Jonathan P. Baird

Part of the conservative counter-revolution against wokeism is un-learning lessons learned about racism in America from the civil rights movement and black liberation movement of the 1960’s and 1970’s. In that era, the systemic roots of racism and the black historical experience in America were laid bare. A better understanding of American history, that included an understanding of racism, emerged.

Now we have conservatives consistently attacking things like Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (or DEI) programs, the 1619 Project and critical race theory. This is an effort to turn back the clock and to restore white supremacy.

When the door plug blew out of an Alaskan Airlines plane, billionaire Elon Musk, without any proof, blamed the incident on Boeing’s diversity programs. Boeing made the plane in question. Musk said:

“Do you want to fly in an airplane when they prioritized DEI hiring over your safety? That is really happening!”

Of course, that is not happening. No connection has been established between the door plug blowing off the Boeing 737 Max 9 and any diversity program. A far more persuasive case can be made that corporate greed, the lack of regulation and the pressure to prioritize profits over quality were behind the incident.

When a wheel came off a Boeing 757 just before take off on a Delta flight on January 20, Donald Trump Jr. said,

“I’m sure this has nothing to do with mandated Diversity, Equity and Inclusion practices in the airline industry!!!”

Trump Jr. has also cited no evidence. It is enough to plant the idea that diversity initiatives are compromising safety. Trump Jr. was followed by far-right leader Charlie Kirk saying, “I’m sorry. If I see a black pilot, I’m going to be like, “Boy, I hope he’s qualified”.”The racism could not be clearer: for Kirk, being black equates with incompetence.

Kirk obscures the deeper problem which is that the airlines have done a lousy job with minority hiring. According to a 2022 report on the demographics of the airline industry, only 2% of pilots are black. Over the last ten years, the number of black pilots has fluctuated between 1%-2%. The problem isn’t incompetent black pilots – it is almost no black pilots.

Blaming DEI is not some accident. As the New York Times just exposed, it is part of a plan devised by conservative activists and academics to abolish DEI which they see as part of “the leftist social justice revolution”. They are about stigmatizing any idea perceived as left wing.

The Times showed how the anti-DEI movement was centered at a think tank, the Claremont Institute in California, which has close MAGA ties. Trump coup lawyer John Eastman hails from Claremont.

An association of Republican operatives, right wing philanthropies and donors and political groups have coordinated anti-DEI advocacy in multiple states including Alabama, Maine, Florida, Tennessee and Texas. They have exchanged model legislation and have gotten more than 20 states to pursue the banning of DEI. Texas has approved such legislation, removing DEI from all public institutions of higher learning.

Their argument is that racial diversity and DEI programs corrupt public education. These folks do not wear Klan robes but their arguments encapsulate America’s societal backsliding on racism. Feeling like America is moving backwards on race is not just subjective. Claremont Institute and others of its ilk are pushing backwards. In its decision on affirmative action, the U.S. Supreme Court is moving in the same backwards direction.

Possibly older readers who lived through the 1960’s will remember the Kerner Commission report. I mention it because it was such a significant signpost of the 1960’s. Following riots that broke out in cities all over America, President Lyndon Johnson created a National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders led by Illinois Governor Otto Kerner. The report they produced became known as the Kerner Commission report.

The report examined the causes of racial unrest in urban America. It found white racism as the culprit leading to pervasive discrimination in employment, education and housing. The report famously concluded:

“Our nation is moving toward two societies, one black, one white, separate and unequal.”

Instead of heeding the recommendations of the Kerner Commission, white backlash led to the election of supposedly law and order candidate Richard Nixon with his southern strategy. The nation never listened to the Kerner Commission. Residential segregation remains to this day an overwhelming fact of life.across America as does school segregation. While the nation is more diverse, school segregation between black and white students has returned to 1960’s levels.

The re-segregation came after both the Nixon and Reagan administrations fought school desegregation plans. The federal courts, including the U.S. Supreme Court, failed to defend desegregation plans.

All the news is not bad, however. Black Americans are much better educated than they were in 1968. 90% of younger African-Americans have graduated high school compared to just over 50% in 1968. More than twice as many black students have college degrees as in 1968.

The educational gains have translated into some improvements in wages and wealth but the median white family has roughly ten times as much wealth as the typical black family. Blacks are 2.5 times as likely to be in poverty as whites. Police brutality and high levels of incarceration continue as a plague condition for black Americans.

As we approach black history month, intellectual honesty requires a recognition that, regardless of what conservatives say, white racism remains the same culprit it was in 1968. What’s different is even less willingness to face this truth. This was reflected in Nikki Haley’s statement to Fox News host Brian Kilmeade, “We’re not a racist country, Brian. We’ve never been a racist country”.

Before he was assassinated, Dr. King called the Kerner Commission report “a physician’s warning of approaching death, with a prescription for life”.

We remain an amnesiac society. The story we want to tell about American history is not remotely close to the truth. Any progress we make on race is followed by lengthy periods of regression. That was true after Reconstruction, after the civil rights movement and the deep freeze continues now.

The political willingness to create a desegregated, multi-racial democracy is lacking. Racial gerrymandering and voter suppression schemes are the norm while the U.S. Supreme Court presides over it all, weakening the Voting Rights Act. Only by facing and engaging the racism will we ever be able to transcend it.

My sister, Lisa Baird, was an immigration attorney. Before she died in 2009, she had a very active private practice in Philadelphia where she represented people who were seeking asylum and trying to avoid deportation from the United States.

Lisa had a wide variety of clients including a Ugandan child soldier, Salvadoran asylum seekers, victims of female genital mutilation, Vietnamese boat people, Japanese and Chinese restaurant workers and an Indonesian woman of Chinese ancestry who was persecuted for being ethnically Chinese and Christian in a society that was predominantly Muslim.

