
On the other hand, I fear this uptick might be too little too late.
8
Thank you for a very thoughtful article, Mr. Blow. I was unaware of the movement for a constitutional convention. That is frightening.
One of the main underpinnings of the movement to destroy our democracy is the destruction of good public education. Education prepares children to think critically, and discern the truth.
When I grew up in Ohio, we took our public schools for granted. But as children we did not realize our education was different from what the kids were getting in downtown Akron.
Now, in post-civil rights time, we have returned to Jim Crow with a vengeance. Legislators continue slashing public school budgets, while allowing charter schools with a majority of white students take what little money is left in public education funds.
Textbooks have disappeared from our classrooms in NC, because of the "computer age". But up to date computers and programs are only to be found in the white, middle class schools, not in the poorer, and largely black, schools.
A good education can teach children how to think and discern the truth. People with poor education are easily led by demagogues and charlatans, as proven by the last election.
Education is the forgotten battlefield of our democracy.
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You’re wrong about charter schools at least in NYC. Minorities represent the vast majority of the student population in the NYC charter schools. I believe minorities represent 90% of the overall population with black students comprising well over 50%.
2
@carolz
You couldn't be further from the truth. School budgets haven't been slashed. Charter schools help black children escape from poor performing inner-city public schools. Funding for black inner-city schools is extremely high - look at funding in New York City. I agree with you point about people with poor education falling for demagogues and charlatans - exactly why the democrat party gets the majority of its votes from poorly educated inner-city residents - educated in horrible public skools.
1
Don't underestimate the vitriol against women, white or any color, mixed in with the wave of legal and verbal suppression surging under Trump and the GOP. There is real fear and life threatening danger not different from the mob mentality in Charlottesville except it is played out one-on-one in doctors offices, workplaces, courtrooms, and bedrooms. It was also a major reason Hillary lost some blocks of votes, the never vote for a woman types. We live in dangerous times. The GOP and Trump are undoing decades of progress all around.
Oh, and welcome back. Much missed.
33
I am a "white person". I dislike trump as much as you do. I also dislike McConnell and most republicans as much as you do. I also have little respect for the people that support trump.
I have decided that nothing is going to change until trump and the republicans either wake up (not likely) or until they get voted out of office (again not likely).
I am discouraged, but there is nothing about the Democratic party that is hopeful. Recently some of its members have displayed anger and hate that looks very similar to the anger and hate that is displayed by the person in the White House only displayed in a different direction. It is exhausting.
It is not good for my health. I need to accept what is until we can change it.
28
@esp
While you will not read it in the NYT, the Guardian follows Bernie Sanders and you can read what he is doing there.
They see Bernie, Beto, and Biden as the most likely to be able to defeat Trump.
Bernie's campaign went to California this past weekend. His crowd count was 37,000 attendees. I think we have a good chance at defeating Trump if Bernie is the nominee. In 2016, he won the following primaries in Trump country: Alaska, Wyoming, Utah, Oklahoma, North Dakota, Idaho, Kansas, Montana, Michigan, Minnesota, and Wisconsin. Ops! I left out West Virginia where he won all 55 counties.
Notice anything in that list? How many of those states did Hillary fail to visit? She had reason to believe that she was weak in those areas, and she ignored it. It may not account for her defeat, but it was surely a contributing factor. Bernie will visit them all.
1
Welcome back, Charles. After Sunday's bitter disappointment, I felt like I did when Trump won the election. But we were cautioned all along by various legal minds not to expect too much from the Mueller report. It's a legal document, not a political one. Furthermore, we don't even know what it says. Two years can't be compressed into four pages. It is impossible. All we have is a slippery Trump appointee's conclusions. I am reinvigorated now, because there is nothing to mourn. We expected too much from this. Now, it's up to Congress and the many investigations underway to bring Trump and his family to heel.
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What a great op ed that validates what many of us think. Yesterday felt like the day after the 2016 election. But no matter what this man will say or do, no matter if Congress can rein him in or remove him from office, we have to make sure that we get him by voting him out. That seems to be the last power We, the People have left to get rid of this man. It's going to be a long two years and it is just the beginning. I never thought my country of adoption would accept and sort of exonerate the crimes of such a bad person. For two years we thought we could believe in our institutions. Look at where we have landed! America will never be a beacon of light again until we are rid of this man, his family and his cronies. We need to vote in droves.
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@Sophiew7530 "What a great op ed that validates what many of us think." This is the problem. This isn't about validating what you think. We should be about the facts. For two years we have only listened to people who told us what we wanted to hear not the facts. The question is did these people know the collusion racket was garbage and pushed it anyway or where they hoodwinked by the likes of Clapper and Brennan?
Welcome back Charles, it is so good to read your articles; you are correct the problem is bigger than one individual, and will take a collective effort to eliminate. We should start by strengthening our local communities, better schools, equal pay for women, diversification in the board, strengthen Affirmative Action, and Yes WE MUST VOTE.
This is also an indivual action!
47
Now it is up to each of us to examine our beliefs and standards and see if they are reflected in our government. Then we must each do all we can when we vote, and we must vote, to choose the best match in our representatives. Being indignant is not enough. Thank you Mr. Blow, you have been missed.
37
One cannot imagine what the Republicans will devise when America is a "majority-minority" country. This date will arrive fairly soon. The looting of the Treasury is well underway. It remains the responsibility for people of conscience and faith in our principle of justice to create a coalition to remove Trump in 2020, lest the damage be irreparable. Young people will be challenged to get out the vote in a way not seen since 1964.
38
@USNA73: The most recent month's federal deficit was well over $400 billion. It must have blown through the debt ceiling.
Excellent historical points on the resistance to racial progress in our country. It cannot be proven, but I know deep in my bones after living most of my life in a white middle-class setting that the support for Trump in 2016 was primarily a symbolic response to Barack Obama the person, and those who supported him.
Welcome back Charles.
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I agree the biggest problem we face is the large percentage of America that supports Trump's bad faith leadership. It is tearing our great country apart. The priority must be in unifying the United States so we benefit as a whole and include all parts of our citizenry. There is no single group based on ancestry or religion that should feel more privileged than other groups. We are all in this together. With fairer economic opportunities and education designed for the 21st century, people will realize we have a lot more in common with each other than with a dishonest president and other politicians who work to keep America divided. We must work for the inclusion of all, and that is our greatest challenge. There is no other way.
24
@Helene. The problem is that the same party that gives us Trump has opposed efforts to revamp education and bring real economic opportunities to average Americans.
.
Many Republicans argue that Public Schools should go back to the “three ‘R’s”. Many more claim public education is indoctrination and should be done away with altogether. Even the Republicans who claim to value public education don’t seem to understand that quality schools cost money. They think they can keep starving schools and then punish teachers into succeeding.
.
And while they talk about economic opportunities, the Republicans always try to go about it with tax breaks for the rich. That means fewer social services for the poor, less money for healthcare and education, and time and time again it fails to do much more than make billionaires out of millionaires. In turn this means more angst for the white Republican base - which feeds Trumpism.
17
"There are no magic bullets, no devastating facts, no pivotal events that can undo what Trump has wrought."
This has gone on for 2 years. We have been told, multiple times a day, Trump colluded and WE HAVE THE PROOF.
Except, there are no devastating facts. Mueller had 2 years, an unlimited budget and unlimited access. He had the entire Department of Justice at his finger tips.
Maybe it's time for Democrats to say, Trump beat us.
As we have been told, non-stop, for 3 years, Trump is not fit, smart enough or worthy to be the POTUS. Every White House insider has painted a picture of an American Horror Story and the last 2 seasons have been on Pennsylvania Avenue.
How did he get away with collusion and leave no evidence?
12
@Mike I see you and other Trump admirers are taking the attorney general at his word. You think forty-eight hours to read the whole report and then "summarize" it for us, instead of releasing it in full is satisfactory. Sorry, but one Trump-appointee deciding what the rest of America gets to see of this report makes a mockery of both the report and transparent government.
What a joke to think that Trump got away with collusion and left no evidence. For goodness sake, he left the evidence IN PLAIN sight. Do you not remember the shocking moment when he called for Russia to release Clinton's emails? Like many Trump supporters, you probably think all the vile things Trump says is a joke. The rest of us don't.
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@Mike You seem to imply Mueller accomplished nothing: look at how many people in Trump's orbit are facing hard time now...
The only thing Trump was smart about was not sitting down for an interview with Mueller. If Bill Clinton hadn't done that, he'd not have been impeached on the perjury charge.
1
@Emile Yeah Emile, that may be true, but what do you think is going to make anything change for the better?
There are several moral reasons to oppose Trump besides his racism, and many people oppose him for these reasons as well as racism. He is moving us further from a government of laws, with checks and balances to limit any given power by other powers. His supporters view such things as corrupt, as does Trump, and love him because he has been successful in fighting and overcoming them and keeping his promises to get rid of such things.
Against some opponents only war can lead to peace. Democrats and other non-Trumpsters must recognize that they are in a situation where the peace of politics has been replaced by war, and respond in kind to restore peace. Trump, such homegrown oligarchs as the Kochs, and the Republican Party they have captured, have decided to fundamentally change our form of government, keeping the husks of our central institutions to conceal what is really happening.
