Jonathan P. Baird

As a court watcher, I have long thought the U.S. Supreme Court has escaped the type of critical scrutiny it deserves. Most media coverage focuses on wins and losses without going too under the surface. But maybe that has begun to change.

2022 turned out to be the Court’s perfect storm. The Dobbs decision destroying abortion rights played a key role because of its massive unpopularity but other darker dimensions were also at play.

The Supreme Court has no written code of ethics. This glaring weakness has been repeatedly on display. The spectacle of Justice Clarence Thomas and his wife Ginni is Exhibit A. Justice Thomas has refused to recuse himself from January 6-related cases.

At first he said he had no knowledge of his wife’s insurrectionary activities. Thomas ruled on quite a few January 6 cases. He was the sole dissenter in an unsigned opinion in January that required the Trump administration to release documents related to the attack on the Capitol to a congressional committee. He also dissented in Texas and Pennsylvania challenges to election results.

More recently, he participated in Moore v Harper, the North Carolina case that raises the independent state legislative theory argued by John Eastman, Jeffrey Clark and other Trump lawyers. However preposterous the idea that Thomas was unaware of his wife’s activities, that assertion is no longer operative. All of America knew about her texts to Mark Meadows as well as her calling state legislative officials to try and change the outcome of the 2020 presidential election.

Yet, Thomas refuses to recuse in Moore v Harper even though the appearance of impropriety could not be more blatant and in your face. Unlike the Dobbs leak, Chief Justice Roberts conducted no investigation into the factual accuracy of whether Justice Thomas had knowledge of his wife’s political activities. Roberts certainly could have investigated but he gave Thomas a pass. Hofstra Law School Professor James Sample commented:

“Never in a zillion years did I imagine a scenario where a Supreme Court justice would be ruling in a situation that could shield his or her spouse from criminal liability. And the particular crime here isn’t your minor offense – not shoplifting or jaywalking. It’s potentially a conspiracy to overturn an election for the first time in American history.”

Supposedly Supreme Court justices are self-policing. They each decide for themselves the propriety of their own ethics violations. Written codes of conduct only govern judges in the lower federal district courts and the federal appeals courts.

The Thomas debacle was complemented by the story of the former anti-abortion leader, Rev. Rob Schenck, who claimed he was told the outcome of the 2014 Hobby Lobby case weeks before it was announced publicly. The New York Times reported this story. Rev. Schenck broke with the religious right in 2018.

Rev. Schenck founded the Christian evangelical organization Faith and Action (later Faith and Liberty) in 1995. They set up their headquarters across the street from the Supreme Court. Rev. Schenck ran a covert operation called Operation Higher Court. He recruited right wing Christian millionaires to try and influence the Court. Over the years, he arranged for about 20 couples to fly to Washington DC to wine and dine justices.

The millionaires used generous gifts to the Supreme Court Historical Society, private dinners and vacations as their vehicles for access to the justices. Schenck described much success in connecting with Justices Thomas, Alito and the now-deceased Scalia. The three justices were in close touch with Donald and Gayle Wright, real estate millionaires who made big contributions to the Supreme Court Historical Society.

Steve Green, the President of Hobby Lobby, attended the Court’s holiday party in 2011. He was later a lead plaintiff in the Burwell v Hobby Lobby Stores case. Schenck told the Times he received advance word of the result on June 4, 2014 and his personal emails support that. The opinion was released on June 30 with Justice Alito’s sympathy for the Green family’s religious convictions shining through. Alito has since denied providing any advance notice of the Hobby Lobby decision.

Rev. Schenck’’s agents gained special seats at oral arguments, participated in prayer sessions at the Court, and had private dinners with justices. Schenck describes rehearsing lines with the agents to make the judges feel more comfortable. They used prayer sessions with the most conservative justices in the judges’ chambers as a way to build rapport. Some of the “prayers” filed amicus briefs in cases being litigated before the Court.

There is a big “personal hospitality” exemption in Supreme Court gift reporting. It has given the justices a way around reporting luxuries they have received. Before he died in 2016, over a period of many years, Justice Scalia took 80 expensive hunting vacations where he seldom paid. He was often accompanied by Republican Party officials and individuals with interests before the Court. These trips were not reported under Supreme Court disclosure rules.

In his new book, The Scheme, Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D.-R.I.) details the way it has worked. He wrote:

“..big donors could go to the owners of the fanciest resorts in the world – private islands in the Caribbean, charter yachts in the Med, ski chalets in the Rockies – and ask the owner to invite a friendly justice and give him a wonderful free undisclosed vacation.”

The donors picked up the tab. They also arranged for the justice to give a speech before an audience of his admirers like the local Federalist Society chapter. The speech could typically cover any transportation costs.

Sen. Whitehouse says that before he rewrote the Second Amendment in the case of District of Columbia v Heller, Justice Scalia was entertained at the most luxurious hunting resorts in the company of senior NRA leaders and wealthy conservative donors, including those who funded briefs in the Heller case.

The ethics issues are only one aspect of what has gone wrong with the Court. Sen. Whitehouse says the Court has been captured. He says it is captured in the same way Railroad Commissions in the 19th century were captured by railroad barons. The Court’s overwhelmingly consistent record of siding with big corporations and against workers is powerful evidence of that proposition.

Our Supreme Court is the best court dark money could engineer and buy. Never before have judicial selections been turned over to a partisan private organization like the Federalist Society. Special interests have spent more than a half billion dollars to get control over the Supreme Court.

Earlier this year, Sen. Whitehouse and Congressman Hank Johnson (D.-Ga.) introduced the Supreme Court Ethics, Recusal and Transparency Act. The bill would enact stronger recusal standards, would require the Court to adopt a binding code of conduct and it would mandate that the Court adopt tougher rules about disclosure of gifts and travel paid for by outside parties. It would require disclosure of the identity of funders of amicus briefs and it would block amicus filers from making gifts or providing travel to federal court of appeals judges or Supreme Court justices.

It should be clear by now that the lack of any written code of ethics for the Supreme Court is a huge embarrassment for that institution. Lawyers and judges are about process and procedure. Whatever Chief Justice Roberts might say, there is now no process for even filing an ethics complaint. Fundamental accountability is at stake. Everyday that goes by with no written code of ethics is a dagger blow to the public’s confidence in the judiciary.

While the great battle against fascism in World War 2 was fought in Europe, there was also a fight against fascism inside the United States in the 1930’s-1940’s. There is little recollection now that there was a burgeoning movement inside America that was sympathetic to the German Nazis.