Earlier in her legal career, Lisa had worked for the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society also known as HIAS. Historically HIAS had focused on helping Russian Jews who were trying to emigrate to the United States. Lisa played a role in moving HIAS toward representing a far wider client base. She had met with some resistance inside HIAS about the clients she was representing.

Readers may remember that the 2018 Pittsburgh synagogue shooter was obsessed with HIAS because it was Jewish and it helped refugees. Before his attack, the shooter posted on social media:

“HIAS likes to bring invaders in that kill our people. I can’t sit by and watch my people get slaughtered. Screw your optics. I’m going in.”

With the shooter in mind, I couldn’t help but think about my sister’s role in moving HIAS toward a goal of broader immigration representation. In his demented way, the shooter was talking about Lisa and others like her. The stories my sister told about her clients often had similar themes. Many of her clients had lived in the United States for decades without incident. Typically there was some crime or incident of bad judgment earlier in their life that came back to haunt their immigration case.

In hearing Lisa’s stories, I was always struck by the specificity and uniqueness of her clients’ situations. Her clients were often fully integrated into American life and far removed from earlier foreign residences. They were almost exactly like other Americans except for the matter of their immigration status. Who they got as a judge often made a big difference in their chance of success in their immigration case, Her clients wanted what other Americans wanted: a chance to live a good life, with their family.

Over the course of the last fifteen years, since my sister’s death, there has been a worsening in how immigration is talked about. What passes for public discussion is the opposite of the specificity that I learned from my sister. Immigrants are talked about as an undifferentiated mass. Rather than individuals with personal stories, they became a faceless horde and, without basis, they are blamed by politicians for the nation’s problems.

I would suggest the scapegoating of immigrants is rooted in racism. The MAGA narrative is the great replacement theory where black and brown immigrants are seen as replacing those Tucker Carlson calls “legacy Americans” which means white people. The false accusation is that somehow illegal immigrants will magically become eligible Democratic voters skewing the electorate away from the interests of white people.

Former President Trump referred to Haiti, El Salvador and African countries as “shithole nations” and he expressed a preference for immigrants from Norway. Trump baselessly disparaged Haitians saying “hundreds of thousands are fleeing in and probably have AIDS”. In December he said immigrants from South America, Africa and Asia are “poisoning the blood of the nation”. He has touted the Eisenhower-era Operation Wetback as a model he would emulate.

These racist comments are consistent with an immigration system that is institutionally racist. Its origins go back to the Chinese Exclusion Act in 1882. More recently, black and brown immigrants face disproportionate detention and deportation. We create more and more hurdles for Central Americans seeking asylum. The conditions of confinement in ICE detention facilities remain abysmal and inhumane. Trashy treatment is considered acceptable for people who are viewed as trash.

Lost is the fact that noncitizens are less likely to commit crimes than those born in the United States. The blame associated with immigrants is rooted in fear – not facts. Nor do we ever consider the American responsibility for why so many people are fleeing from Central America. As Douglas Massey, a professor at Princeton has written about Central American migration:

“ The migration from there is the direct result of U.S. interventions in the 1980’s. Back then, the U.S. intervened directly in El Salvador and Honduras, on the side of right-wing/military regimes, and the Reagan administration enthusiastically endorsed a similar government in Guatemala that carried out a genocide against indigenous people in the Mayan highlands.”

The awfulness of our treatment of immigrants was driven home by the recent deaths of three migrants, including two children, who drowned near Eagle Pass, Texas. The deaths were unnecessary. Texas state authorities blocked the U.S. Border Patrol from accessing 2.5 miles of the U.S.-Mexico border near Eagle Pass. They made a potential rescue impossible. The Department of Homeland Security issued a statement:

“The Texas governor’s policies are cruel, dangerous and inhumane and Texas’s blatant disregard for federal authority over immigration poses grave risks.”

This is a statement from the federal government – not advocates. Under Texas Senate Bill 4, the state is trying to usurp authority from the federal government even though it is well-settled law that immigration laws can only be enforced by the federal government. The Border Patrol has sole legal authority to search for noncitizens within 25 miles of the border.

Texas has been particularly vicious in installing concertina wire fencing on private property along the Rio Grande river. It has also installed a stretch of orange spherical buoys loaded with razor wire in the Rio Grande to deter and trap migrants trying to cross the river. Texas state troopers found a dead body lodged in the buoys last August.

The federal government had to sue at the Supreme Court to stop Texas’s ultra-aggressive anti-immigration initiatives and by a 5-4 vote the Supreme Court just blocked Texas. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, along with other Republicans is using immigration as a wedge political issue. Democrats have only weakly responded. Too often border security is demagogued for political gain.

We are in one of those periods in American life where there is a widespread reluctance and refusal to recognize both the legacy of racism and its current incarnation. Racial denialism doesn’t serve America. It is almost delusional to see Republican primary voters in places like Iowa or New Hampshire cite border security as a major concern. This is not a problem at their doorstep.

The great majority of immigrants seeking refuge and asylum in the United States have compelling personal stories. No one would make the dangerous trek to our southern border if they didn’t have very good reasons. Rather than a Fox News stereotype, progress would be looking at those seeking entry into the U.S. as individuals with complex stories who deserve due process and an individualized determination on immigration eligibility.

One news story that failed to garner much traction over the last week or two was the House Democrats’ report on how, during the Trump presidency, his businesses obtained $7.8 million from foreign governments. This includes $5.5 million China spent at Trump Tower in New York and at Trump hotels in Washington DC and Las Vegas. Another $2 million came from Saudi Arabia and Qatar. The report indicates twenty countries monetarily fed Trump businesses during his presidency.

Democrats have demanded that Trump return the $7.8 million foreign governments paid his companies then.

The Constitution prohibits any officeholder, including the President, from accepting money, payments or gifts “of any kind whatever” from foreign governments unless the President obtains “the consent of Congress”. It is what is called the foreign emoluments clause. It is Article 1, Section 9, Clause 8 of the Constitution. The framers created this prophylactic rule to guard against foreign governments purchasing undue influence.