With the Senate the way it is and conservative judges flooding the judicial branch, our checks and balances are in bad shape.
44
The threat Charles refers to at the closing of his op-ed goes well beyond Trump and Trumpism, mere catalysts to feed the GOP's hidden agenda, the hope of some to invoke article V to allow a Constitutional Convention to profoundly modify the Constitution.
Some call this the "shredding of the constitution".
That is why Garland was shot down, why Kavanaugh was seated.
Historically Citizens United was the first essential building block to enable a group of wealthy patricians I call the Koch Fraternity, now a constellation, to buy the power they lacked to advance their agenda, while one of their emanations, ALEC is tasked to fill the 5 state gap referred to. Jane Mayer has eloquently illustrated this process.
Of the required 34 states, the 29th state is in the bag with Wyoming under the pretext of a Balanced Budget Amendment.
More than likely, Trump's claimed vindication and war with the media will lead to a drive to change libel laws : a direct attack on the first amendment (note his admiration of Putin and most other autocratic regimes).
Why the GOP has shamelessly looked the other way and let the rambunctious adolescent discredit the office of the Presidency is simple, the historic control they had on all three branches of Gov't could not last, the internal revolution needed to pass the point of no return before mid-terms. As Charles says, anything can happen...
39
@seanseamour I was unaware of this deeply disturbing subtext and need to learn more. How do we know it’s not the progressive version of a right-wing conspiracy theory?
@seanseamour
I suspect this is the equivalent of the Birther/Truther conspiracy theories....
@seanseamour okay, yes: found this. Tolerant people just aren’t calculating and under-handed like this. It’s hard to not feel despair. :https://billmoyers.com/story/kochs-to-rewrite-constitution/
In the latest issue of Foreign Affairs, Carla Norrlof has an essay that says something so obvious many think it too shallow as an explanation: that education is the key factor. "... [T]he best way to understand the rise of right-wing populism is as a rejection of liberal values. And the best way to fight it is not to search for economic answers or to try to assuage voters' concerns about sovereignty but to instill those liberal values as widely as possible throughout society."
However, is it not also true that some of our best-educated citizens are also -- excuse me -- some of our craziest? Do we want a bunch of utopian, uneconomic fantasists taking over these United States? Not I. The idea that liberal social values represent the culmination of historical progress is a belief embedded in the minds of today's liberals; hence we hear the phrase "the wrong side of history" applied to those who lack them.
HOWEVER, do the conservative intellectuals who're quick to defend Trump voters ("fine folks") truly know what they're defending? Conservatives are against academia because they know it tends to impart social liberalism, but this too often leads to inadvertent support for anti-intellectualism.
"In every place where populism is surging, the main determinant of whether someone holds liberal values is his or her level of education. ... What's clear is that higher education ... opens people up to other points of view, and encourages them to tolerate social differences."
25
@David L, Jr. -- An excellent case can be made that there were conservative intellectuals in the past (and considerably more so than just William Buckley) ... indeed if I were pressed to name the greatest conservative intellectual of the 20th century it would be William Churchill ... I would pick Teddy Roosevelt as the greatest American conservative.
Neither of these men would support Trump or Trumpism for a moment.
The claim that "intellectual conservatives" exist today raises questions like "Is Max Boot a conservative?" He's been cast out of the GOP like all the rest of the NeverTrumpers.
"Conservative Intellectuals" who're quick to defend Trump voters -- that's just oxymoronic.
1
I agree fully with Mr. Blow but I must sadly say that the problem was not Mr. Mueller's report.It was professionally done with honesty and courage. But he is not a judge but an investigator who found criminal intent and criminal activity in those who so-rounded Trump and who aided him to become a destroyer of truth, the constitution and the democratic process. His work is done but the House now must pick up the ball and release the complete investigation to the people of the United States before the republicans and their attorney general manage to block it well after the 2020 general election.
45
@EE Musgrave, Disagree, Mueller should have made a decision on obstruction, not left it to a compromised AG. Obstruction was obvious to anyone following this debaucle of a presidency.
2
I personally agree with most of Mr. Blow's points in this piece. In judging the behavioral characteristics of trump's tweets and impromptu statements before the media, his awkward and stumbling statements when called upon to address the victims of natural and unnatural acts of violence, he generally misdirects his comments to something not at all relevant, such as moving from addressing the lack of urgency to aid the citizens of Puerto Rico to addressing one of his personal problems such as how he was elected and his continuing avoidance to recognizing the public's expectation that he provide his tax returns, just for example.
Are these not items generally held by the public to be urgent rather than subject to trump's usual sloth.
I, personally, nor my family, did not participate in a plutocratic lifestyle gotten by greasy and ill-gotten means. But no matter, it is necessarily imperative that we disregard the attention paid to Trump's illegal and immoral actions since he was ensconced as President and instead focus on the continuation of irreparable harm his continued occupancy of the Oval Office will have on our presently eroding occupancy of our small section of earth that could be contained within a matchbox if necessary.
14
It's so good to have this clear strong voice back--especially now. Reading this and balancing it against the president's victory cries puts life in focus.
79
For decades (pre-internet) the Wharton School advised students - to make lots of money in a relatively low risk way, without having to be personally exceptional or lucky - accept careers in Oil & Gas, Real Estate Development & Management Consulting. And more recently we may add, the financial returns to Party donors investing $100,000 or more in political campaigns if managed properly brings investment returns to donors in excess of expected returns from venture capital funds. (My guess, this applies less to California than to Red States.)
If Trump were extremely white (as opposed to oligarchical), he would make real estate ownership very easy for whites. On the other hand, it is appalling that Native Americans and Black Males have never been awarded real property, with the financial where-with-all to sustain, grow & enjoy their real property investments.
9
Do you really think Trumpism is all about race? When was race NOT a problem in the US? When was wave immigration, even of white Europeans, NOT a problem (thinking Irish. Italians, Poles, Germans including Jews)? There's something else fueling Trumpism besides "white nationalism." Some possibilities include: (1) since WWII we can't "win" wars any more and terrorism can't be stopped; (2) the economy really is creating a reality that our children won't do better than us; (3) women have made gains in the workforce, education, politics and personal autonomy (4) climate change is happening on a global scale. All of these create frustration and feelings of powerlessness, especially in men for whom "being in control" defines manhood. Trump's machismo coupled with his wealth speak to all men who feel thwarted and threatened by economic and social change.
64
Back when I first registered to vote (as an Independent) in 1962, I knew the world was complicated and dangerous, and it was hard to know which candidate was more likely to safely maneuver the nation through the next few years. But now that era seems simple compared with today's upheavals, and yet we're led by a deranged narcissist who governs by tweeted whims, a man chosen by a minority of voters and empowered by Republican politicians with no motives beyond their own political ambition. They may brag of the strong economy (set in motion by Obama) and low unemployment (with stagnant wages) and their (debt-blooming) tax cuts, but the rest of us know something is seriously wrong--and we have to change it before this administration Makes America (as we knew it) Go Away.
201
@carrobin....MAGA....makes America Go Away....perfect...and...as you suggest... when the exploding deficit comes around to collect it's debt and the economy starts struggling...how will Trump and the Republicans blame it on Obama or Hillary ? Make America Great Again?...The only way is to vote Trump out of office and get to work repairing the damage done by the worst Administration in American History before it's too late! We are lucky we have done as well as we have in spite of Trump.In my mind this is a testament to previous administrations !
5
Twenty years ago a friend who is French articulated the fear that France will be Islamic within 50 years. It is 13% now, and the birth rate differential between French-Catholic and French-Islamic is large. Similarly, 200 Somalis on Jeju island, in Korea, strike fear in this small homogeneous country.
Let's remember why we have these numbers. The destruction of many countries in Africa, the Middle East, and Central America have generated tidal waves of refugees seeking safety. If I were a Syrian refugee in Europe, I would like to return to the once beautiful Syria with its cultural diversity derived from thousands of years of varied cultures.
When the West (that means us) stops destroying and starts rebuilding the demolished cities and countrysides of these war-doomed countries, then we will see people returning to their roots. Hopefully. It has taken a century of destruction to get to this point. It may take another century to get out.
As human beings, we must revere the ancient and truly astounding civilizations of the Middle East (after all, they formed us and who we are today, including our religions and our number system). There are countries in Africa that are stable and show hope.
Was it all for oil? Really? Was it for United Fruit? If so, it was a bad bargain. We lost.
107
@John. We were never to be the winner in any of the destruction wrought upon the Middle East, Central America or Chile. The winners were to be Big Oil, United Fruit and the investors who benefited from the destruction. Nor should we forget the arms industry either who sold weapons to all sides, reaping enormous financial returns. No one should be surprised that civil society in the form of functional governments are in ruins. Beginning with Iran in 1953 the CIA has left a trail of destruction across all of these countries. It’s the “Great Game” all over again played not by nations but by plutocrats.
33
@John
They destroy their own people and cultural treasures daily.
It's their own doing.