The Jewish response to our American fascism during this period has been little explored. One stereotype that exists is the idea that Jews did not fight back. The stereotype is related to the European theater and the false notion that Jews went passively to their deaths in the Nazi gas chambers.

However, contrary to the stereotype, there is an amazing story of Jewish fight back against American Nazis and their sympathizers here in America. The story is wonderfully told in Steven J. Ross’s book, Hitler in Los Angeles. Ross centers the story around the anti-fascist efforts of Leon Lewis, a little-known Jewish attorney who lived in Los Angeles.

Lewis grew up in Milwaukee and graduated from the University of Chicago Law School in 1913. He got an early job as the Executive Director of the newly-formed Anti-Defamation League. Lewis was a veteran and he served in army intelligence in England, France and Germany during World War 1.

After the war, Lewis moved to Los Angeles. With a background in intelligence, he started tracking the growth of anti-semitism on the west coast. As the Nazi movement advanced, the Jewish community was divided about how to respond. Some Jews favored quiet diplomacy, worrying that direct action would stir up more anti-semitism. Others pursued a much more activist path.

Lewis was in the activist camp. With close ties to the American Legion and the Disabled American Veterans, he tried to interest federal and local government officials in countering the Nazi threat but, to his dismay, he found much sympathy for the Nazis within the government and law enforcement. Law enforcement, both the FBI and the Los Angeles Police Department, were much more focused on the communists than the fascists.

From 1933 until the end of World War 2, Lewis independently initiated and ran a spy ring where he organized operatives he recruited to disrupt and counter the Nazi movement. Lewis found Aryan types with blond hair and blue eyes to be his agents. Most were German-Americans who were either anti-Nazi or financially needy. Lewis had a budget and he paid his agents.

The Nazis had a variety of front groups and Lewis’s spies were successful in penetrating inside the groups. Some of the spies rose into leadership positions in the pro-Nazi front groups. They accelerated splits and discord where they could inside the Nazi ranks.

Lewis gathered a wealth of information about what the Nazis and their front groups were up to. American intelligence agencies had no comparable operation. They came to rely on the information Lewis provided.

Money was always an issue for Lewis because he never had enough to expand as he might have liked. Later he was able to get financial support from Hollywood moguls. The Nazis had plans to assassinate Jews who were connected to the motion picture industry. They planned to kidnap and hang twenty prominent Angelenos. Among others, they wanted to murder Louis Mayer, Jack Benny, James Cagney, Eddie Cantor, Charlie Chaplin and Al Jolson.

With his able associate Joseph Roos, Lewis disrupted this plot and others. Lewis learned early that the Nazis planned to sabotage the American defense industry on the west coast. His spies fed the Nazis bad information about the defense installations. Lewis tried to warn the U.S. government about this threat but he was not taken seriously.

The Nazis did shockingly blow up the Hercules powder plant, an armaments factory, in Kenvil, New Jersey. No explosion happened on the west coast largely because Lewis and his agents were monitoring defense industries for saboteurs.

The Nazis saw Los Angeles as a great place to develop a beachhead for their assault on America. In 1937 Hitler sent his personal deputy, Captain Fritz Wiedeman, to Los Angeles to assess the level of pro-Nazi sympathy on the west coast.

Wiedeman found strong sympathy for the Nazis among leading businessmen and in the west coast financial elite. The American Nazis were trying to recreate the success their German compatriots had in places in Europe. They were forming hundreds of “Hitler cells” in the Los Angeles area as a prelude to their conquest of power.

At the same time, after a six month underground investigation, a former FBI agent, James Metcalfe, reported in the Chicago Times that “an army of 20,000 American Nazis is preparing to seize control of the United States”. Ross quotes Hitler:

“ We will undermine the morale of the people of America…Once there is confusion and after we have succeeded in undermining the faith of the American people in their own government, a new group will take over. This will be the German-American group and we will help them assume power.”

It is hard to recreate how desperate and scary a time the 1930’s were in America. The depression fed hunger, mass poverty and a complete loss of faith in capitalism. It also led many to be attracted to demagogues and there was no shortage of those.

Far right extremists like Father Charles Coughlin, Gerald Winrod and William Dudley Pelley emerged. Pelley’s Silver Shirts and the German-American Bund aimed to create a fascist alternative in America. In this period, anti-semitism was almost normal and was widely accepted. Tens of millions listened to Father Coughlin’s radio broadcasts where he preached virulent anti-semitism. Coughlin was one of the most influential public figures in the United States.

Lewis and Roos gathered the information that ultimately put many American Nazi leaders behind bars. The Nazis were well aware of Lewis’s activities and for years, Lewis and his family lived under great stress. The Nazis constantly threatened his life and that of his family. Lewis died at age 65 in 1954 after suffering a fatal heart attack.

For those concerned about the spread of fascism now, Lewis provides an important positive example and lesson. He got almost no help from any official source. He relied on himself and his closest colleagues. Independently, he figured his own creative strategy of self-reliance for intervening to stop the fascists.

His accomplishments were remarkable and courageous. He showed it was a mistake to rely on governments for help that never came. His story should be far better known.

The Nazis called Lewis “the most dangerous Jew in Los Angeles”. I expect he would have liked that.

The sedition convictions of Oathkeepers’ leaders, Elmer Stewart Rhodes and Kelly Meggs, returned focus to the events of January 6. While the January 6 Committee has done an excellent job ferreting out facts, there remain unexplored areas of inquiry.

One area of possible inquiry is the role of Congress members in the planning of the January 6 insurrection and the effort to object to Biden’s electoral cerification. Rolling Stone has reported that multiple members of Congress participated in “dozens” of planning meetings ahead of the Capitol insurrection. Based on reports by two people who organized “Stop the Steal” rallies, Rolling Stone identified Republican Reps. Paul Gosar (Ariz.), Lauren Boebert (Colo), Mo Brooks (Ala), Madison Cawthorne (N.C.)Andy Biggs (Ariz.) and Louie Gohmert (Tx) as activists in these events.

Rep. Gosar dangled “blanket pardons” to participants, implying he had spoken to Trump. He left the impression that Trump was on board with granting a wide range of pardons. That ultimately did not happen. On the morning of January 6, Rep. Gosar tweeted:
“Biden should concede. I want his concession on my desk tomorrow morning. Don’t make me come over there.#Stop the Steal 2021@ali.”

Many Democrats raised concerns about reconnaissance tours of congressional offices led by Republican Congress members before January 6. Republicans deny the tours. Rep. Bennie Thompson, chair of the January 6 Committee sent Georgia Rep. Barry Loudermilk a letter requesting information and cooperation. Thompson’s letter said that Loudermilk gave a tour on January 5. Loudermilk denied the tour and refused to advance the discussion.