When he was asked about it on January 10, Trump responded that “it was a small amount of money” and “I was doing services for them…I don’t get eight million for doing nothing”. Trump never sought the consent of Congress. He never divested or put his businesses in a blind trust as advised by ethics experts. Although he said his sons managed his businesses, he retained ownership and control.

Trump’s violation of the Constitution’s emoluments clause couldn’t be any clearer. His businesses during his presidency accepted millions from foreign governments. Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md) commented:

“The governments making these payments sought specific foreign policy outcomes from President Trump and his administration. Each dollar…accepted violated the Constitution’s strict prohibition on payments from foreign governments, which the founders enacted to prevent presidents from selling U.S. foreign policy to foreign leaders.”

Saudi Arabia immediately comes to mind. The Crown Prince, Mohammed Bin Salman, had to try and overcome the vicious and disgraceful crime of assassinating the Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi. What better way to curry favor with Trump than to throw money at his properties.

To date, there has been a failure of accountability around violation of the emoluments clause. This fits in with the more general failure of courts over the last 50 years to hold Trump accountable. In 2021, the U.S. Supreme Court dismissed two emoluments cases and declined to rule on them. In the next year we will see if this general failure of accountability continues or not.

The House Democrats had great difficulty even getting the information that was the basis for their report. They had to litigate to gain access to only a portion of Trump’s business records. Their report was not based on complete information so it is highly likely the amount of money Trump obtained from foreign governments during his presidency was higher. The House Committee did not receive documents regarding at least 80% of Trump business entities.

After the Democrats won the court battle for release of records, Mazars USA, Trump’s accounting firm, cut ties with Trump and his businesses. Mazars said it would no longer stand behind a decade of annual financial statements it had prepared. Then, when the Republicans won control of the House, they dropped the effort to force Mazars to produce documents about Trump’s business activities.

You could look at this history as an accounting firm not wanting to be part of a fraud followed by an effort by Republicans to cover up.

I think it is fair to say that Trump’s disregard for the emoluments clause showcases his utter contempt for the rule of law. His actions demonstrate that he doesn’t believe law applies to him. I believe he sees law as a nuisance to be circumvented.

The historian Ruth Ben-Ghiat has written that “the essence of authoritarianism is getting away with crimes”. Trump may have been the first president to conceive of the presidency as primarily a money-making opportunity for himself and his family. Because of his multiple court cases, he is constantly asking his followers for money and he is literally running to stay out of jail.

The Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington have reported that Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner and his daughter Ivanka Trump made between $172 million and $640 million in outside money during Trump’s White House years. The information comes from the couple’s financial disclosures. In addition, Kushner received $2 billion from the Saudi sovereign wealth fund six months after leaving the White House.

In her book, Strongmen, Ben-Ghiat argues “the core of the contract between the ruler and his enablers is the offer of power and economic gain in exchange for supporting his violent actions and his suppression of civil rights”. It seems undeniable that a significant chunk of Trump followers buy into his Big Lie of election fraud and his January 6 defense.

About strongmen like Trump, Ben-Ghiat goes on to say:

“They turn the economy into an instrument of leader wealth creation but also encourage changes in ethical and behavioral norms to make things that were illegal or immoral appear acceptable, whether election fraud, torture or sexual assault.”

That fits our former president to a T. Trump follows the ethically sleazy example of his former (now deceased) disbarred attorney, Roy Cohn. When attacked, always counter-attack immediately. Charge your opponent with whatever you have done. No matter how bad things get, always claim victory and never admit defeat.

Ethics is not a word that exists in the Trump vocabulary. He uses lawyers to run out the clock to avoid accountability. Emoluments was just something that got in the way of the money making. If Trump wins the presidency again, expect an ethical free-fall as he will undoubtedly try to cash in to the max.

Part of the legacy of racism and white supremacy in America is the failure to recognize and acknowledge key black leaders in the black freedom struggle. Paul Robeson is one such leader. In my own informal poll of friends, I have found many people have not heard of him.

A powerful singer, an accomplished actor, an extremely versatile athlete and a hardcore activist, Robeson was all of those. In the 1930’s-1940’s he was a central figure standing up for multi-racial democracy and opposing fascism. His story is very well told in a new graphic biography, Ballad of an American. The superb artwork and text are done by Sharon Rudahl and Paul Buhle and Lawrence Ware did editing.

Robeson was a lion of the left, defending the interests of working people nationally and internationally. His activism spanned diverse causes. He was intensely committed to civil rights at home. He supported Spanish Republicans in the Spanish civil war as well as Welsh miners in England. He spoke at innumerable benefits and rallies.

From the very beginning his story was remarkable. He was born in 1898 in Princeton, New Jersey. His father William was a slave and fled north on the Underground Railroad. He later became pastor of a black Presbyterian church in Princeton. William Robeson lost his job for speaking out about lynching and the family had to move to Somerville New Jersey, then a less prosperous, more working class community.

When he was six, his mother died tragically in a house fire. After working as a coachman and an ash hauler, William secured a new parish. Paul received much help growing up from friends connected to his father’s church. He grew up in the church, assisting his father and even giving sermons when his father was away.

Paul was an outstanding student in high school. He excelled in everything he tried. He was a soloist in his high school glee club. He played Othello in a class parody of Shakespeare’s play. He played baseball, basketball and football. He was especially talented at football, playing fullback.

Robeson won a four year full scholarship to Rutgers University. He was able to win the scholarship because he achieved the highest score on a competitive state wide exam. He went on to become valedictorian at Rutgers and he made Phi Beta Kappa. He was one of two black students on campus.

He played college football at Rutgers. He faced intense racism from fans and opposing players who frequently tried to hurt him. Some Southern colleges refused to play a team with a black athlete. When Rutgers played in the South, he had to house and eat apart from the rest of the team because of segregation. Paul played four sports in college, winning 15 varsity letters.