John,
Your point about political upheaval creating millions of Muslim immigrants and Muslim immigrants creating Muslim governments in the future is a conundrum. The Muslim immigrants we see are fleeing Muslim theocracy governments because they are oppressive. Therefore they are not going to insist on sharia law governing their new freer country. That is why the irrational fears of the Rush Limbaugh fans are so hard to understand. It is extremist fundamentalists who are twisting Islam into a new form of fascism.
Mr. Blow , you are correct in your observation of there being a white backlash to progress that African Americans make. I saw this in the 1960’s after the historic passage of civil rights legislation, which was followed by the rise of George Wallis, Lester Maddox and others. This time around, the reaction is more virulent and widespread, and it was the Obama presidency which lead to Trumpism.
I have always felt that the turning point in 1954 , with the order by the Supreme Court to desegregate the schools, was America’s missed opportunity. It held the promise of a more harmonious and unified nation, through desegregation in the education of our youths. Instead of embracing the Courts decision, a large segment of white America, did everything possible to avoid desegregation. We continue to pay the price of rejecting the wisdom of the unanimous decision made in 1954, by the court. For those who take the time to look,we still have plenty of segregation in the classrooms.
35
This is what happens to a "democracy" when Moneyed Interests (read: the 1%, and multi-national corporations, as well as well-funded lobby groups such as Big Pharma and the military-industrial complex) are permitted to run rampant through the herd of the "people's" representatives, and when apathy and cynicism lead many to opt out of the political process entirely, by not voting. The people remaining in the process can easily become a mob, led by the nose by demagogues who play to their greatest fears and anxieties, hence tricked into voting against their interests in the name of Safety and Security. A fearful, driven and decieved minorty can easily gain control of a democracy where they are the ones most likely to vote. Western democratic states URGENTLY need a new breed of leaders who are ready willing and able to unite people, to help heal wounds, and who can calm people's fears through a combination of good policy, good decisions and good leadership. Let us pray that these leaders will step up to the plate and help rescue us from, well, ourselves.
44
Welcome back-you were sorely missed! Please keep writing-the world needs to hear you.
160
It is probably crazy NOT to have expected that the world which Europe and America governments colonized and which "western" corporations exploited would one day react with distrust and resentment. Trump is hyperbole, symbolic of a systems failure that is, in some great measure, due to self-righteousness (among the western rich) and unconsciousness (among the western poor, taught to identify with nation and be nation-proud) about the lack of integrity in our history of wars and acquisition waged by kingdoms and tribes and republics. There seems to be no humility in our discussions of the distribution of good fortune.
The world seems to me a family of deeply dysfunctional norms. Upcoming generations must find ways to correct, rather than preserve those norms. And, if this family continues to operate as a collection of nation-states, it will need to find ways to prioritize its identity as a family, one whose nations gladly share resources and peacefully resolve conflicts among them so as to promote justice for the family, social welfare, health and hope.
I can dream, can't I?
20
Good to have you back Charles; we've missed you.
And your take here is quite cognizant.
I would only add that there are still too many Trump supporters who can't, or won't realize just how badly they were bait and switched. Trump campaigned as an economic populist, promising to do things to help those non-college-educated blue collar people who are being economically left behind, and that was how he got some of those previous Obama voters; the bigot xenophobic vote he was going to get anyway. But, of course, he has governed as a toadying typical supporter of the "I me mine" oligarchs, continuing their funneling of the nation's wealth upward into their small but grasping hands.
Democrats may have a much better road in 2020 by admitting that Trump the 2016 candidate may have had an economic point, but Trump the elected official hasn't delivered on his economic (infrastructure, health care, Medicaid/Social Security) promises, and in fact as regards these has been co-opted by the oligarchs in his party because he doesn't really care, and never did--he was lying in the campaign and he's lying now. He has always just wanted the money, the adulation, and the power, and is willing to say or do anything to get it.
Maybe that can sway enough opinions to bring him down. The white supremacy voters who like his stance on THAT aren't going to be persuaded by arguments about broken economic promises anyway.
70
@Glenn Ribotsky - I certainly wish for the hope you put forth to be realized but I am not optimistic. In ,y lifetime I have never seen an American politician so adored as he is by his supporters. But more importantly, for such a realization to occur even among those who were only persuaded by his claims of having the intention to see to the well-being of the many ... the majority ... who have been disregarded for so long requires they swallow yet another massive humiliation on top of all the other humiliation they have already swallowed and continue to swallow. That prospect, when balanced against the relative lack of pain involved in choosing to believe his litany of lies (and since he has no regard for truth nor a bit of shame those lies could be, quite literally, anything at all) ... or even just believing enough of them to rationalize everything as "President Trump has really tried to achieve so much to ensure our well being but the Democrats have stymied him at every turn". That's what Trump will claim. I really don't wish to seem elitist but it is a sad fact that 64%(!) of American adults can't name the 3 branches of our federal government. https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/govbeat/wp/2014/09/18/only-36-percent-of-americans-can-name-the-three-branches-of-government/ & many are very attached to 'The Affordable Care Act' ... but they HATE 'Obamacare'. Such awareness doesn't give me much confidence in an upcoming mass painful-but-necessary epiphany about being duped.
6
@Glenn Ribotsky...I really don't see how there can be Trump support left? He's accomplished nothing....but hirings ,firings,and indictments..oh and rounds of golf at our expense that he said he wouldn't have time for! I never in my life watched political news as much as I have in the last 3 years. I am more shocked by the deluded American voters falling for Trump's con than by his bizarre behavior. We voted for this...we can only be guaranteed to get out of it by voting in greater numbers and making a dramatic statement in the voting booth in the next election!
There are dark days in any war, and today is one of them, but you bring up a far greater threat to the union: a constitutional convention. The reality is, this would be the end of the United States. If a minority population used their disproportionate power to oppress the majority, it would very quickly lead to the states with high populations and common sense to leave. And the last time states left the union, there was a bloody and violent war.
32
The greatest victims of the de-industrialization of America have been Black Union workers. The blue collar factory jobs in Detroit or New Jersey or L.A.
where they had self respect and good wages are not gone because white workers took them or any workers took them. It was the capitalist owners who shut the factories down & moved to cheap labor countries. The idea that white workers can only make gains at the expense of workers of color or vice versa is exactly the kind of racist poison that the owners have always used in America to divide and defeat the working class. There is now something called Socialism popular particularly with young minority people, based on the belief that workers of ALL races and nations should unite. The world has changed.
39
So much sadness felt by so many people who wish for peace in our country.
It can feel too heavy sometimes.... to watch all that is good being trampled with such ease and joy by those who are supposed to stand guard over us.
40
Mr. Blow, this war was going on for some time. In the south, Republican states are making cuts to education, health care and assistance to disadvantage folks. The lack of health care is causing minority infant mortality rates to sky rocket. Mississippi and Alabama are highest. This is no joke. Look at the published reports. High school drop out rates in Mississippi are at all time highs.
Trump is able to articulate the sentiment, (fear of loss of dominance), of working class white folks and amplify the fear. Trump is using his base support as a means to keep everyone off balance.
35
When the federal government couldn’t come up with the evidence needed to convict Al Capone of murder and other crimes of racketeering, they convicted him on charges of tax evasion for which he served eight years in Alcatraz and other federal penitentiaries -- for tax avoidance likely to have been on accomplished on a much smaller scale than has been achieved by President Trump.
Let us hope that it is still not too late for Congress to go after Individual-1 on charges of tax evasion.
124
@A. Stanton
why do you cut and paste your comments verbatim across multiple stories / opinions?
... likely to have been accomplished ....
1
@Marc
I like to read the responses.
1
Yes-a moral argument -and also I have sights set on legal cases with New York.
I am nervous about the crowds Sen. Sanders is getting. I am afraid he will start criticizing Democratic candidates, as a new staff of his did before being hired.
I know this column is not about Democrats . Still, I wonder what can stop Trump from having a second term.
18
@Anne
Not about Democrats, perhaps, but certainly indicative of distinctions hardly worth parsing for the sake of discussion.
Stopping another four years of Trump should require only that the Democrats and liberal-minded people do once more what they did in 2018 - show up in droves.
In terms of how the candidates conduct themselves, I strongly advise that they support each other in the winnowing, and at all times choose cooperation over competition.
The party of inclusion can only win out by practicing what it preaches.
43
@Skeexix
Thank you for this-“at all times chose cooperation over competition” .
2
@Skeexix - Well said!
Welcome back Mr. Blow! We missed your eloquent writing, your perceptive insights and your polished turn of phrase. Continue to keep us vigilant, wary and alert. We benefit from your voice.
101
The constitution has flaws - the EC is not great and we do not have a clear way out of it, the 2A has turned into a mess on a variety of levels, and it seems like we can get by with one Senator per state at this point. None of these things compare to the horror that could come out of any open-ended editing of the Constitution.
We are simply not in a good place to do that now, there are a lot of social ills and there is little trust. It is possible that we will never be in a good place to do this again, and that is ok - there are plenty of ways to make the world better that do not depend on changing our Constitution.
6
@Alan The ultimate "way" is of course the electorate. No voter apathy. Research by voters critical. Our free press - the 4th leg of government will provide the analysis. FOX News will suffer continued declining ratings. We are looking at an ongoing battle in a long running war. Trumputin is far from exonerated.