Congress members have commented on how January 6 rioters appeared to know the layout of the Capitol complex in advance. The Capitol is a maze to the uninitiated. Rioters knew the location of both hideaway offices and the underground tunnel network beneath the Capitol. The question of how the rioters knew so much remains open. As does the question of whether Congress people who aided the insurrectionists should face some discipline or criminal charges.

Of course, so much remains murky. Republicans have maintained a veil of silence. Possibly the January 6 Committee’s final report will reveal more or possibly there was a decision made not to stir up a hornet’s nest about Congress members’ January 6 participation.

Readers might think January 6 was unprecedented historically but that is not true. American history is a vast tableau and historical episodes have been excised from popular memory. Such is the case with the American fascist movement from the 1930’s-1940’s. Truly shocking parallels and stories have been forgotten.

Members of Congress who hated President Franklin Roosevelt and far right wingers were connected to a Nazi plot to overthrow the U.S. Government. The plot involved killing prominent political leaders and influential Jews. A mass movement of far right Catholics, the Christian Front, who were sympathetic to Nazism, and the Silver Shirts, homegrown fascists, spread virulent antisemitism across America. The government responded with sedition trials against many of the far right leaders.

This story is told in Rachel Maddow’s new podcast, Ultra. The podcast shows how the American fascists of the New Deal era were predecessors of our modern-day Trump-led MAGA movement. They laid the groundwork for the current incarnation of Christian nationalism and right wing extremism.

In the late 1930’s many Americans opposed any involvement in the war that was shaping up in Europe. Fascism was advancing in Germany and Italy but the America First movement and the Christian Front opposed American engagement on the side of Britain. They wanted to keep the U.S. out of the war and they also sought to soften up Americans toward Nazi Germany.

Maddow shows how an agent of Hitler’s government, George Sylvester Viereck, paid many Congressmen to distribute Nazi propaganda. The German Nazis saw Viereck as a key operative in America and they gave him a big bankroll.

The scheme Viereck devised was quite ingenious. He began by compromising Sen. Ernest Lundeen (R.-Minn), who was an isolationist. Viereck became Lundeen’s ghostwriter. In exchange for cash (Lundeen was financially strapped and desperate for money), Sen. Lundeen allowed Viereck to write his speeches and articles. Although crafted by Viereck, both speeches (including national radio addresses) and articles appeared under Lundeen’s name.

When Sen. Lundeen gave speeches on the floor of Congress, he had them inserted into the Congressional Record. Then Sen. Lundeen ordered his staff to print off millions of copies to be paid for by the U.S. government under Congressional franking privileges. Viereck literally set up shop in Lundeen’s office. He had the U.S. government covering the cost of spreading Nazi propaganda to millions of American citizens.

Sen. Lundeen died in a mysterious plane crash in 1940 but Viereck expanded his operation to include many other members of Congress including Rep. Hamilton Fish (R.-NY) and Sen. Burton K. Wheeler (R.-Mont). Viereck expanded his franking scam with them and others.

PM, a New York newspaper published an expose of Viereck two weeks before Lundeen died. Drew Pearson, a prominent reporter, also helped expose the Nazi congressional scam. Viereck was later indicted and convicted for failing to register as a foreign agent.

Federal prosecutors in the early 1940’s brought two major sedition cases against the far right extremists. Both ended unsuccessfully. The Great Sedition trial of 1944 was a circus with 29 pro-Nazi defendants. The judge totally lost control of the proceedings. The case ended in a mistrial when the trial judge died.

The federal prosecutor who tried that case, O. John Rogge, was quite an interesting figure. He came into possession of important evidence from Germany that corroborated his case and showed the extent of the Nazi penetration of Congress. Rogge wanted to publicize his findings after the mistrial but he was blocked by both the Attorney General and President Truman. Rogge had to struggle mightily to share what he had learned about the American fascists because of American government opposition.

Maddow shows how it was ordinary citizens who played the central role in advancing the fight against fascism in the 1930’s and 1940’s in America. Activist citizens, lawyers and writers did more to oppose the fascists than officials in the government. In comparing then to now, that lesson still resonates. January 6 was not the first insurrection and history demands continued vigilance about the ongoing fascist threat.

When Congress passed a bill to pre-empt a national railroad strike by imposing an agreement 55% of national railroad workers voted to reject, it was a sad object lesson. Ultimately, neither political party, Democrats or Republicans, represented or cared about worker interests.

At issue in the dispute was scheduling and guaranteed paid sick leave. The railroad workers have zero paid sick leave now. The expectation is apparently that workers should work when sick or use vacation leave if they get sick or if they have a medical appointment. If workers get sick unexpectedly they can face disciplinary action for taking time off. Scheduling pressures have been brutal and have led to many workers quitting.

President Biden, who has touted himself as a pro-labor President, failed workers here. He is forcing an agreement down workers’ throats when the majority voted “no”. Under the 1926 Railway Labor Act, the federal government has the authority to impose labor settlements on the rail industry. That industry is outside the National Labor Relations Board. Biden had campaigned in 2020 on the promise to guarantee at least 7 paid sick days.

Paid sick leave is a matter of great consequence to workers. It is a benefit 33 million American workers don’t have. About one in five civilian sector workers don’t have it. Who gets the benefit is an interesting story, CNN reports:

“Public sector workers, management and professional employees and higher-earning staffers are more likely to have access to paid sick days.”

Low-wage and part-time workers are often the ones who have no paid sick leave. Also, roughly one-third of workers in service, construction and farming occupations don’t have paid sick leave.

Congress members get unlimited sick days. They are not using vacation time when they get sick.

Having just lived through a pandemic, you might think railroad owners would reconsider paid sick leave but they hate the idea. To understand why the railroad barons are unwilling to negotiate around paid sick leave, the recent history of that industry is relevant. The writer Eric Levitz provides the best explanation I have seen. He says the bosses are fine with giving generous raises (24% over 5 years and $1000 bonuses) but paid sick leave runs afoul of P.S.R. or precision scheduled railroading. Levitz says:

“P.S.R. is an operational strategy that aims to minimize the ratio between railroad’s operating costs and their revenues through various cost-cutting and (ostensibly) efficiency-increasing measures. The basic idea is to transport more freight using fewer workers and railcars.”

Over the last six years America’s freight carriers have gotten rid of 30% of their employees. So the railroads compensate for the lost staffing by forcing workers into irregular schedules with little time off. The railroads don’t want to pay for more workers. The result is a short staffing that makes for more dangerous working conditions.