Paul wrote his senior thesis on the unrealized promise of the Fourteenth Amendment. He wrote:

“We of the less favored race realize that our future lies chiefly in our own hands..Virtues of self-reliance, self-respect, perseverance and industry…Black and white shall clasp friendly hands in consciousness of the fact that we are brethren and that God is the father of us all.”

After college, Paul attended Columbia Law School. To earn money, he played pro football in the newly formed National Football League. Both his football career and his law career were cut short because he started acting and singing.

He got a stage opportunity performing in two Eugene O’Neill plays for the Provincetown Players. He got rave reviews for his roles in All God’s Chillun Got Wings and The Emperor Jones. He also started performing solo concerts singing spirituals. For anyone who has never heard Robeson sing, his songs are easily accessible on the internet. I would recommend Swing Low Sweet Chariot and Ole Man River.

Robeson also performed in Oscar Hammerstein and Jerome Kern’s Showboat. He had a beautiful voice. Showboat was such a success that it led to other opportunities. He again played Othello. He started recording songs and he played in movies.

In that era, black performers’ opportunities were narrowly circumscribed because of racism. Blackface minstrel shows were the norm and had been the norm for a long time. Robeson broke out of that racist framework to become widely popular. In that endeavor he got great support from his wife Eslanda and his accompanist for four decades, Lawrence Brown.

It was during the presidency of Franklin D. Roosevelt that Robeson achieved his greatest popularity. In the aftermath of the Great Depression, the world faced the threat of looming fascism. Americans of almost all political stripes formed a Popular Front to oppose fascism. Many people came to recognize the danger fascism represented. Robeson performed a song, Ballad for Americans, that became an anthem for these Americans.

The song was written for the government’s Works Progress Administration. Robeson sang it in November 1939 on a national radio broadcast. It was listened to widely. Robeson toured the country, finishing with a performance at the Hollywood Bowl. His performance garnered the largest crowd ever at that venue.

I think Robeson’s example is directly relevant to our time. We now face a fascist threat from the candidacy of Donald Trump and his MAGA movement. All Americans, whether conservative, moderate, liberal or progressive, need to unite to protect our democracy and the rule of law. The example of the Popular Front that existed during FDR’s time is a good model to emulate.

After World War 2, Robeson met with President Harry Truman and urged Truman to pass anti-lynching legislation. Truman told Robeson it was not the time. The racism in America was so deep-seated that Truman could not break with Southern Democrats who remained segregationist.

After that, Robeson experienced reversals of fortune, During the McCarthy period, Robeson was redbaited, blacklisted and the government revoked his passport. He remained widely popular in Europe but he was not allowed to leave the United States. The House Un-American Activities Committee or HUAC called Robeson and his wife to testify. In May 1956, Robeson told HUAC:

“Because my father was a slave and my people died to build this country and I am going to stay here and have a part in it just like you. And no fascist-minded people will drive me from it. Is that clear?

In June 1958, the Supreme Court restored Robeson’s passport. Justice William O. Douglas wrote, “the right to travel is one of a citizen’s inalienable rights”.

Paul Robeson opened the door for later generations of African American artists. He boldly and bravely opposed racism in a time before there was a mass civil rights movement. Robeson was a symbol of hope and a bulwark for the ideal of racial egalitarianism.

In understanding what makes Donald Trump and his MAGA movement unique, I would argue it is both their incitement to violence and their dehumanization of opponents. That rhetoric echoes fascist tradition that sees violence as necessary and a virtue. Fascists build their community by identifying and vilifying those seen as enemies.

Trump’s speeches and his social media tweets are an effort to change and normalize the perception of violence among his followers. He is trying to remove hesitation about resorting to its use. Part of his effort is seeing those who oppose him as sub-human. Trump is attempting to train his followers to see violence as positive.

The examples to cite are numerous but I would begin with his recent watershed remarks about vermin and immigrants poisoning the nations’s blood. This is another step down the dehumanization highway. That Hitler-type language reverberates back to 1930’s-1940’s fascism. It is a recognizable moment that should cause everyone pause. Talking about any people like that is sick and morally indefensible.

For those who think I am exaggerating, Trump’s words speak for themselves. Remember January 6:

“If you don’t fight like hell, you won’t have a country any more.”

Trump has called for the execution of General Mark Milley, former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. He has urged police to shoot shoplifters. He has mocked the vicious assault on Nancy Pelosi’s 82-year old husband that fractured his skull. He had previously called for shooting illegal border crossers in the legs. Trump and his minions matter of factly discuss deporting millions without due process and putting huge numbers of immigrants in vast detention camps in south Texas.

Part of the dehumanization is the name-calling and vitriolic attacks on enemies. Trump calls Jack Smith “deranged” and “a psycho who looks like a crackhead”. He labels New York Attorney General Letitia James “a monster” and “a racist”. He says the judge in his New York civil fraud trial, Judge Arthur Engoron, is “deranged” and should be disbarred and criminally prosecuted.

Possibly these statements are in response to the pressure he is currently under but the pattern of dehumanization is long-standing. In his January 2, 2021 conference call to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger where he wanted 11780 votes found, Trump mentioned Ruby Freeman, a black election worker, 18 times. He repeatedly slandered Freeman and her daughter Shaye Moss, accusing them of election crimes. Trump called Freeman “a professional vote scammer and hustler”.

Trump’s false accusations, along with Rudy Giuliani’s, terrorized the two women and turned their world upside down. Following Trump’s cue, Republican activists threatened the womens’ lives, forced Freeman to flee her home, close her business and go into hiding. The two women received threatening emails, letters and social media attacks filled with violent and racist content. In her testimony to the January 6 Committee, Freeman described the type of threats received:

“Kill yourself now so we can save ammo” read one message, Another read:

“I hope the Federal government hangs you and your daughter from the Capitol dome you treasonous piece of shit! I pray that I will be sitting close enough to hear your necks snap.”