10
We voted in record droves for the midterms we need to stay engaged and put our feet on the gas.
There are more dark days coming but we have the intelligence, grit and sheer on your face toughness to fight and win,
We need the best candidate, policies and love for this country to go all the way
Once again thank you Charles for being the reminder in our ear for what is happening around the world.
We are fighting for American Democracy Not democracy for a old crook and Russian lover.
49
Just imagine if this were President Obama’s campaign that had been the subject of a Mueller investigation! Does anyone believe that Congressional Republicans would tell us it was time to move on, no sooner than when the AG read the report?
Or, for that matter, if it were President Obama who had revived a vendetta against the late John McCain and gratuitously carried on about having never liked the late Senator. Do you think that Congressional Republicans would just shrug it off and sprinkle a few kind words about their deceased colleague?
63
@NM Am fearful that too many Republicans are locked in on their own vested self interests. And of course they seem to attract more than their fair share of Ideologues who fear immutable demographics (genesis of the Tea Party). Our younger generations far more truly savvy than many of our "mature" voters. Those mature voters shrink in numbers every hour. Time heals all wounds.
11
Readers, please contact your Members of Congress and tell them you want the Mueller report made public and for them to do their best to ensure that Attorney General Barr releases the report to Congress ASAP, releases a declassified version of the report to the public immediately, and preserves all documents related to the Mueller investigation.
All concerned Americans should want to see this report. We must demand to see it.
122
@Cordelia28 for barr to release the documents to the public is the only way for us to know the facts. anything less would be sabotaging the entire process. i want to read it and make up my own mind.
21
I have mixed feelings about Charles Blow's column. His identification of racism and white supremacist toxins being an important factor in Trump's rise and support are certainly valid. But it is a great oversimplification to stereotype those who voted for Trump as mostly racists. As has been often pointed out by political experts, a decisive factor in Clinton's losing the pivotal rust belt states was the sizable group--mostly white--who switched from voting for Obama to vote for Trump or to stay home. And they had legitimate economic grievances and perceptions that their dignity and value was being shortchanged by the Democratic party.
These are the same key rust belt states that MUST be carried by the Democrats in 2020 to so very crucially prevent Trump from winning re-election. And make no mistake--the overall impact of the Muller report will significantly improve Trump's chances in 2020. Stressing attitudes like Blow's color-specific angry rhetoric will not improve Democratic chances of carrying these pivotal states.
66
@RWeiss Yes and no. It’s true that stressing race might turn off those possible Democrat voters, but when are we going to concede that it’s true? Trump is in the White House not just because of the EC but because Obama was president. Certain members of my white family were apoplectic every day he occupied the presidency, and they couldn’t wait to replace him.
People energized by Trump’s hatred ran to the polls to vote for him, and will do again in 2020, and the overriding reason is not economics: It’s that they can’t stand seeing what they see as their white world change. The 2016 election was about nothing less than reasserting whiteness, and white Christianity in particular, as the lodestar of the national identity. These people, if my Trump-voting family is any indication, are not on board with blacks as anything but entertainers, with Hispanics as anything but the help, with gays for anything but shutting up and never mentioning it.
We do this all the time as a country, and we did it again in 2016. This time, though, it will be for keeps. Trump cannot be defeated, his daughter will succeed him in 2025, and our new royal family will keep overseeing the US for decades to come. And when the constitutional convention comes -- that’s it for free speech, abortion, and federal oversight of the states. It would help, I submit, if we talked about what happened and is happening for what it really is instead of ignoring it, even in a presidential campaign.
10
@Rex
Although I'm a healthy 75 year old, I'm not looking forward to my "golden years" with this gloomy prediction. My liberal values and my Democratic political identity are doomed?
@Rex
All true, Rex, but we must fight, not give up.
1
Mr. Blow, you make a number of good points. If it is a war, then where are the war leaders on the Democrat side? At present I don't see anyone that can defeat Trump next year. The Democrats fell into the trap that Mrs. Clinton created with the Steele dossier by betting everything on the investigation and now Trump looks like a wrongly accused saint. The Democratic party sorely needs a good leader but political correctness is not going to produce one. A Johnson, a Bill Clinton, a Obama will do the job, but not the current bunch of candidates.
20
@Valentin A
The Democrats did not "bet everything" on the Mueller probe. Keep in mind that the probe was initiated, conducted and concluded with zero input or control by the Dems. Because the Republican House and Senate refused to do virtually any oversight for the first two years of this administration, the probe was the only game in town, as virtually anyone could see the corruption and amorality of the WH. The moment the Dems took the House in the midterms, they began planning for investigations, which they are now assiduously conducting.
17
Where are the televised hearings we were promised?
@Valentin A If you haven't seen Pete Buttigeig's CNN Town Hall check it out--brilliant, Afghan vet, successful biz man, incredibly creative thinker and gay mayor of a mid western town...he's awesome. Cory Booker is superb too...I am sad that the Mueller report just made the election more difficult but remember even HRC, who was not a lot of people's favorite candidate (though I love her) won by 3 million votes. And the young people are highly motivated now--climate change and Trump are pushing them forward. We can do this..and without hatred! We must tap hearts as well as minds.
Bingo, Mr. Blow. Could not have put it better. Long after Trump and this administration are gone, we'll have the 1 out of 6 voters who said yes to this man - as well as any other supporters he's picked up since taking office. The US was founded in inequality and it seems there will be plenty for some time ensuring that continues.
Those committed to inclusiveness, diversity and ethics will (apparently) have to die trying to beat back this new movement - which, sadly, isn't new at all.
32
We need to have faith in the younger generation. They need to engage. They need to protest. They need to turn out to vote. They need to have energy. They need to have enthusiasm.
They can completely turn things around for the country, if only they choose to do so. And if they do, the Mueller report won’t matter. Impeachment won’t matter. The 25th Amendment won’t matter. It won’t matter that our politicians seem unable to save us. We can save ourselves … through our youth.
We can then work to mitigate racial, and gender, and income and wealth inequality. We can promote America by supporting immigrants, immigrants who have built the country since its inception.
We can also fight together against climate change, work for robust public education, build desperately needed infrastructure, unite with our global allies against tyranny and oppression, and develop a sound plan for universal health care that will protect everyone.
Young people are sick and tired of going to school and working multiple jobs and being tired all the time and seemingly having nothing to show for it.
I will place my hope in them. The world will be theirs, and they are figuring that out. The last election, if anything, has taught them that they must be dedicated and proactive if they want to live in a livable world.
Why else do I have hope for young people? Because hope springs eternal. And I know in my heart that they know that, too.
67
@Blue Moon Awesome Blue Moon! For me, 2020 may be my last Presidential election. Have come to the conclusion that our 2016 election was clearly tainted and we have in place a tainted and vile Chief Executive. I too look to the younger generations to return our Ship of State to its correct course. My children, grandchildren and great grandchildren are color blind. Demographics is not one of their concerns. Over time, they will cast their votes in such a manner that the demagogues of the Tea Party and Tea Party admirers will fade from our countries political scene. Count on it.
3
@Gordon Jones
"For me, 2020 may be my last Presidential election."
Don't give up your right to vote! Keep yourself in the game. Voting validates your opinions. If someone has interesting opinions but then tells me that they don't vote anymore, I tend to tune out of the conversation. That person is giving up. Don't be that person.
Fair enough?
@Blue Moon Why dump it all on the youth? I don't count as a member of the Younger generation anymore (since my beard turned white) but there's no reason my white-haired compatriots can't do the right thing. Good sense knows no age-limitations.
2
One thing sounds not quite right about Mr. Mueller's reasoning - or at least Mr. Barr's version of it.
So, while there is no evidence of collusion, there is neither accusation or exoneration of trump having obstructed justice.
Well, if it's possible that trump obstructed justice, it's also possible that such obstruction suppressed evidence of collaboration with the Russians. One way of ensuring that a witting president cannot be indicted. Very neat.
20:10 EDT 3/24
28
@mancuroc
Sitting, not witting
I can't help noticing that the Trump administration is concentrating its "immigration control" efforts on people of color. The Eastern Europeans and Irish who live here illegally are untouched, or at least never mentioned.
The gratuitous cruelty at the border, the attempts to deprive U.S.-born Latinos of their citizenship or residency because their mother used a border-crossing midwife, the scheduled mass deportation of Liberians who have been here for years under Extended Voluntary Departure and who have established families and a place in the local economy, the ban on Muslims from certain countries--even a mother trying to visit her dying son--, the failure to condemn racist incidents, all point in one direction.
It doesn't help that the Trump supporters with whom I have to (for various reasons) maintain contact on Facebook, are in the habit of posting racist and religiously bigoted memes, although I have taught them not to do so on my page.
People who think there's no racial element to Trump worship are either not paying attention to what is happening around them or are deluded about their own motivations.
78
Many people will disagree with you, Charles. I am a white, senior, female. I agree.
Thank you for your powerful writing. It's good to have you back.
534
@Jeanie LoVetri
This white, senior female from the South also agrees.
15
@Jeanie LoVetri I'll second that, as a white, senior male.
15
@Jeannie LoVetri And another white, senior female agrees.