Levitz says the owners are making trains longer. Instead of two 50-car trains, they are more likely to use one 100-car train since one very long train will necessitate fewer crew members.

The railroad industry has become remarkably profitable. Last year, the seven dominant North American railway companies had a combined net income of $27 billion. This margin is double what it was 10 years earlier.

The railroad barons are treating workers like they are machines. P.S.R. has worked so well for the bosses that they want to keep it going as is even though the unions had reduced their paid sick day request from 14 days to 7 days. In this day and age, it should be clear that life can throw curve balls. Like everybody, workers may need a day off for things like a sick kid or a parent who is hospitalized or dying.

It is wrong to impose a rejected contract. Willie Adam, President of the International Longshoreman and Warehouse Union tweeted:

“Congress talks about saving democracy at the ballot box but they just totally undermined workplace democracy by imposing a contract that workers voted to reject.”

President Biden was obviously concerned about the cost of a potential strike and what it would mean for the economy but his actions are taking away workers’ collective bargaining rights. Only workers should be able to decide when and under what conditions they withhold their labor. Also the actions show that Democrats’ alleged concern and support for labor is mostly lip service. At a crunch time, the Democrats side with the railroad bosses and acted as strikebusters.

It must be remembered that back in 2020 Democrats also promised to pass a law that would strengthen collective bargaining, the Protecting the Right to Organize Act. What exactly have the Democrats delivered for labor? Around paid sick leave, they folded, demonstrating loyalty to their rail industry donors – not workers.

As for the Republicans, their claim about being a working class party could not be more laughable. The overwhelming majority of Republicans in the House and Senate voted against labor on paid sick leave. It is not clear how you represent the working class when you oppose organized labor at every turn. The Republicans are about creating a fake pro-labor facade. They remain the big tent for MAGA fascists, QAnon believers, Christian evangelicals, libertarians and the 1%.

You have to ask: why is it that the workers are always the ones who have to sacrifice? How come workers’ sick leave is so much less important than the owners’ profits? In this era of massive income inequality, where billionaires make out like bandits, railroad workers get zero sick days.

The United States is the only developed country in the world that doesn’t offer any guaranteed paid sick leave.

The Republicans may have become a horror show but the Democrats often sell out too. There is no pro-labor party in America. When he was running for president Biden rightly called the lack of paid sick leave “a national disgrace”. It is a national disgrace corporate Democrats can apparently abide.

The Club Q shootings in Colorado Springs that left 5 dead and 17 injured were horrifying but not that surprising. For the last few years, there has been a campaign of hatred directed against LGBTQ people. In 2016 when the Pulse nightclub shootings in Orlando happened that was genuinely unexpected. Q Club felt more in the category of a likely event.

The best take I have seen on the Q Club shootings comes from the writer Jay Kuo. He said the Q Club attack was an “extremely foreseeable and statistically predictable result of hateful and dangerous rhetoric spewed by politicians and right wing pundits against the LGBTQ community”. Kuo used a term “stochastic terrorism”. He defined it as:

“..the public démonization of a person or group resulting in the incitement of a violent act, which is statistically probable but whose specifics cannot be predicted.”

The Q Club shootings did not come from nowhere. They precisely fit the category of stochastic terrorism. There has been an escalation in the campaign to dehumanize LGBTQ people. Particularly over the last year, an organized effort of far right influencers have pushed the idea that LGBTQ people are “groomers” and pedophiles. A connection is asserted between queer and trans people and the exploitation of children.

I would describe what is a QAnon-type conspiracy logic. QAnon says Democrats are pedophiles and blood drinkers. There is no proof ever presented. An unsupported charge is repeated over and over. In spite of an absolute paucity of evidence, some people are won over to the QAnon world view by the repetition of the allegation. A similar dynamic is at play in the anti-gay, anti-trans campaign.

Just the use of the term “groomer” is an incitement against LGBTQ people. A groomer is a term for someone who attempts to sexually abuse children. Grooming is a set of manipulative behaviors sexual predators use to gain access to potential victims to coerce them to agree to the abuse and to reduce the risk of getting caught. Since there is no evidence of grooming, I would suggest that the goal of the far right is to intimidate and to erase any queer or trans presence from schools, libraries and public places.

The far right is objecting to the existence of LGBTQ people.

Many Republican candidates in the last election cycle ran on a platform that characterized queer and transgender people as groomers and many of their candidates won. Prominent politicians like Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and Texas Gov Greg Abbott have played to these prejudices as have notable influencers like FOX host Tucker Carlson. The accumulated prejudiced comments and actions of these bigots lead crazies to act.

2021 was the deadliest year on record for transgender and gender non-conforming people. Also, nationally, the number of legislative bills targeting LGBTQ people is at an all time high. You see nutty things going on like Boston Children’s Hospital facing bomb scares for its work with transgender youth. None of this is an accident.

The stochastic terrorism directed against LGBTQ people is not that different from the racist hate attacks on Asian-Americans or the antisemitic attacks on Jewish Americans. Xenophobia produced the massacre at the Young’s Asian Massage spa outside Atlanta. Antisemitism produced the massacre at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh.

Repetition of homophobic, xenophobic and antisemitic memes and tropes on social media embolden the unhinged to act. It has been well-demonstrated that there is no shortage of mentally unstable individuals who are armed with AR-15-type semi-automatic rifles out there. Some are working on their manifestos and are ready to pull the trigger.

I place responsibility for the increase in hate crimes on the MAGA Republican movement. There is a causal link between their dehumanizing rhetoric and the rise in hate crimes. At this point, the MAGA movement should be recognized as the fascist movement it is. Fascism always creates an “us” and a “them”. MAGA divides the world into the good white Christians and “the other”, comprising minorities, immigrants, non-Christians and LGBTQ people.

Fascist politics are a politics of hierarchy. Making America Great Again is about restoring the power of white Christian men. Any progress by a minority, women, or LGBTQ people stokes feelings of victimhood among the MAGA faithful.

Sexual anxiety plays a big role in the MAGA fascist movement. There is much concern about declining white birthrates and the need for more white babies. Fascism thrives on the fantasy of a mythic past where everyone was assigned a place in the hierarchy. Men remain in charge and women are subordinate, tasked with the job of procreation Gender equity and women’s rights are taboo as they threaten patriarchal dominance.

LGBTQ people fall outside the stereotyped roles. Their existence poses a theological challenge to the MAGA evangelical Christian base.

Ironically, MAGA worships a leader who faces multiple allegations of sexual wrongdoing. If anyone was serious about an evidence-based view of sexual abuse and domestic violence, the largest group of perpetrators are clearly heterosexual men.