I see the attacks on Ruby Freeman and her daughter as the prototype of the MAGA modus operandi. With Trump’s words, he unleashes the attack dogs. Then he chooses to ignore the inevitably horrible consequences of his remarks.

Since Trump emerged in 2015-2016, dozens of his unhinged supporters have carried out acts of violence. Think Cesar Sayoc. More recently, I think of the Colorado Supreme Court justices who are now receiving a barrage of death threats because of their opinion on the 14th amendment case barring Trump from being on the Colorado ballot. Just to give a flavor of the messages received:

“All fucking robed rats must fucking hang.”

“This ends when we kill these fuckers.”

This is no different than the treatment meted out to other judges and prosecutors who have engaged Trump-involved cases. As John Miller of CNN has said, Trump has been pouring gasoline on the fire. His threats against judges have created a much less secure judiciary. This ties into Trump’s more general responsibility for increased hate crimes. Words have an effect. As the author of The Undertow, Jeff Sharlet, has observed, blood and gore play a big role in Trump speeches at his rallies.

After January 6, 2021, Sen. Mitt Romney had to spend $5000 a day for security for his family. Liz Cheney said there were members of Congress who told her they were afraid for their own security. They voted against impeaching Trump out of fear of their own lives. This is the way fear and intimidation work to undermine democracy.

Many election workers have quit because of the MAGA threats. After the 2020 election, Reuters documented more than 900 threatening and hostile messages to election administrators and staff in 17 states. Almost all the threats were related to Trump’s baseless claims of a stolen election. It is no wonder so many election workers have quit because of the perceived danger.

Every fascist movement is different and has its own national characteristics. Trump is focused on revenge because he cannot stand being a loser. He talks about putting Joe Biden in jail along with others who have crossed him like Bill Barr, John Bolton, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. As his former White House Chief of Staff, Gen. John Kelly has said Trump has nothing but contempt for democratic institutions and the rule of law.

Fascists came to power in Italy by killing off and intimidating members of the Socialist Party which was the largest opposition party. Between 1919-1922, the fascists in Italy killed thousands. A similar process occurred in Hitler’s rise to power in Germany. In 1933, the Nazis consolidated his power by murdering leftists, social democrats and Jews.

Whatever happens in the 2024 election, we can be certain that Trump will not accept the result unless he wins. Trump is running to stay out of jail. What level of MAGA violence will come into play is a good question but based on history it is unrealistic to expect him to accept an unfavorable result peacefully.

I cannot help but think about Maya Angelou’s famous quote: “When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time.” No one can predict the future but all who care about keeping democracy should be very worried.

Back in November the U.S. Supreme Court announced a new Code of Conduct. The announcement came in response to mounting criticism of the unethical behavior of certain justices, particularly Clarence Thomas. His accumulation of expensive unreported gifts from billionaire patrons had to be an embarrassment to all the other justices.

The Supreme Court’s announcement momentarily raised expectations but it turned out the new Code of Conduct was a triumph of form over substance. The code contained no enforcement mechanism. There is no way for anyone to invoke a code violation. The code offers only the appearance of accountability.

The ethical issues that are upcoming are anything but inconsequential and they locate Justice Thomas at the center of controversy. At issue is whether he should recuse from January 6-related cases. It appears that there will be three January 6-related cases on the High Court’s docket and there may be more.

There is the matter of Trump’s claimed immunity from prosecution as a former President. Then there is the question of whether he is disqualified from running for President because of the 14th Amendment prohibition the bars officials who have engaged in insurrection from running for office. Finally there is the case of Fischer v United States, where a man charged with offenses related to the January 6 assault on the Capitol asks the Court to dismiss the charge he obstructed an official proceeding.

Ethical issues are raised in all three cases because of the January 6 role of Justice Thomas’s wife, Ginni Thomas. Ms. Thomas was an active participant and a key behind-the-scenes player in the insurrection. She attended the January 6 Stop the Steal rally although she did not enter inside the Capitol after things got out of hand. She told the January 6 Committee that she still believed the 2020 election was stolen from Trump.

After the election, Ms. Thomas texted Mark Meadows, Trump’s Chief of Staff, that he should contest the election result, accusing Biden and the Democrats of “attempting the greatest heist of our History”. On the morning of January 6, she wrote her Facebook followers, “Love MAGA people” and “God bless each of you standing up or praying”. Ms. Thomas had texted:

“Biden crime family and ballot fraud co-conspirators (elected officials, bureaucrats, social media censorship managers, fake stream media reporters etc) are being arrested and detained for ballot fraud right now and over coming days and will be living in barge off GITMO to face military tribunals for sedition.”

The New York Times reported Ms. Thomas played a peacemaking role between feuding factions of January 6 rally organizers. She emailed state legislators in Arizona and Wisconsin about creating false slates of electors. She co-signed a letter in December 2021 calling for House Republicans to expel Representatives Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger from the Republican conference for joining the January 6 committee.

There is a federal statute, 28 USC 455, which requires judges to disqualify “when their impartiality might reasonably be questioned”. Justice Thomas has a clear conflict of interest because his wife has aligned with one side of the January 6 fight. She could possibly be a witness. She has a material stake in how the Court decides.

Both conflict of interest and the appearance of impropriety are implicated. Justice Thomas would have an interest in insuring the exoneration of his wife. While she is not a January 6 defendant herself, she was an accomplice in various aspects of the Trump multi-pronged insurrectionary schemes. As Sen. Dick Durbin recently said:

“There are so many unanswered questions about the relationship of the justice and his family with the Trump administration that I think in the interests of justice, he should recuse himself.”

Under the Court’s new Code of Conduct there is a judicial canon about avoiding the appearance of impropriety. There is a section under disqualification that says a justice should disqualify himself where his spouse has an interest that “could be affected substantially by the outcome of a proceeding”.