9
Welcome back Charles Blow. We really need you in these challenging times. Jamelle Bouie has been a great addition to NYT opinion columnists and now we will have both of you.
Thanks for this excellent column. We all need to be concerned about the rise of white nationalism here and in Europe. They must be defeated. As the great bebop saxophonist Charles Parker said in one of his tune titles, Now's the Time!
Steve
79
Welcome back, Sir! Just as this reader was debating whether to go in search on the web for your whereabouts, you have returned with your thoughts on 'The Mueller Report'.
Whether my brother Seymour is weeping in his soup might be a matter to consider; most likely he is feeling frustrated that our president is standing tall in the shadows of political intrigue.
While there are probably some Americans who are on the verge of throwing in the towel, I would like to take this opportunity to thank the Honorable Robert Mueller for his responsible and ethical search to uncover the truth of these allegations.
There are no MAGA hats in our rural town to be seen, because they remain invisible to the eye. There is no such thing as white supremacy, but a resurgence of white imperialism much as India suffered under the British Lion and its dominion, where in the times we are living, the people appear to be deliberating a return to the Past.
Some of us have been alerted, awake and listened to the consequences of 'anything goes'. Some of us never asked to experience this unfit shape of shady governance, and while this is taking place, The Flag has been placed away here until we regain our wits, and unite as one Nation for All Americans.
Let us go forth.
19
Everything I produce on economics needs to go to Paul Krugman. If I die in the middle of producing formulas, it has to go to him.
The formulas are difficult to produce. I want help, but I have to do some work to prove I'm worth it. It's hard. I have a full-time job and a family.
Do I have the answers? I actually believe I do. I have formulas, pictures and all of it. We're going do do this. I think my friend at work thinks I'm Jesus. No, I'm a good human! And trying harder and harder every day to become better!
We don't need another Jesus. We need each other.
3
So to give my follow on, what about math makes it so powerful?
Only that it brings large-scale, mutational belief in fairness. It's built into the formula and the backing, which is everyone. Every scholared person of every society would have to believe in it. Only math can do that.
The math is really very simple. I'm hesitant to say concrete things without a backing, because each thing is so easily attacked. To detractors, I'm not seeking attention! I'm seeking solutions. I have been given the large solution by Gods, Alians and other beings. It's is real, but it won't be given unless humanity is justified.
That is a promise. If you persecute me or hurt me, you'll lose the answers. There are others, but those tactics will work on nobody!
1
It’s all so clear.
Mr. Trump is focused on personal wealth and power. Nothing else matters.
This is not a unique approach to life.
But a serious problem for some who is the President of the United States.
This is a suboptimal situation.
23
@sarah: Safe? In your opinion, perhaps. The evidence rather points to the fact that Trump is focused on profiteering from the presidency. And he undermines the medium- to long-term security by corrupting the body politic. The physical infrastructure of America is deplorable, but that is a pale reflection of the deplorable stare of the ethical and moral infrastructure of the country.
1
@sarah These are all lies or counter truths.
US Health care is very badly functioning. the economy is only good for a small privileged portion of the US population, taxes are low for that same population, and the army we don't need. The state of conscience of ecology in the USA is very low and the quantity of plastic used by Americans a world disaster as well as other bad US habits with coal and oil. Plastic is everywhere in the food chain, in fish, water, etc..if the rest of the world was using earth resources like Americans do we already could not live on this planet anymore.
@sarah You forgot to include venality, ignorance, adultery, bribery, complicity, connivance, secret understanding, conspiracy, deceit. Then of course - Supreme Narcissism, affliction with the Dunning Kruger effect, money laundering, tax avoidance, bad hair do, cheats at golf, etc. etc. etc. Widen your time frame, read House of Trump House of Putin -- you would find it to be beneficial.
Charles, beautifully said and welcome back sir !
Missed you plenty.
168
After decades, working class wages gains were higher percentage wise than white collar gains. Blacks and Hispanics are over represented in the working class. Black and Hispanic unemployment are at historical lows. Trump is the best thing that ever happened to them.
22
And no CEO would tolerate those paltry gains.
The overwhelming sadness, that so many people for whatever reason -- fear, resentment, an illusion of superiority -- cannot accept our common humanity. Under our different skin colors, languages and cultures we are all one. Our failure to accept wholeheartedly that we are the same in essence and to trust that -- to trust our commonality -- is not only leading to the destruction of our planet. It is destroying our souls.
50
@free range
Well said, thank you.
@free range Whenever you have to fill out a form that ask for your nationality, go to OTHER and write HUMAN.
1
Charles - So clear and concise -- and terrifying. The Mueller report is a blow to the citizens of this nation who believe in the rule of law. It appears to codify the ability of the rich to escape punishment, while the rest of us fear rolling through a stop sign.
What will be fascinating to watch, however, is how Wall Street responds on Monday and in the days and weeks to come. Despite all of Trump's protestations, it is still the economy that will doom him in 2020 if we enter a new and devastating recession. He will not be able to blame it on the Democrats, or Hillary -- he will own it.
99
"Once called, delegates can propose and vote on changes and new amendments to the U.S. Constitution, which, if approved, are currently required to be ratified by 38 states.”
This is not so far-fetched, Mr. Blow. By my counting, there are 17 blue states as opposed to 33 red states. Jane Mayer, in her "Dark Money" outlines how the Koch Bottles plan to turn our democracy into an iron-fisted plutocracy. They bankroll ALEC, which sends legislation ready-made to the legislators in the various states and in Congress. It's not beyond reason that a Constitutional Convention could convene and completely overturn all the "gains" that minorities and women and LBGTQ folks have made. Take a look at the Electoral College map for 2016 and project 2020's. Red states more than double those of blue and the debate as to its centuries-old utility is renewed.
As far as black folks are concerned--and they are the template for gains by any group that seeks to throw off the yoke of society's disapproval of their skin color or their religion or their gender or anything else, really--this Trump administration is setting the stage for an Armageddon. It may never come to a physical race war: guns and knives and kidnappings, etc., but the age-old ugliness of racism has never gone away; indeed, it was never on its deathbed.
One of the depressing first takes of the Mueller report is that, essentially, Donald Trump has done nothing to hazard the United States; that he is as near as Portia is to blame.
27
Let's address the truth at hand- this is all about a shrinking white majority.
For 50 years the GOP has been the home of white "resentment", and now that we're in the final act it's the place where full-blown white nationalists hang their hat.
The entire presidency of Trump is about there being different rules and standards for (rich, Christian) white guys. Every comparison that asks what would happen if Obama or Clinton did the same thing is missing it- that's the exact point.
A good chunk of the white majority is LETTING Trump and the GOP get away with all the rule breaking, because nothing confirms more that there are 2 set of rules more than getting away with something that someone else (someone black or female) can't.
Let history also show that this is what you get just before the whole thing collapses. In this case it won't be our nation or government, just the exclusive rule of it by this majority.
125
@PGn this case it won't be our nation or government, just the exclusive rule of it by this majority.
That will still be VERY hard to do, unless military goes to war with its people. No tradition of that.
Spot on
4
@PG
Trump is Christian? When did that happen? Of course there are different rules for rich people. Always have been. Who could ever forget Leona Helmsley and her famous quote about taxes? I recall she was female.
Dong King got away with two murders. Last I checked, he was not white. But he sure was rich.
It is not about gender or color. Well, it is about one color: Green. If you have enough of that you can get away with a lot. Regardless of gender or skin tone.
This morning, arriving from points south, Canada Geese started to arrive on the St. Lawrence River, looking for open spots in the ice to congregate.
The white geese, known as Snow Geese, congregated in one area, on the South of the opening - even though only 100 feet away from the north side - clearly getting the better beach front, closer to the Southern climes.
The darkly-plumed geese, known simply as Canada Geese (the geese "of color"), congregate on the North side of the opening, closer to the shoreline, where the village is situated.
I wondered to myself, as I observed the scene- what would Charles Blow make of this "arrangement"? What underlying bigotry would be found? Is there something nefarious when people suggest that "birds of a feather, flock together"?
Hopefully, in some future column, Mr. Blow can examine the issue of why white geese are glamorously referred to as Snow Geese, while regular geese "of color" are not granted similar status and are merely called Canada Geese? White privilege?
I must admit that, under a blue sky, with brisk temperatures in the mid-20's, watching each of the flocks gracefully fly in formation, their respective colors didn't much matter.
16
@Maurice Gatien - Great analogy. Except for the fact that the white geese weren’t wearing MAGA hats.
1
@Maurice Gatien,
You may wish to read or revisit the tale authored by an American journalist, Paul Gallico's "Snow Goose" and written during WWII, it spread like fire across civilized nations, giving hope to many who felt all was lost in 'Dunkirk'.
@Maurice Gatien When geese are paying taxes, building communities, voting on legislation, and wrestling with ethics, your suggestion will make sense about having Mr. Blow do a follow-up. Nature may be harsh at times, but it's nowhere near as evil as (bigoted) mankind.
it's inconceivable to me how Mr.Blow
manages to bring race into literally
everything. he takes the Mueller
investigation and turns it into a screed
on racial politics. whether one agrees
with the conclusions that some right
wing commentators have drawn, one
can say without any doubt at all, that
it was not about race. I must confess
that I have not missed Mr.Blow much
over the last few months precisely
because of his obsession with America
and it's checkered racial history. it is
long past time for the resistance to move
on and get to the business of defeating
Donald Trump in 2020 and that will not
happen unless we move away from race
being turned into an unnatural obsession.