Behind the campaign of hatred directed against LGBTQ people is the most cynical calculation by Republican politicians. In the pursuit of absolute power, they will go very low. They made a coordinated decision to vilify a group despised by at least part of their evangelical base.

Dark money is financing much of the anti-LGBTQ advocacy. Christian Right billionaires with close links to MAGA have fueled the hate campaign. This dark money story has been very inadequately explored.

The historian of fascism, Ruth Ben-Ghiat has written that “the persecution of LGBTQ individuals is a constant of authoritarian governments around the world”. The fascist narrative in America is anything but “live and let live”. Positive values like tolerance and empathy have been replaced by a theology of hate.

All who support democracy and oppose autocracy must stand against the disgusting and dangerous campaign of hate MAGA Republicans have unleashed..

With Roe v Wade being overturned by the Supreme Court, it would be easy to think the centerpiece of the conservative legal agenda has been realized and that what happens next will be less consequential. Unfortunately, nothing could be further from the truth. The Court, with its conservative super-majority, is just getting started reversing precedent now that it has the numbers.

One of the most important cases getting decided this term is Haaland v Brackeen, a challenge to the Indian Child Welfare Act, also known as ICWA. That law was enacted in 1978 to halt the forced removal of Native children from their families.

The story of Indian child removal has gotten some attention in the last couple years because of the mass graves of Indian children found at boarding schools in Canada and the United States. As with so much of Native American history, much has been obscured.

Before ICWA, 25 to 35 per cent of Native American and Native Alaskan children were removed from their homes and placed in non-Native homes or in residential boarding schools. This taking was an effort to disintegrate Native identity and to destroy tribal nations. There is no future without children and the scale of the taking was dramatic.

The aim of ICWA was to halt this cultural genocide. In the current litigation, ICWA is supported by 497 federally recognized tribes and 23 states as a law that is foundational to tribal rights and the preservation of indigenous families.

ICWA grants Native children the right to foster care placements that favor Native communities. If a state court determines a Native child must be removed from their home, Native family or tribal members must be given priority placement. ICWA only applies in child welfare and adoption proceedings.

Sarah Kastelic, the Executive Director of the National Indian Child Welfare Association, has broadly presented what she calls the recipe for colonization “consistently followed by colonizers to colonize Indigenous people”. Kastelic says there are five ingredients:

“ 1. Take the land.
2. Control the natural resources, especially water.
3. Usurp, replace indigenous governance to delegitimize Indigenous thought.
4. Undermine Native worldview, values, traditions, beliefs and
5. Sever Native children from their source of identity, from their culture, from their sense of belonging, from that sense of connectedness to something.”

The plaintiffs in Brackeen claim ICWA is unconstitutional on its face. The plaintiffs are non-Indian families who wish to adopt American Indian children (as well as the state of Texas). They argue that ICWA discriminates on the basis of race by treating Native children differently than non-Native children. Essentially they argue reverse discrimination, citing violation of the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.

They also argue ICWA provisions exceed the plenary power granted to Congress to regulate tribal relations with states and the national government.

What is shocking about the Plaintiffs’ case is their erasure of the history of racism faced by Native Americans and Native tribes. They brush over the long history of Indian child removal and minimize that experience. Even with ICWA, Native children are still removed at a rate two to three times that of white children. It seems like the plaintiffs want to pretend racism is over.

The plaintiffs’ argument that they are victims of reverse discrimination is particularly insidious. Many Americans think of American Indians as a racial group – not a political one. The distinction is critical.

Under federal Indian law, American Indian tribes are nations. During the first 90 plus years of its existence, the United States entered into and ratified more than 370 treaties with indigenous people who lived in what became the lower 48 states. Each treaty ratification represented a formal recognition by the federal government that the other parties to the treaties were fully sovereign nations. This is true under customary international law and by provision of the U.S. Constitution.

The United States defaulted on its responsibilities under every single treaty obligation with the Native tribes. In fact, there is even a 1903 Supreme Court case, Lone Wolf v Hitchcock that holds Congress may unilaterally break its treaty obligations to Indians under its plenary power. I would argue that where Native tribes are concerned, the law has long been broken although controversies in the legal forum must continue to be contested.

ICWA does not apply to all people of Native descent. It only applies to children who are “a member of an Indian tribe” or who are “eligible for membership in an Indian tribe and are the biological child of a member of an Indian tribe”. ICWA is not a race-based law.

Many Indian tribes remain extremely worried about how the Supreme Court will resolve Brakeen. Given the conservative super-majority and their demonstrated record of reversing precedent, tribal sovereignty and nationhood are on the line.

There is a history of the federal government using a variety of methods to end its nation-to-nation relationship with tribes. The 1950’s is referred to as a “termination era” since there was an aggressive effort then to break up tribal nations. Among other things, the federal government terminated recognition of 109 tribes, it removed 1.3 million acres of land from trust status and it attacked tribal criminal jurisdiction over crimes involving non-natives on tribal lands.

In 1952, the government’s Urban Indian Relocation program encouraged Native people to leave reservations with the lure of good jobs, housing and education. These promises never materialized.

In her brilliant podcast, This Land, Rebecca Nagle, a citizen of Cherokee Nation, dives deep into the Haaland v Brakeen case. She shows how the Brakeen case raises challenges that go far beyond child welfare. Right wing lawyers have targeted tribal sovereignty and conservative dark money, particularly the Bradley Foundation, has financed the litigation. More is going on in this case than meets the eye.

Nagle describes what she calls a combination of greed and charity. The law firm Gibson Dunn who represent the Brakeen plaintiffs also represent oil and gas industries and two of the largest casinos in the world. In a January 2022 federal court filing on behalf of a casino, Gibson Dunn argue that tribal gaming is unconstitutional using the same equal protection argument they use in Brakeen. There are no coincidences here.

While no one knows how the Supreme Court will rule in Brakeen, it is hard to be optimistic. Justice Neil Gorsuch has had a history of siding with Native Americans but that only makes the likely line-up 5-4 with the majority still siding with the conservatives.

At the oral argument held earlier this month, some of the conservative justices seemed clueless about Native sovereignty and how ICWA actually works. The three liberal justices and Justice Gorsuch expressed skepticism toward the plaintiffs’ arguments.

ICWA has now faced more challenges than the Affordable Care Act. If the Court finds ICWA unconstitutional, the entire edifice of American Indian law could potentially tumble. All kinds of statutes like those impacting health care, land, water and gaming rights could be adversely affected. A decision by the Supreme Court is expected in June.

It is funny being from New England. I am surrounded by Red Sox fans. My own son Josh is a Red Sox fan. My work friends are mostly Red Sox fans. But, as someone who grew up in the Philadelphia area, I am a lifelong Phillies fan. My Phillies love has deep roots.