It is not an ethical close call to see that Justice Thomas has no business ruling on January 6 cases. To his credit he did recuse from one case where his former law clerk, John Eastman, was a defendant but there is not yet any indication he will recuse from other January 6 cases. He has already participated in some, including a solo dissent in a case where he unsuccessfully tried to block the January 6 committee subpoena for presidential records, including records that included his wife’s activities.

There are many unexplored ethical issues around Ginni Thomas and her husband. She has received many thousands of dollars from conservative dark money interests. Some of these funders have had cases before the Court. For example, she earned more than $200,000 in 2017-18 from the anti-immigrant Center for Security Policy. Their founder, Frank Gaffney, signed an amicus brief in Trump v Hawaii, a case that allowed Trump’s Muslim ban to move forward. Thomas cast the deciding fifth vote.

Unfortunately there is no requirement that a spouse of a justice who owns a firm must reveal the identities of her clients which could reveal potential conflicts of interest. Because of that reality there is no way to know if a spouse’s business venture is serving as a backdoor to payments to a justice.

We now do know that Justice Thomas has been subsidized by ultra-conservative billionaires who were afraid he might leave the Court. ProPublica reported that Thomas received trips and vacations he failed to report which totaled in the millions of dollars. Thomas had been in deep debt in his early years on the Supreme Court.

Justice Thomas stands as the best example of the failure of ethical self-policing. When left to his own devices, misconduct ensued. There is an old judicial maxim “No man shall be a judge in his own cause”. Where Ginni Thomas and January 6 are concerned, that is Clarence Thomas.
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My mom was not the most political person. Although my grandfather used to call her “the Russian”, I never understood that. Both my parents were liberal Democrats but I wouldn’t say politics played a big role in their lives. There was, however, one political thing my mom was passionate about: she was fiercely pro-choice about abortion rights. I remember her reaction, her joy, when the Supreme Court decided Roe v Wade. My mom had lived through the era of coat hanger abortions.

My mom died in 2010. She would have been appalled by the Supreme Court decision in Dobbs, reversing Roe v Wade. But I think she might have had an even bigger reaction to the case of Kate Cox of Texas. The case perfectly captures the harm done to women by the legal perfidy of the anti-abortion movement.

Kate Cox, a 31 year old pregnant mother of two, found out that her fetus had a diagnosis incompatible with life. She received the diagnosis of Trisomy 18, a genetic anomaly that always results in miscarriage, stillbirth or infant death very shortly after birth. Cox was over 20 weeks pregnant when she got this devastating diagnosis.

Trisomy 18 can cause severe physical pain for the mother. It can also impair the ability to have children in the future. Cox had been to the ER four times for pregnancy symptoms including severe cramps, leaking fluid and elevated vital signs. Continuing her pregnancy put Cox herself at risk. Her doctor believed in good faith that an abortion was medically necessary.

Texas is one of the 21 states that have now completely banned abortion or restricted the procedure earlier in pregnancy than the standard set by Roe v Wade. In Texas, abortion is banned after 6 weeks. Texas does have a “medical emergency” statute that went into effect after Dobbs. It allows for an abortion only if the mother has a “life-threatening” condition while pregnant or is at “severe risk of substantial impairment of a major bodily function”.

Even in the middle of a living hell, Cox retained a lawyer, litigated her situation and a state court judge ruled she could terminate her pregnancy. However, Texas’s Attorney General, Ken Paxton, appealed that decision to the state Supreme Court. Paxton didn’t believe Cox suffered from a life-threatening physical condition. He argued she didn’t meet the exception to the abortion ban.

Texas allows for no exception for severe fetal anomalies. Paxton’s position was that women must be forced to carry dying fetuses to term regardless of the maternal mortality risk. He wrote letters to three Texas hospitals advising them against giving Cox an abortion and threatening first degree felony prosecution. Paxton wrote those letters after the state court judge authorized the abortion.

Texas law authorizes penalties for up to life in prison for any doctor who performs an abortion. It also allows the infamous bounty hunter penalty where anyone who aids or abets an abortion can face a $10,000 pay out.

The all-Republican, elected Texas Supreme Court unanimously found that Cox didn’t fit the abortion exception even though her doctor believed she did. Apparently Cox had to be in septic shock or dying of sepsis.

Just to get a flavor of the far right quality of that court, consider Justice John Devine, a hardcore Christian fundamentalist who had been arrested 37 times for protesting at abortion clinics. Devine campaigned on his wife’s decision to carry a high-risk pregnancy (her seventh) to term even though the fetus had a condition that endangered his wife’s life. The baby died an hour after childbirth but his wife survived.

Cox didn’t wait for the Texas Supreme Court to issue their opinion. She left the state to receive the health care she needed. A Texas Right to Life spokesperson, Kimberlyn Schwartz, lamented that Cox could have the procedure elsewhere. She said,

“We mourn the decision to take Baby Cox’s life rather than give her every chance at life.”

This case demonstrates the problem with legal exceptions to abortion bans. Lawyers will always disagree about whether the circumstances of pregnancy meet the exception especially when legal language is vague which it typically is. In another massive Texas case, Zurawski v Texas, 20 Texas women claim they have been denied medical care for their complicated pregnancies. The plaintiffs are asking for clarification of the law to help Texas physicians. The case is awaiting a decision by the Texas Supreme Court.

Cox’s situation is hardly unique. As has quickly become evident, many, many women are getting pushed into prolonging doomed pregnancies. Some of the women will die. Many women lack the financial means to quickly leave Texas. This situation is guaranteed to be played out in the states with abortion bans.

Pro-abortion rights advocate, Jessica Valenti, says that the pro-life movement remains intent on banning abortion in hopeless cases of fetal anomaly. Instead, they go in the opposite direction and want to do away with pre-natal testing. They claim the tests aren’t accurate. The craziness is that anti-abortion fanatics are putting womens’ lives in danger. They want women to be forced to give birth to dead babies.

This is not pro-life. Forcing birth prioritizes inevitably dead babies over their mothers. The woman is reduced to a brood mare, a vessel with no say over her own life.