47
@Frank, Unfortunately, like so many others, you fail to understand that it is always about race. This country was founded on, and shaped by, the twin sins of slavery and genocide. White supremacy was written into the constitution. The history of our growth as a nation is a history of war and genocide against indigenous people. We fought a civil war to abolish slavery and replaced it with institutionalized/legalized white supremacy. Trump ran on a platform of white supremacy and to this day continues to "dog whistle" his supporters. There's no "moving on" unless we continue to fight the white supremacy that Trump represents and stands for.
Mr Blow is one of the most astute commentators on race in this country. You'd do well to learn from him.
FYI, I'm old, I'm white and I grew up working class and did not attend an elite east coast college and everything I know about race in this country I learned from people of color. Fifty years later, I"m still trying to eradicate the racism taught to me as a child and young man.
4
@Frank
The daily and vile hatred in our President's words and deeds is killing us all. Minority rule, by the red states, is easily achieved by touting and encouraging the hatred of the other. Racial politics were alive long before Mr. Blow's birth, and his opinion columns for the NY Times. Transgender troops have been recently banned from serving in the military. Who's next? Brown children are dying at the border. Guns are everywhere killing thousands of Americans annually. Parishioners are being slaughtered in their synagogues, mosques and churches; and students in their schools, here in the US, and the world in the name of white supremacy. I applaud Mr. Blow's courage and insistence on this topic as the defining issue of our times. White fragility is lethal. The all white Koch oligarchy, moving and investing billions of dollars, unchecked, out of the United States, is strategically kept in power by deeply-held racist attitudes and racist religions of the red states. It is a testament to the power of American hate and ignorance as never before. Social media and Fox News is their ammunition, 24 hours/7 days per week. Trump feeds the fire everyday, with the Republican Party selling the gasoline. It's the current festival of violence; lynching fellow citizens over and over again with cheers and red hats of red-blooded, Presidential, American hate.
2
@Frank, Acknowledgement of a problem is not obsession with it. Putting our heads in the sand about racism is as self-defeating as it would be to make racial identity politics the only way we fight.
3
I am stunned about the outcome of Mueller's report. I am a well educated woman capable of analytical thinking. I am also capable of seeing with my own eyes and hearing with my own ears. I have been a solid believer in American journalism all my life. How is it that the NYT, The Washington Post, The New Yorker, Politico, ABC, NBC, CBS, PBS, CNN, and MSNBC got this "wrong" and FOX got it "right? "Something is very wrong here. Does this mean I should no longer trust these institutions or my own eyes and ears? I don't know where to turn now.
86
@pinksoda Mr. Mueller has had the reputation for years of being a methodical, cautious, by-the-book prosecutor. He acted like one: Never seek an indictment that can't be obtained; never get an indictment if you can't get a conviction as a sure thing. So keep listening, looking and reading, pinksoda. This story isn't over yet; just one chapter.
19
@pinksoda: As many have pointed out, we don't have access to the actual report yet, we have a summation and interpretation from a biased AG that was very recently appointed by Trump to replace the guy who recused himself and then resigned under duress. Barr has said publicly, and in an unsolicited memo to the Justice Dept. last year, that he doesn't believe that obstruction occurred at all or should have been investigated by Mueller...so how can we trust his clearly predetermined conclusion? Trump himself has said on numerous (including a televised interview) that he "had the Russia thing in mind" when he fired the FBI director. Trump has also said (and tweeted) many times that if he knew that Sessions was going to recuse himself from the Russian investigation Trump "would have picked someone else." This is clearly intent to interfere with a federal investigation of which he is a subject, by obstructing its progress--Pres. Clinton was impeached for less by a GOP-controlled Congress. How is it not illegal now when the laws haven't changed? These are facts, just because Fox chooses to ignore facts that look bad for Trump it doesn't mean everyone else is making them up. That's how gaslighting works, it makes you question your sanity and reality...Trump (and Co.) are very good at it!
25
I cannot believe that this was Mueller's conclusions considering the charges brought against members of Trump's campaign! They were lying about something!
Does anyone trust that the election in 2020 will be legitimate? If two years of investigation could not ferret out the facts to support what we see with our own eyes, I'm sure they can steal another election. The Republicans will do whatever they can to undermine and steal elections - they are doing it now with gerrymandering, voting restrictions such as specific ID's, restricting voting locations in minority locations, and voting hours making it harder for people to vote. In North Carolina they were caught. Secretaries of State ran their own elections in Florida and Georgia!
They have no shame.
32
Democrats, some of them, are saying they'll work with him now. The sad thing is that they worked with him, too many of them, from day one. They talked about the resistance while wheeling and dealing. It's all in the votes. 38 Democrats voted in both chambers, for example, to roll back parts of Dodd-Frank and remove the very protections for minorities who are discriminated against when taking out loans. Those Democrats should have been censured. They voted with Trump on rolling back clean water regulations. Some of those Democrats lost in November. I guess the lesson is you can't be more Trumpist than the current generation of Republicans.
The vast majority of Democratic voters are not in a conciliatory mood. On a moral level, Trump is the embodiment of the return of Jim Crow. Children being snatched from their parents and put in camps where many are sexually and physically abused. This is done in all of our names. So is cooperating with hate.
Then, in the face of new progressives in Congress, the establishment is now trying to prevent Democrats from being primaried. Imagine that! Ocasio-Cortez has them scared.
But is it smart for Democrats to use Republican suppression tactics? I'm afraid it's 2015-16 on steroids.
We, Americans, aren't good at learning from history, recent or distant, and that is too bad.
---
Things Trump Did While You Weren’t Looking [2019]
https;//wp.me/p2KJ3H-3h2
21
This brilliantly illustrates that Trump’s main appeal to his supporters is his crude appeal to white nationalism. He does this with angry demagoguery, scapegoating non white Latin immigrants and dreaming of a White Christian alliance with Russia against Islam. His MAGA cap is surely an emblem of his toxic message. To his supporters he is a cult figure who expresses without compunction the hatred and tribalism they feel and the sense that they are oppressed by a deep state conspiracy against their true traditional values. Ironically this highly amoral man is their chosen hero and viewed as a gift from their God!
18
The entire report has not been released or viewed by the public. Barr is holding back information. Until everyone knows what is in the report (New Your Times should print it ) we all know enough about trump to know is guilty of much and lies constantly...
29
A constitutional convention? Yet another horror to contemplate. And really, I already had plenty.
On a more cheerful note: great to have you back, Charles!
15
You’re correct that we are in a war, but the first step is to show the world and ourselves that we can stand up against Trump and defeat him. White supremists need to be rooted out everywhere they spring up like weeds. Trump and Putin hand in hand are cult leaders of this hatred and need to be defeated.
22
Trump is just a symptom. There are an incredible number of people who love to hate, discriminate, and inflict injury. They are mean spirited and more evil than we had ever imagined. They smile behind their pink lipstick, hair colored from a bottle and overweight bodies, carrying their banana pudding to the evening church social, while grimacing demon-like behind closed doors, as they make their plans to plunge a knife deep into the hearts of those that are different. Of course they stab from back so as not to be seen. Then, they wipe up the blood, find 'Mr. Lynch', and next can be seen talking about how much the Lord has done for them, as the cookies and banana drip down their chin. It is sad, but this is how I now see a rather large segment of Americans right now. However, and it is important to acknowledge this, there are wonderful, caring, hardworking Caucasians who are as appalled by these phony "religious people" as are our African American brothers and sisters. We need to find each other, huddle together and join forces to overcome the ignorance that surrounds us. "We shall overcome"....sooner rather than later!
27
"What we are living though is not a battle but a war."
Yes, but I wonder if Trump is not encouraging a democratic wave.
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In 1992, Leonard Cohen wrote his "Democracy" song.
He sang, "Democracy is coming...to the USA', over and over.
Cohen's prophesy may come true as Trump resistance builds.
Democrats need to resist Trump, but offer a new democracy.
I hope Charles Blow can comment on a "Democracy" wave.
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(Ironically, Leonard Cohen passed away, a day after Trump won).
11
The gunslinger USA could learn something from New Zealand's leadership on how to handle racism and gun violence. One thinks though our culture, media and institutions are so saturated with the propaganda that perpetuates white supremacy, gun violence and injustice that if we're lucky maybe our grandkids or great grandkids might realize a sane and just America at the turn of the next century. We unfortunately are still medieval and ruled by a mad King, that's unaccountable to the majority.
Let's all get out and vote in 2020 for the right candidate to reverse the racist and moral backsliding.
23
Charles, "singular" is not a synonym for or intensification of "single" and it is the wrong word for the "singular principle". There is nothing singular about that principle; the point of your column is that it is not singular, it is normal. And it is, all too much so -- your column is up to your standard of insight.