My parents were both diehard Phillies fans. They took me to many games starting out at Connie Mack Stadium, moving on to the Vet and then Citizens Bank Park. Later in their lives, my parents watched every Phillies game on TV.

They did live to see the 2008 Phillies team of Ryan Howard, Jimmy Rollins, Chase Utley and Shane Victorino win the World Series. My mom had previously said that the Phillies manager Charlie Manuel was “a moron”. After the World Series, she revised her view. She said, “Charlie Manuel is a genius”.

When I was around ten, my dad took me and my friend Hank to spring training in Clearwater, Florida. Seeing the players up close I was star struck. I got autographs from Phillies stars Richie Ashburn, Robin Roberts and Curt Simmons. To a little kid, the players were like gods.

I was the kind of kid who memorized batting averages and pitchers’ ERAs. In my yard playing wiffleball and later playing on the Merion Stars little league team, I grew to love the sport.

My dad took me to Connie Mack Stadium to see the Phillies play the San Francisco Giants. Late in the game, the Giants Hall of Fame slugger Willie McCovey hit a towering homer over the light tower in right field to beat the Phils. I recall crying.

The Phillies were the first team in the majors to lose 10,000 games. That happened back in 2007. If you are a Phillies fan, losing is not unfamiliar. Founded in 1883, the Phillies are the oldest continuous same-name, same city franchise in American professional sports. There have been many, many losing seasons.

In 1964, the Phils were up 6 1/2 games with 10 to play, an almost insurmountable lead. This was the team of rookie of the year Dick Allen, Jim Bunning, and Johnny Callison. They had a west coast swing. Late at night, under the covers, I listened to the Phillies-Dodgers game on my transistor radio. With earphones plugged in, I listened to the play by play. My parents assumed I was asleep. The Phillies proceeded to have an epic meltdown. The Phils did the impossible, dropping out of contention as the season ended.

My parents and I went to a June 2003 game at the Vet between the Phillies and the Red Sox. Pedro Martinez was on the mound for the Sox. We got tickets late and the only tickets available were high up in the 700 section in right field. The 700 section had a well-earned reputation and that day didn’t disappoint. Many fans were drinking and fights were breaking out. My mom turned to me and said, “You’re with your people”. Philadelphia fans are famous.

The game was fantastic. It went into extra innings. Nomar Garciaparra went six for six that day. The Phils won 6-5 when pinch hitter Todd Pratt hit a two run homer in the bottom of the 13th. Jim Thome hit two homers and Bobby Abreu had one. The Sox wasted a great effort by Pedro.

Part of the enchantment of the Phillies 2022 run to the World Series is their history of losing. In Philadelphia, there is an expectation of failure. This year the Phillies who were total underdogs smashed that. They had been counted out by all the experts.

Just to recall, they were 22-29 in early June when they fired their manager Joe Girardi and hired bench coach Rob Thomson to be manager. On June 25, their star, Bryce Harper, broke his thumb when he was hit by a pitch. At that point, most Phillies fans thought the season was over but amazingly the team started winning.

Harper did not return until August 26 but the Phillies went 32-20 without him. That gift from the Red Sox, Kyle Schwarber, ended up hitting 46 home runs, leading the National League. The Phillies barely got into a playoff spot.

Their playoff run was pure Cinderella. They won series against the Cardinals, the Braves and the Padres to make it to the World Series. The moment that floored me was when the Phils scored six runs in the top of the ninth against the National League central hchampion Cardinals. The Phillies seemed dead before that.

Even though they ended up losing the World Series, what the Phillies did was to mesmerize the whole city of Philadelphia. To say they lifted spirits doesn’t describe the positive vibrations generated. Walking around the city, the number of people wearing Phillies paraphernalia was staggering. It was eleven years since the Phillies were even in a playoff game. As Jason Kelce once said about the Eagles, “Hungry dogs run faster”. The Phillies were hungry dogs.

Life in 2022 has so many stresses. In the last year, I have seen four friends die. Over a million died from COVID. The world has largely failed to respond to climate change. The UN chief Antonio Gutteres says humanity is on a “highway to climate hell with our foot on the accelerator”. Nuclear war emerges again as a distinct possibility.

I am thankful to baseball for taking us away from all that, if only for a short time. The pleasure of watching great games was a gift. It was hard not to marvel at Bryce Harper’s super clutch homer in game five that took out the Padres. The sheer drama kept me glued to the TV. What was particularly cool was underdogs winning. It doesn’t happen enough in life. I wished my parents, my sister, and my Phillies/Eagles fan friend Harold could have still been alive to see it.

Although it can sometimes seem unbearably slow, baseball is one of those things that keep us sane. It helps us get through and sends a message that hope springs eternal. Spring training is right around the corner.

The violent assault on Paul Pelosi, the husband of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, stands out as a watershed event. It highlights the seriousness of the threat of far right domestic terrorism. Speaker Pelosi is the highest ranking government official to be victimized. Whether you are a Democrat, a Republican, or an independent, such violent assaults on any political leader are unacceptable in a democracy.

The reports from the San Fransisco police and the FBI show that the goal of the attacker was to kidnap the House Speaker. He told the police after his arrest that he planned to interrogate and torture the Speaker. If she did not tell him the truth as he saw it, he was going to break her kneecaps. By breaking her kneecaps, she would then have to be wheeled into Congress, The attacker believed this would show others in Congress that there were consequences for their actions.

In his police interview, the attacker said that he considered Pelosi the “leader of the pack” of lies told by Democrats. The Washington Post has reported that the attacker, David DePape, had a “voluminous blog” that was “filled with deeply racist and antisemitic writings – as well as pro-Trump and anti-Democratic posts”.

The attacker did fracture the skull of an 82 year old man with a hammer. Politics aside, this was a vicious assault on an elderly man but instead of any thoughtfulness or self-reflection, the response of many Republicans was to spin baseless conspiracy theories to deflect blame. This is in keeping with the Republicans not owning the hate they have been spewing against opponents. It leads deranged people to act.

It should not be surprising that the MAGA movement produces David DePapes. The movement has been propelled by hate and fear of its enemies. Its enemies are not simply people with whom they disagree. MAGA turns its enemies into ridiculous dehumanized caricatures: satanic pedophiles, blood drinkers and groomers.

In assessing how our media has dealt with the Pelosi event, I do not think the context has been appropriately defined. Over the last seven years, former President Trump has stoked political violence and he has used his political rallies to train his followers to see violence in a positive light. He has been helping to create a mass psychology that sees violence as acceptable.