The Dobbs decision took away an individual right that had existed for 50 years. It opened the door to state bans like Texas’s. Who are these men, whether Ken Paxton or Sam Alito, who think they know better than women and their doctors? These great legal minds have zero relationship to the women experiencing their pregnancies. Nor do they have any medical training. They don’t live with the consequences of their brilliant decisions.

Fundamentally, the struggle is about male control over women. Profound sexism joined with cruelty to produce Cox’s situation. It should be clear by now that the anti-abortion movement has no plans to compromise. They plan for a national ban. If they have the chance, they will make no state safe for women.

Republicans, you own this. The pro-choice movement must have the long-term goal of overturning Dobbs and restoring reproductive freedom in every state.

As a 1960’s person who has nursed high expectations for social change, it is hard not to be extremely depressed at the state of our politics. Hopes of an evolution toward a less militaristic, ecologically-sensitive multi-racial democracy keep getting knocked back. One bright spot, however, has been the emergence and growth of the Squad in Congress.

Led by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and including Cori Bush, Ilhan Omar, Ayanna Pressley, Rashida Tlaib, Jamaal Bowman and Summer Lee, the Squad represents a vision of progressive change for an America that desperately needs transformation from older paradigms.

That vision includes a sincere effort to address the climate change emergency, a revitalized labor movement, an attack on the economic inequality that has benefited the 1% at the expense of the 99%, a federal jobs guarantee with increased minimum wage, Medicare for all, forgiveness of significant student loan debt, a greatly reduced Pentagon budget, public funding of elections, a reduction in gun violence, reproductive rights for women, an end to police brutality and the dismantling of institutional racism.

We need an America where racism, sexism, homophobia, antisemitism and Islamophobia are considered absolutely unacceptable. Somehow, throughout our history we gave failed to reckon with our two greatest historical sins: the genocide against Native Americans and slavery with its residual effects still holding back African-Americans. Reckoning should mean both public acknowledgement of the crimes and further steps toward rectification.

As the inheritors of Occupy Wall Street and the two Bernie Sanders’ presidential campaigns, the Squad, among lawmakers, best represents the vision for transformative change. I know many Democrats may not buy in to such a vision. The reasons why people vote for a candidate are varied and idiosyncratic.

One strong tendency among Democrats is the notion they should simply run against what a train wreck the Republican Party has become. And it is undeniable that the Republican Party has descended to new depths. Their putative leader promises to be a dictator on day one.

Many moderate Democrats want a return to normalcy. They think it is enough to run for democracy and against Trump. I would suggest that the desire to run as the party of normalcy is a big mistake. That perspective is a status quo vision.

Many working people, whether in urban or rural America, have good reason to be furious. The system has stacked the deck against them and Trump appeals to that disillusionment even though he is an utter fraud. Democrats need to offer positive reasons for casting the ballot. Democrats need to follow the FDR tradition, reaching out to working people with a vision and a program. Democrats should be much more welcoming and less negatively judgmental.

The Republican effort to present themselves as a working class party is a bad joke. Preppy twits like Tucker Carlson and Yale law grad Josh Hawley are not exactly the salt of the earth. The Republicans talk about elites but if you follow the money they are largely funded by the 1% and they reflect ruling class values and priorities like tax cuts for the super-rich. All their talk about wokeness is distracting nonsense.

The Squad deserves attention now because the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, also known as AIPAC, is planning on spending $100 million in the 2024 election cycle to take down Squad members. This is a threat to the existence of any progressive presence in Congress. AIPAC is recruiting primary challengers against multiple Squad members.

They take this initiative to ensure Congress stands in lockstep with Israel no matter how extreme the actions of Israel’s far right government. AIPAC is targeting politicians they perceive as at all critical of Israel’s war in Gaza.

Both as a Jewish person and a progressive, I find AIPAC’s efforts to primary and unseat the Squad reprehensible and morally bankrupt. They ignore the fascist threat represented by the present incarnation of the Republican Partly. AIPAC has actually endorsed more than 100 Republican lawmakers who voted to subvert the 2020 presidential election in service of Trump’s Big Lie.

Rep. Cori Bush described what is going on most accurately. She said:

“AIPAC is attempting to buy blue seats with GOP donor money.”

We have already seen AIPAC inject Republican megadonor bucks into Democratic races. In 2022, an AIPAC-affiliated group, United Democracy Project, spent over $4 million to defeat progressive Democrat and synagogue president Rep. Andy Levin (D-Mich) because he supported Palestinian rights. Levin said:

“…AIPAC can’t stand the idea that I am the clearest, strongest Jewish voice in Congress standing for a simple proposition: that there is no way to have a secure, democratic homeland for the Jewish people unless we achieve the political and human rights of the Palestinian people.”

AIPAC tried unsuccessfully to take down Summer Lee, a western Pa. Congresswoman. They spent $3 million in that effort. Through their PACs, they successfully took down Rep. Donna Edwards (D-Md) by spending nearly $7 million in that race. They just offered Hill Harper $20 million to run against Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich) but Harper denied that offer.

AIPAC has zero commitment to any progressive values. They stand in the dark money tradition of trying to purchase election results by overwhelming opponents with enormous cash outlays. Imagine how Republicans would react if they saw Democratic megadonors trying to buy wins in Republican primaries. Where is the Democratic outrage for this interference?

Contrary to what they think they are doing, AIPAC’s efforts will only result in more antisemitism. Jews and progressives should not be supporting Israel’s extremist government. We should be supporting calls for a ceasefire and a political settlement. With its spending spree against the Squad, AIPAC plays into the hands of Trump and the MAGA fascists.

What AIPAC is doing now is dangerous to the future of the Democratic Party. Their efforts may deprive Democrats of a young generation of leaders who we need to promote change and to protect democracy.