3
It is incumbent on every American that believes in morality to rid of us this plaque. All voters with a conscious especially African Americans must be motivated to get out to vote in great numbers to rid of us this beast.
I agree that when I see MAGMA I see haters not real Americans.
11
I hear 40 electoral votes disappearing based on the sub-heading alone.
3
There is so much more wrong with Trump, his administration, Republicans in Congress and his followers than maybe talking-to the Russians for help with the election. I fault the Democrats for ignoring the obvious destruction he and his followers are perpetrating. Charles Blow listed some of the biggest problems. In addition, is the dismantling of environmental safeguards and efforts to control not just global warming but water, air and land destruction and species destruction. Furthermore, ordinary people are being pushed further and further away from mechanisms of law with which they might be able to seek justice and control of their futures.
21
Welcome back! While looking forward to your book, I’ll recommend one that I’m reading now. It’s Jon Meacham’s The Soul of America: The Battle for Our Better Angels.
While frankly confronting the many shameful passages in our history, Meacham recounts how the forces of racism, misogyny, and anti-immigrant hysteria have in fact been beaten down in times that were supposed to be less enlightened than our own.
Let’s fight the battle with high hearts.
35
"What we are living though is not a battle but a war."
When I read Omar El Akkad American War novel I thought I will be long gone since he predicted it will be by end of this century.
I stand corrected.
11
I read American War and I had the exact same thoughts. We are on the verge of that civil war, I believe.
1
"... while Trump waged a two-year battle of slander and misinformation to defame the Mueller investigation, the majority of Democratic leadership did nothing to make the case that he had already reached the threshold of accountability . . .. Instead, they put too many eggs in the Mueller basket, and allowed Trump to move the goal posts."
This is true, and important point, but there is a something deeper to say about it. The Democrats are becoming, under Trump, a kind of reverse mirror image of the Republicans under Obama. Instead of fighting for specific issues on the merits, they increasingly simply attack the legitimacy of the opposition. Of course the Republican attacks on Obama were based on lies, while the attacks on Mr. Trump are based on what he actually says and does; our politics, on both sides, is framed by Republican acts & demagoguery. But the end point is the same: voters divide themselves along lines of moral condemnation and hatred, while their government does the work of the financial interests that bribe it.
16
@Martin
You are wrong about Democrats. They are increasing being forced by their new young activists to fight issues on the merits. It's the news media that haven't caught up with that and don't report it.
28
@Martin
Your comment is quite incisive. However, some of the young in the Democratic Party (and some of the candidates for President) are taking up real issues - how to address our growing, frightening, income inequality, how to provide healthcare for all, how to reduce the bloated military/"defense" budget. Focusing on issues that unite, as these do, and not on issues that divide, such as identity politics, is catching on and cancelling out the divisive wheel spinning. More and more Americans are "on to the con" that much of our government - both parties - is "bought" by corporate and wealthy interests.
13
@Thomas Zaslavsky
I agree that a battle is going on within the Democratic party. But the Biden-Pelosi old guard have the power, & the media is on their side. I don't think the reformers can prevail, but I will do all I can to ensure that I am wrong.
3
In electing Trump this country put into office a man who is truly dangerous to American ideals. It was obvious during the campaign and before he was nominated but he was duly anointed and won the Electoral College. He did not win the popular vote and he did nothing to try to unite the nation when he took office.
Trump has said and done plenty of things to divide the country. He and the GOP have created a situation where people cannot have a sensible conversation. Trump and the GOP want it this way. The tactics they are using are typical bullying tactics. No matter what anyone says it's wrong if it doesn't agree with the approved paradigm. Trump and his party (McConnell is a bystander at this point.) are determined to do whatever is necessary to ensure that they and they alone reap the benefits of progress, of money, and of power. They lie, they cheat, and yes, steal.
Trump said what people wanted to hear. I want to hear those things too. But I know that it's not an immigrant's fault if I can't find a job. It's the fault of businesses that prefer to hire immigrants rather than paying, training, or investing in Americans. MAGA is great slogan. Trump has done nothing to make MAGA happen. He hasn't set aside funds for an infrastructure project. The GOP hasn't replaced the ACA. In fact, the GOP has accomplished nothing except the creation of more chaos and heartbreak.
I want my country back, the one where money isn't the only thing.
409
@hen3ry I too want my country back. But getting rid of Trump will not do that, not with the current wave of radical far left/far right voices that have somehow taken over the voice of Congress and DC and the media even though they are in the minority.
1
Forget arguing over the report, its a waste of time. Now is the time to focus on our Democratic Presidential, House of Representatives, and Senate candidates. November, 2020 will be a watershed moment in the history of our Democracy.
Help where you can, volunteer, contribute, voter registration, etc. Just stay focused on the prize. Elect a Democratic President, maintain a majority in the House of Representatives and win the Senate.
79
@cherrylog754 The anger I feel right now is almost the same as right after the election in 2016. It propelled me and many others to join a resistance. This will drive us on to 2020.
36
@cherrylog754 Excellent advice. Let your anger move you. Take part. Don't hide because the candidate is not perfect- nobody is. We must work together to keep a united front. The good is not the enemy of the best; we do not have that luxury.
2
Just over 20 years ago, 50 Republicans in President Clinton's trial before the Senate voted to remove Clinton from office on the grounds of Obstruction of Justice.
As we all know this followed 2 years of Clinton's daily attacks on the Law Enforcement, career Department of Justice attorneys, attacks on his own AG, attacks on a free press, public intimidation of witnesses, pleas for indicted criminals to be brave and not flip, and ...
... wait. None of that happened. And yet 50 votes.
Barr's view that there is not evidence that Trump obstructed justice with malicious intent is a political statement, not a legal one, and not one based on what is plain to everyone who was not in a coma for 2 years.
Barr's motivation to protect Trump is as political as the GOP Senators in 1999 who wanted to remove Clinton.
It's as political as today's GOP Congress and conservative media ecosystem who insist that what we see happening to this country with our owns eyes is just a mirage.
There was never a chance that Mueller's report would end with Trump's removal from office.
The fight for American values and an inclusive democracy is a political battle, it will not be a legal one. That will not be allowed by Trump's protectors.
It will be settled in 2020 when Americans decide how much they really value democracy.
285
@LT ITS TO BAD THERE ARE NOT TERM LIMITS FOR ALL POLITICIANS, JUDGES AND OF COURSE THE SUPREME COURT.
10
The 2020 election will be won or lost on the appeal of the Democratic candidates and whether people believe they can deliver a better future in terms of economic well being, health care and health care costs, climate change, immigration reform, and bringing political stability to an increasingly unstable world. The Democratic Party needs to figure out how to get out the vote of young people and lower income citizens. It is fine to ask for release of the full Mueller Report and to investigate the myriad corruptions in the Trump administration, but investigations will not remove Trump from office. Strong candidates, programs that appeal to more than just part of the Democratic base, and getting out the vote should occupy 100 times as much attention as investigation of a President and administration that is unfit to serve.
137
@MVonKorff
They are working on it. Make sure your local media pay attention instead of horse-racing and Kardashianing.
17
@MVonKorff
Getting out the vote is our responsibility. Treat it that way. Offer to give your neighbors a ride to the polls. Call your friends and relatives to see how you can help. Does a mother of small children need someone to watch them while she goes to vote? Does an older or disable person need a mail-in ballot? Send money to the ACLU, Common Cause, and other groups who advocate for free and fair elections.
Are the polling places accessible? Do they have enough voting machines and ballots? Can those machines be audited? Ask your local election officials these questions well in advance of November, 2020. As we have seen repeatedly, it will already be too late if we wait until then.
1
This is beyond discouraging. How can any American watch the footage of Trump and Putin in Helsinki and not know that Putin owns Trump?
Mueller, our government has really let the country down.
241
Could it be because you don’t actually know what is going on between Putin and Trump but are simply making some baseless assumptions governed by your biases and preconceived notions?
2
@augusta nimmo Being owned by is different than colluding with. I have no idea of the full force of the matter. What I have an idea about is that the best remedy is to vote Trump from office.
Americans need to vote.
Not voting resulted in this.
601
@John Bridges
Agreed. Voting is the easy part. The hard part is not allowing insider-elites to select whom we may try to elect.
Put up better candidates. Al Gore lost his home state of Tennessee and President Clinton's home state of Arkansas. Florida should have been irrelevant.
John Kerry lost Ohio by 60,000 votes. His major campaign issue was I am not Bush. Whatever.
Hillary Clinton lost WI, MI, and PA. and the presidency. Do you think Joe Biden would have pulled off that stunt? And I am no fan of Corporate Joe.
Point being: Nominate candidates that people will vote FOR. Do not count on them coming out to vote against the other person. Better candidates. Not identity candidates. Better candidates.
22
@John Bridges
If what has transpired the last two years with Individual 1 has not changed the minds of swing voters and the minds of non-voters, nothing will. Fortunately the midterms were a good sign.
28
@Concernicus I hear what you say again and again - we have flawed candidates etc
but consider what the republicans have - trump, W? These were terrible, unqualified people. Its that they were better - its that the republicans VOTE. They dont throw it away when given the two choices.