The Pelosi attack must be seen inside the context of Trump’s continuous vilification of his political enemies. Trump called Pelosi “crazy Nancy”, “sick woman” and he has said “she’s got a lot of problems, a lot of mental problems”. On November 7, Trump called Pelosi “an animal”. I think Trump particularly has demonized Pelosi because she has frequently called him out and clearly has gotten under his skin.

Among January 6 defendants, over ten voiced death threats against Pelosi. Greg Reffitt, a far right extremist who has been convicted of multiple January 6-related felonies, threatened to forcibly remove Congress members. He said:

“I don’t care if Pelosi’s head is hitting every step while I drag her by the ankles – she’s coming out.”

When Paul Pelosi’s attacker asked “Where is Nancy?” It evoked the creepy crowd chants from January 6 when rioters roamed Congress and in a bloodthirsty way, sought her.

From the early days of when Trump started campaigning in 2015, he has been all about political violence. Remember when he told his rally crowds to beat up protesters and he offered to pay the legal bills of his supporters who inflicted violence. Trump said things like “punch them in the face” and “knock the crap out of them”.

Cruelty has been his defining brand whether it was putting children in cages or telling border guards to shoot migrants in the leg. On January 6, Trump said “if you don’t fight like hell, you won’t have a country any more”.

Many prominent Republicans have either remained silent or they have followed Trump’s lead on the violence. House minority leader Kevin McCarthy has said,

“I want you to watch Nancy Pelosi hand me that gavel. It will be hard not to hit her with it but I will bang it down.”

There are so many examples of the over-the-top violent rhetoric from Republicans. Marjorie Taylor Greene has said Pelosi is guilty of treason, a crime punishable by death. Steve Bannon talks about putting the heads of liberals on pikes at the corners of the White House as a warning. Paul Gosar posted an anime video where he attacked and killed Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez with a sword.

And it is not all talk. In 2018, Trump superfan Cesar Sayoc mailed pipe bombs to Democratic leaders before that mid-term election. In 2020, there was the plot to kidnap Michigan governor Gretchen Whitmer. In October, a Pennsylvania man pled guilty to threatening to kill Rep. Eric Swalwell. Threats against members of Congress are more than ten times as high as just five years ago.

Invariably, Republicans will bring up the attack on Rep. Steve Scalise and the threat to Justice Brett Kavanaugh. There is no comparability. Democrats immediately condemned the violence in both situations. Republicans remain motivated toward violence by Trump’s demagoguery and the FOX echo chamber.

The Pelosi attack shows the MAGA Republican pattern. First downplay the attack. Then deny the harm done. Then offer disinformation and conspiracy theories. Republican Party leadership is complicit in the violence because of their inaction and failure to speak out against it.

Democracy requires an appreciation of pluralism and tolerance. For democracy to work, opposing sides must accept the results of elections. That means accepting losing sometimes. Republican election denialism is incompatible with a functioning democracy.

Benito Mussolini once said. “Blood alone moves the wheels of history”. But violence is neither moral nor patriotic. Violence is the road to the destruction of our democracy.

The conventional tale of American history leaves out so much. We learn about the Founding Fathers, presidents and generals. We are less likely to learn about civil rights leaders, no matter how outstanding. Pauli Murray falls into that category of unknowns. Born in 1910, she may be the hero who most has escaped attention, recognition and appreciation.

Murray was a leader in the struggle against race and sex discrimination, a lawyer, a poet, an author, and an Episcopal priest. She was a pathbreaker almost before there was a path. Even though she was a pivotal figure, she is barely known.

In her new book, Lady Justice, the legal writer, Dahlia Lithwick, gives Murray the prominence she deserves. There is also a very good documentary about her titled My Name is Pauli Murray that is available on Prime.

Her story is remarkable for the adversities she overcame. She was an orphan. Her mother died when she was 3 and her father was committed to a psychiatric institution where he died after being beaten by a racist guard. She went to live with her Aunt Pauline in Durham, North Carolina.

Murray, as a young African American girl, grew up in a world defined by racism. In that time, the Klan was powerful and 50-60 people were lynched yearly in the South. Danger was omnipresent. Murray went to segregated schools. Her aunt taught school and she accompanied her aunt to classes and learned to read at age 5, She remained a voracious reader and writer her whole life.

In 1938, she applied to the University of North Carolina and received a rejection letter which stated “members of your race are not admitted to UNC”. Later, after going to Hunter College and Howard University Law School, where she graduated first in her class, Harvard Law School would not accept her for graduate study even though accepting the number one graduate had been a Howard tradition. The reason for her rejection was being a woman.

When in Howard Law, she was the only woman in her class her first two years. One professor told her he didn’t know why women went to law school. Murray said she experienced Jane Crow – not just Jim Crow.

From an early age, she was gender non-conforming. She called herself Pauli rather than her birth name Anna Pauline. She believed she was a man trapped in a woman’s body. Her Aunt Pauline, who doted on her and gave her unconditional love, called Pauli my “boy/girl”. She tried unsuccessfully to get hormone treatment. It would appear she was transgender before that word existed. Her gender issues were a source of enormous distress and turmoil throughout her life.

Murray opposed segregation from an early age. She walked everywhere and refused to ride segregated streetcars. In 1940, 15 years before Rosa Parks refused to go to the back of the bus, Murray and a friend, Adelene McBean, refused to move to the back of a bus when it crossed the Mason-Dixon Line. She and McBean were jailed in Virginia for this racial heresy.

Undaunted, Murray contacted the NAACP. She wanted to challenge segregation. In the process she met Thurgood Marshall who then worked for the NAACP. Although that case did not go forward because the judge reduced charges to disturbing the peace. Murray became enthralled by lawyering. She saw it as a way to fight back. She started being an adviser to the NAACP.

At the time Murray started practicing law in the mid-1940’s, there were only about 100 African American women lawyers in the United States. Legal jobs were hard to get, especially for minorities and women but the Methodist Church hired Murray to write an explanation of segregation laws in America as the church wanted to understand its legal obligations.

Murray produced a 746 page book, State Laws on Race and Color.. Marshall called it “the Bible” for civil rights litigation. A creative thinker, Murray pioneered new legal theories for fighting race and sex discrimination.

She argued the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment should be used to overturn Plessy v Ferguson, the Supreme Court case that had upheld “separate but equal”. She believed state segregation laws should be challenged as unconstitutional rather than trying to prove the inequalities of “separate but equal”. She foresaw the end of Plessy long before others in the legal world did. In 1944 she wrote her senior law school paper about it.