Normally a decision by a federal appellate court would not be considered big news. But in a two to one ruling, the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals, which has jurisdiction over 8 states, effectively gutted the Voting Rights Act (or VRA). This is the law that civil rights groups have used to challenge racial discrimination in voting.

In the case, Arkansas State Conference NAACP v Arkansas Policy Panel, the Court ruled that the NAACP did not have the right to bring the case of racial discrimination alleged because there was no private right of action under the law. That is legal-speak for the Court saying the NAACP or any other civil rights group cannot sue under the VRA. The Court said only the Department of Justice can bring a lawsuit under that law.

The case will almost certainly go up to the Supreme Court. It is hard to overstate the importance of the case. If the Supreme Court upholds the 8th Circuit decision, civil rights groups wouldn’t be able to challenge discriminatory voting practices like gerrymandered maps, redistricting and voter ID requirements. The 8th Circuit would outlaw most efforts to ensure Americans are not denied the right to vote on the basis of race.

Up until now, it has been, overwhelmingly, private parties who have brought successful lawsuits under the VRA. Over the last 40 years, of the 182 successful lawsuits brought under the VRA, the Department of Justice only brought 15. That reflects both the lack of resources as well as the priorities of the Department of Justice. For example, during the Trump presidency, the Department of Justice only brought one case under the VRA. Republicans have shown zero interest in enforcing the VRA.

It is clear that Congress had intended to allow private enforcement of the law but opponents of the VRA have jumped on the fact that the text of the law doesn’t say so explicitly. The opponents belittle 58 years of cases, including many at the Supreme Court, where this was never raised as an issue. Even worse the opponents belittle the centrality of the voting rights struggle in American history.

I would suggest that it is impossible to appreciate the significance of the 8th Circuit decision outside the broader context of U.S. history and the struggle to create a multi-racial democracy. The VRA passed in 1965 under the Lyndon Johnson administration, The law is a testament to the bloody struggles fought to counter suppression of Black voters across the South.

Preventing blacks from voting was central to the white supremacist project. White citizen councils in southern states blacklisted registered black voters to try and deny them essential services. The white citizens councils could get white elites to cut off credit and deny employment to blacks. They could get sharecropping blacks who registered to vote evicted. Intimidation was the name of the game.

Voting rights activists were beaten and arrested for trying to vote. SNCC activist Herbert Lee was murdered in 1961 after he started attending voter registration classes. Voter suppression and violence were key tools of the white supremacists.

Although the right to vote was supposedly guaranteed under the 15th Amendment which came into being after the Civil War, it turned out the right was anything but guaranteed. It had to be fought for continuously. After the Civil War and Reconstruction, both political parties allowed disenfranchisement of black voters. Courts didn’t stand up to Jim Crow and gave constitutional blessing to white supremacy.

Adam Serwer has written that the pattern was set by the Supreme Court decision in the case of United States v Cruikshank in 1876. In the context of a contested election and efforts to disallow minority voting registration, blacks were supporting the election of Republican candidates. A white mob descended on the courthouse in Colfax Louisiana in April 1873 where blacks were making a stand. Totally outgunned, a massacre ensued after the courthouse was set ablaze. Fleeing blacks were executed.

72 white men were indicted for the crime of slaughtering over 100 black men.. Federal charges were brought under the Enforcement Act of 1870 which had been designed for prosecution of the Ku Klux Klan.

The Supreme Court ruled that the federal government lacked the authority to charge the perpetrators. This was one of the worst decisions in the history of the Supreme Court. The Court framed their decision in the language of limited government and individual liberty but the Court gave free rein to the white supremacists. The author of the opinion, Justice Joseph Bradley, relied on the fact that the murderers had not declared their crimes were done with a design to deprive the victims of their rights on account of race.

So we have white racists carrying out a massacre but the Court somehow found it was not because of race. This was the template for allowing Jim Crow to proceed. The Reconstruction amendments were written to reverse Dred Scott but the Court was saying the Bill of Rights did not apply to freedmen. Without federal protection, injustice ruled in the southern states.

For the next 75 years the courts failed people of color and actually encouraged the rise of white supremacy. They gave judicial sanction to a regime of racial fascism. The law professor Randall Kennedy has written:

“For a large portion of American life people of color have been treated unjustly, and for most of that period the Supreme Court has found ways to rationalize that.”

Unfortunately what we are seeing now is a continuation of a long-standing pattern. The absurdity of Cruikshank was the idea that a racist slaughter could be carried out without punishment if the perpetrators did not say it was done to promote racism. Just as courts backed off on the black voting rights struggle after Reconstruction, the same thing is happening now in the aftermath of the civil rights movement. Courts are chipping away at the VRA as the 21st century way to update disenfranchisement of black voters.

The strategy of the conservative legal movement is to make it impossible for legal challenges to racist practices to go forward. The 8th Circuit Arkansas case is a perfect example. The gerrymandered electoral map the NAACP challenged weakened black voting power in the state. If no one like the NAACP or the ACLU can bring a case, the gerrymander will stand. It used to be poll taxes and literacy tests. Now it is short-circuiting the private right of action.

How the Supreme Court resolves the Arkansas case will be telling. While Chief Justice Roberts has a history of hostility to the VRA (Shelby County decision comes to mind) he did author a recent Alabama decision, Allen v Milligan, that protected Section 2 of the VRA.

This Arkansas case may be too much even for Chief Justice Roberts. Saying civil rights groups have no right to sue under the VRA (something they have been doing for over 50 years) is not just wrong, it is contrary to common sense. A decision upholding the 8th Circuit in the Arkansas case could cause absolute chaos. States that have lost cases to private parties could conceivably sue to reverse their VRA verdicts. The number of VRA cases brought would drastically plummet.

Pretending that racial discrimination in voting is essentially over is fantasy land. Underneath the Arkansas case is the question: what kind of America will we be? Will we be going back to the 19th century dark ages or will we move forward toward the goal of vibrant multi-racial democracy ? We have come too far to go back.