All this bernie bro's and those Nader nincompoop's, may have been correct about the issues their candidate represented, but when they were ;eft with but two choices, HRC - Gore - they chose to stay home, or throw away their vote. Republicans dont do that
Sure we need better candidates - but we also need to VOTE!
15
For me, Trump's presidency has always been about an utter lack of morality, of intended divisiveness and of white nationalism. If the Mueller report does not implicate Trump in any Russian collusion, I will accept that because it comes from a man of honour. Integrity still stands strong even if the result isn't what you thought it might be, because the source is solid. I will never, ever feel anything close to that coming from your president. Trump is, and always will be a cheap, attention-seeking megalomaniac, whether he is in Putin's pocket or not.
301
@Holly
The Mueller report will indicate, I predict, that Trump didn't directly work with either of the Russian groups implicated. But here is the thing: no one ever thought he did. No one expected an explicit quid pro quo, a memo of agreement, or even evidence of low level campaign coordination. All of the collusion happened in public. We saw it all. Trump reduces sanctions, Putin makes him president. We have the Quid. We have the (attempt at) the Quo. We have the conversations with Flynn. We know what happened.
34
@Holly
Oh, he's in Putin's pocket all right. We just don't know why yet. Was this really only about a building in Moscow?
Hopefully the report will be released soon and we'll know more. Like why all of Trump's associates and family lied about their interactions with the Russians.
It's a mess out there, even if Mueller did not feel he could legally indict Trump himself. We can, however, vote him out of office in 2020.
25
@Holly-Trump is like a drug addict strung out by his pusher, in this case--Putin. Putin's proxies (Russian oligarchs & mafia) funneled money through U.S. real estate, Deutsche Bank, and the Bank of Cypress to Trump, Kushner and others in Trump circle. Trump--ever the grifter--gladly got hooked via outright loans, money laundering real estates deals, and promises of more. The formula works and other countries are putting their hooks in too; Saudi Arabia, UAE, China? Why not.
6
I just hope the Dems come up with a good, solid candidate. Otherwise, is are stuck.
23
@Janice Badger Nelson Not is, we. We will be stuck with Trump with what seems like forever.
5
This analysis and its conclusion correctly state that we are engaged in a war for the nation's soul and future, not just a 2020 campaign battle--something "far bigger and far more dangerous than Trump" that will outlast his presidency. My question to all those candidates who make coming together, healing a divided country, or promising a return bipartisanship a major part of their platform, how exactly do you intend to address the 30+% of the electorate (and 90+% of Republicans) who think obstruction, lying, alternative facts, cronyism, nepotism, racist dog whistles, demonizing your opponents, and on and on, are OK if done in service of your ideology and, apparently, your white identity? Wars are not won by loving your enemy. You must first defeat them.
88
@Old Farmer: To win the election, it will not be necessary to convince the Trump cult to switch allegiance.
The prize will be the people who rarely or never vote, the ones who distrust both parties, because their lives never improve, no matter who is in power.
Just putting forth a "safe" candidate in the hope that he or she will defeat Trump with mere sanity and logic will not attract the non-voters, only the people who already hate Trump.
I door-knocked for John Kerry, the "safe" candidate with name recognition and qualifications, in 2004. The committed Democrats and the people who hated G.W. Bush were willing to vote for him. Others adopted the attitude, "It doesn't matter. They're all the same."
12
The question before each of us is ... to act in our own best interests, and should our paths intermingle, the outcome on the larger scale -- for society and the body politic -- will define whether or not the Trump administration (or anyone who acts as they do) have acted similarly ... with best interests.
3
I just returned from 2 months in Germany. A recent poll in Germany asked its citizens what was the country they most feared and were afraid of. It is the USA. Germans had always admired Americans; they saved them after WW2. We were the most trusted ally. The German said they did not distrust Americans...but America under Trump is something is something that Germans, and all Europeans (except those with dictatorial leanings) fear mightily. The peace and security we instilled in Europe after WW2 has evaporated under the two+ years of the Trump nightmare. The USA under Trump is no longer trusted. Do Americans realize this?
825
@Jean Most likely, readers of this column do understand the ramifications. The problem is, his base just doesn’t care.
153
@Jean I think most people think there are checks and balances. But he acts like a runaway train. His Twitter rants are scary. He incites problems. I am feeling the same. He is quite dangerous.
101
@Jean
YES, Jean. At least half the country does. And our institutions are failing us. We’re stuck trying to turn the ship around by ourselves and we’re already taking water.
97
The Attorney General's partisan and personal view of the report being put out is the ONLY thing that has happened this weekend. - That's it.
We do not know the actual contents of the report. We do not even know the length of the report. We do not know how the report (going forward) is going to relate to all of the ongoing investigations at the federal AND state levels. We do not know what charges/indictments (if any) are being withheld until the President is out of office for January 2021.
What we DO know is the press and pundits (on all sides) are going to try to fill in the blanks, fill the airwaves, fill social media, fill the comment sections with what THEY think it all means.
I have said it multiple times, and will say it once more. Wait until all (that can be excluding national security) is released to the public, and wait for the election next year.
That 's when a decision can be made.
200
@FunkyIrishman
Why does any member of the public think they will have access to the report? Unless a congressperson who wants to destroy their career leaks it, we won’t. The White House will make certain we do not.
3
The Muller report may have landed "with a thud," but "Individual One" is not off the hook.
The House may act. Federal prosecutors from New York may yet act. So could New York's Attorney General or District Attorney.
Trump and his supporters may want to hold off on the celebrations.
348
@RK: You're right but they need to act soon. Americans don't trust Congress very much more than they do the President and the last thing we need is for Trump to keep putting out that "witch-hunt" label all the way to November of next year. If the Southern District of New York finds a smoking gun on our Kitty-Grabber-in-Chief they've got to lay it out there much faster than it took Mueller to come up with his report.
49
@stu freeman
"Americans don't trust Congress very much more than they do the President..."
To be accurate, congress has a far worse approval rating than the President.
Congress is at 22%. Trump humiliates them at 44%.
I again emphasize the importance of doing away with this 'Morning Joke' nonsense that Trump has the support of 1/3 of the country. 1/3 might be his base. It could be more. But his overall approval remains in the mid forties. About where it was when he defeated Hillary Clinton.
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/other/president_trump_job_approval-6179.html
7
@RK, I fear WH will stonewall and investigations by Congress will be stymied. The republican House was derelict in their duties the first 2 years of the administration.
4
You forgot to mention Mr. Trump's mocking a person with a disability - a disregard of someone whose "category" may be any race. His policies and demeanor also make it clear that he cares little for people who are poor - again a category that cuts across issues of race.
This is not to say that the issue of nationalism isn't real, and doesn't include issues involving the color of a person's skin, religion, country of origin.. But the rise of nationalism, it seems to me, has, at base, much to do with the continually rising income inequality besetting the Western world.
35
@Ellen
As well as global climate change making it necessary for refugees to find new homes.
7
@Ellen
..."people who are poor - again a category that cuts across issues of race."
If only that were so. When I was 20, I hoped to see a day when it was at least close to being so. Now, more than 50 years later, the day has not yet come.
5
"The best case against Donald Trump and the age of Trumpism has always been, and remains, the moral case. Criminality is only one facet of that, although it is the one that the courts and Congress can use to punish him."
For too long, we Americans have considered only pragmatic and tactical considerations when all along our souls recognize the power that can be ignited when we trust our moral compass.
71
All good points, and I agree with you that America has become a very dangerous place for many of our citizens under Trump. I live in Trump country and can confirm that it is crazy out here.
But I caution you to consider that we have not yet seen the Mueller report. I asked the Times to alter their headlines (I see now that they have) because what we know so far is _according to William Barr_ not necessarily what is said in full in the Mueller report as the story was first headlined.
I see Barr's summary as a way to tell people what to think, and how to interpret a report which may include very dense evidence of all sorts of attempted collusion and obstruction of justice, which may or may not be adequate for indicting a regular American. We can make a moral argument in 2020, but I have not yet given up on a legal one either.
I hate that after two years we have to wait for more evidence to be released, but I am betting on the NY Times (if not the Democrats) to find out what's in that report. And when we know, I for one won't be seeing it through William Barr's eyes.
663
@avrds I take heart from your post, primarily in that AG Barr was recently chosen by Trump for his post, and it's hard to imagine he would be there if he hadn't given his word that he'd put the best possible face on this. No matter what evil (and I don't use the word carelessly) occurs, Trump's supporters will rationalize his actions.
The presidency has been debased perhaps irreparably, with the assent of the Republican majority, and I don't know if we'll ever recover our civility and international reputation. Certainly not in my lifetime. And yet this crisis has revealed that many Americans have a deeper understanding of and respect for our Constitution than many people in Washington. No matter where we live, we must not abandon our fellow citizens. We need one another.
79
@avrds The NY Times and the Democrats need to move on. It's wishful thinking to believe that there is evidence that hasn't been unearthed that will bring down the President. If the next two years are to be productive, they will be spent crafting a positive and practical platform that appeals to the left and the center.
41
@Mark
To craft a positive and practical platform is good but to just move on is ignoring a crime. Justice needs to be served for justice's sake. Anything less and we topple the scales of justice and watch them being trampled.
21