She also pioneered the use of the 14th Amendment to attack gender discrimination. Ruth Bader Ginsberg put Murray’s name on the Supreme Court brief she wrote in the landmark sex discrimination case, Reed v Reed, because of Murray’s theoretical contribution. Ginsberg relied on a law review article co-wriiten by Murray.

Behind the scenes, Murray was showing how equal protection applied to women. That was a novel position then. For both Thurgood Marshall and Ruth Bader Ginsberg, Murray was a powerful influence.

Murray herself co-counselled a successful case in Alabama that held that women had an equal right to serve on juries.

President Franklin Roosevelt’s wife Eleanor developed a close relationship with Murray. Mrs Roosevelt became almost a surrogate mother. Murray had written both Roosevelts complaining about the failure to enforce civil rights law. She and Mrs Roosevelt corresponded regularly and became confidantes.

Her legal career had many different incarnations. After a stint as a Deputy Attorney General in California and also as a corporate lawyer in New York City, she moved to Africa and taught law in Ghana, She later became a professor at Brandeis. Along the way, she, along with Betty Friedan, co-founded the National Organization of Women. She served on the national board of the ACLU from 1965-1974.

In the last phase of her life, Murray shocked many by resigning her tenured job at Brandeis to become an Episcopal priest. She was a deeply religious person and the first African American woman to be ordained in the Episcopal church. She said, “What I say very often is that I’ve lived to see my lost causes found”. Murray died in 1985.

Her poem Dark Testament contains two lines which capture her:

“I speak for my race and my people
The human race and just people.”

When I was growing up, my family belonged to Main Line Reform Temple, a reform Jewish congregation in the Philadelphia suburbs. I was bar mitzvahed and confirmed there. For about ten years, I regularly attended Hebrew School at the temple. During that time, I do not ever recall seeing a police guard or any kind of security at or around the temple.

My grandchild now goes to a daycare located in a Jewish school connected to a synagogue, also in the Philadelphia suburbs. When there recently, the first thing I noticed was the security guard at the only open door. Many temples and Jewish institutions have been forced to take security much more seriously.

Welcome to 2022! It is like Pandora’s box has opened and more virulent anti-semites have jumped out. Neo-nazis and white supremacists have long been an isolated fringe but they are no longer so fringe. Now they have a home in the Republican Party.

For a party that has talked about “draining the swamp”, the Republicans have let the swamp in. You hear no voices in the Republican Party saying they need to purge anti-semites or racists from the party. Winning is everything even if that means accepting those who promote anti-semitism and racism.

If anyone bothered to look at who participated in the January 6 insurrection, the MAGA movement included a hefty component of neo-nazis and white supremacists. The Camp Auschwitz tee-shirts grabbed me along with the Proud Boy 6MWE shirts which stands for “Six Million Wasn’t Enough”.

NPR reported on the case of Timothy Hale-Cusanelli of New Jersey who was just convicted of five criminal counts for his role on January 6. Hale-Cusanelli served in the U.S. Army Reserves and he also worked as a security guard at a naval base.

Naval investigators talked to 44 people at the Navy base where Hale-Cusanelli worked and 34 described Hale-Cusanelli “as having extremist or radical views pertaining to the Jewish people, minorities and women”. He asked new colleagues if they were Jewish. He told a Naval Petty Officer “Hitler should have finished the job”.

He avidly supported former President Trump and he texted a friend that Democrats might steal the 2020 election through “n*****rigging”. He told his roommate that “Jewish interests” controlled the Democrats.

A long time family friend, Cynthia Hughes, has been advocating for Hale-Cusanelli and other January 6 defendants as “political prisoners”. Hughes appeared at a Trump rally on September 3 in Wilkes-Barre Pennsylvania complaining about Hale-Cusanelli’s treatment.

Hughes created a non-profit called Patriot Freedom Project which has raised more than a million dollars. It has been supported by Steve Bannon and Dinesh D’Souza. No Republicans have expressed any concerns about support for a Nazi sympathizer. The Republican Big Tent includes neo-nazis.

In Arizona, the Arizona Republic, a prominent paper in the state, has run seven op-eds since August on the issue of anti-semitism and Republican candidates.

Arizona Congressman Paul Gosar and State Rep. Mark Finchem, Republican candidate for Arizona Secretary of State, have touted their endorsement from the social media site, Gab, run by Andrew Torba, a self-identified Christian nationalist. Torba has said Jews are not welcome on his site. Gab was the site utilized by the shooter who killed 11 Jews at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh in 2018.

On September 14, Finchem, who is an Oath Keeper, tweeted that Arizona Democratic politicians are “liars and deceivers” whose “loyalty is to George Soros and Mike Bloomberg”. This is straight-up anti-semitism linking Democrats to Jewish billionaires. It is no different than earlier generations tying Rothschild bankers to nefarious deeds. A loose association makes the anti-semitic connection. George Soros is the current Jewish go-to guy for anti-semites.

In Pennsylvania, Republican gubernatorial candidate Doug Mastriano participated in the January 6 insurrection. He has attacked his Jewish opponent, Pa. Attorney General Josh Shapiro, for sending his children to a Jewish day school. Mastriano is also a Christian nationalist who has posted that abortion is “so much” worse than the Holocaust. He has paid Gab thousands of dollars to recruit campaign supporters.

Former President Trump also got into the anti-semitic act again tweeting on his platform Truth Social that “U.S. Jews have to get their act together” and show him some gratitude “before it is too late”. Trump contrasted U.S. Jews negatively to evangelicals who love him more. He didn’t explain what he meant by “before it is too late”.

Then, of course, there was Trump ally and influencer, Kanye West, saying he was “going death con 3 on JEWISH PEOPLE” who he said try to “black ball anyone who opposes your agenda”.

There are many other examples. I would suggest that Trump has licensed his followers that it is okay to express bigotry. In the Republican Party, there is no consequence for expressing antisemitic or racist views.

This is how hate gets normalized and accepted. Repetition of anti-semitic tropes and memes lead to people becoming anesthetized to the hate. The anti-semitism is often coded or couched as humor on far right sites. Inevitably, hate crimes follow.

Instead of having a political platform, the Republicans now run against “the other”, like immigrants, minorities, Muslims, Jews, LGBTQ people and women.

In the Jewish world, we have seen the movie “Blame the Jews for Everything” replay for 2,000 years. Admittedly, it is not there yet in the U.S. but it is not reassuring when neo-nazis and white supremacists are not only tolerated, they are recruited. The fascist movie always features anti-semitism. If there are any Republicans of conscience left in that party, they need to speak up. A fascist foothold in a major political party can only lead to worse.