Category: Ethics in Government

By Posted on Posted in Activism, Business Ethics, Democracy, Ethics in Government, language, Politics, propaganda, Protests and Crackdowns, Social and Economic Justice Tagged with , ,

I’m starting this post at 2:30 a.m. on January 21, as I prepare to board a bus to Washington, joining the Women’s March for human rights that will greet the newly sworn in US president on his first full day of office. Hundreds of thousands are expected in Washington, New York, Los Angeles, and many smaller communities. Post-event note: at least 3.3 million to 4.6 million demonstrators came out around the US, plus hundreds of thousands more elsewhere in the world in more than 600 events. I’m finishing it the next day.

Several people have asked me, “Why don’t you give him a chance?” And my father-in-law, a liberal, shocked me with a different question: “He won. Why are you still marching?” Later, someone else asked me the same question on Facebook.

Marching at the Women's March on Washington with my wife and children
Marching at the Women’s March on Washington with my wife and children (from left: son-in-law Bobby, daughter Alana, wife Dina, me, son Rafael)


The Chances DT Has Failed to Take

I have given him not one chance but many, and he has failed to take them. I feel it is my patriotic duty to speak out against his agenda, to remind him that he not only has no sweeping mandate—he lost the popular vote “bigly”—and to remind my fellow Americans that his election was not clean and his behavior has not met any legitimacy tests.

This was already abundantly clear during the campaign. Back in August, I wrote an open letter to DT that called him out for his racism, misogyny, and bullying.

Despite my harsh language, when he eked out his narrow victory, I was still willing to give him lots of chances. But here’s what happened, just to name a few:

I don’t want to make this blog into a book, so I will stop there. I would love to have been wrong on this. I would have deeply delighted in the emergence of a new and different DT, one who really was trying to “make America great.”

My Patriotic Duty
One final reason why I marched: the most important one of all! As a patriotic American who believes this country is already great and that DT’s and/or his surrogates’ policies on the environment, women’s rights, minority rights, education, freedom of the press and other freedoms in the Bill of Rights, and a whole host of other issues are not just the wrong path, but take us down the ugly (and utterly unacceptable) road that Germany and Russia took in the 1930s. I not only refuse to be part of that takedown, I feel it is my duty as someone who cares about my country to stand up and say NO. When my as-yet-unborn grandchildren ask me, decades from now, what I did to protect our country and planet at this critical time, I will be able to stand proudly, as my mother did about her role in the Civil Rights movement in the 1960s, and say that I was there. I stood up for what’s right.

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By Posted on Posted in Activism, Democracy, Ethics in Government, Politics, Protests and Crackdowns, Social and Economic Justice Tagged with , , , , , ,

For many of us, we are one month away from the greatest threat to democracy in the history of our country. The incoming administration presents a threat greater than the Alien and Sedition Acts under John Adams…the persecution of antiwar activists in World War I and the Palmer Raids that followed that war…the McCarthy witchhunts…the George W. Bush coup and the illegal, immoral wars that resulted.

Tonight is the first night of Chanukah. The word “Chanukah” means “dedication,” and celebrates the rededication of the Temple in Jerusalem after throwing out the occupiers. I am dedicating this blog post to all those who feel threatened by a president-to-be who has repeatedly spoken out in hatred and incited violence against Muslims, immigrants, people of color, women, even people with disabilities, and who has done nothing to quell the violence of his supporters against these groups as well as people who identify as LGBTQ and Jews.

It also happens to be my 60th birthday. I made my first action for social change at age 3, and became serious about activism at 12. I’ve been doing what I can to create a better world ever since, and I will “not go gentle into that good night”

I have personally been actively organizing ever since the morning after the election. I’ve attended meetings on how to be an ally for people facing hate crimes in the streets or ICE agents on their doorstep. I’ve written to DT making the business case for keeping the Paris climate accord and I’ve written on how social entrepreneurs can still thrive in the coming years. I’ve signed what feels like hundreds of petitions, made dozens of phone calls, reached out to dozens of activists to show a path of hope and action, attended a “where do we go from here” mass meeting with about 800 people, and marched in front of the nearest state capital while the electors voted—and in the streets of nearby cities for several rallies.

Demonstrators at the Connecticut State Capital as electors voted December 19, 2016. Photo by Shel Horowitz.
Demonstrators at the Connecticut State Capital as electors voted December 19, 2016. Photo by Shel Horowitz.

I’ve just read two different articles that I wish I’d written.

First, in the Washington Post, a great analysis by Erica Chenowith of the power of nonviolent action, with links to excellent primary sources. She lists 10 different ways nonviolent resistance out-accomplishes violent resistance—with examples including the tens of thousands saved by nonviolent resistance to the Nazis. This is a tiny fraction of the total. The brilliant nonviolence historian Gene Sharp listed 193 different nonviolent activist tactics, decades ago. By now, the number is probably much higher.

And second, an essay by Barbara Kingsolver on why we cannot sit back in paralysis, how we have to act. She recognizes that many of us are grieving. More importantly, she recognizes our tendency as liberals, to make our accommodations and be good citizens, just as we were under Reagan and both Bushes.

But, she says, this time is different. We have no obligation to cooperate with a president who:

  • Trumpets an agenda of repression, completely at odds with the wishes of most Americans (even many who voted for him)
  • Has no mandate (having lost the popular vote by the largest margin of any “winning” presidential candidate in history)

“We went to bed as voters, and got up as outsiders to the program,” she writes. And provides a nice list of ways we can agitate and organize, even if we see ourselves as polite Boomers who long ago left behind the 1960s-70s politics of the streets.

Personally, I never left the streets behind. But it’s been nice, in recent years to march as often to celebrate victories as to protest injustice. We may not have that luxury very often in the next few years. But that doesn’t mean we crawl into a hole and give up.

Its perhaps fitting that I found both of these stories through Mary Jane Sullivan, whom I met on an activist bus to an organizing conference in 1978, and who was my housemate for my last year and a half in Brooklyn, 1979-80. Like me, she has spent her whole life fomenting positive change. There are millions of Boomers like us, and millions of Millennials like my kids, who still see activism as a key component of our lives.

We will NOT be silenced!

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By Posted on Posted in Branding, Business Ethics, Copywriting, Democracy, Ethics in Government, language, Marketing Techniques and Philosophies, Politics, propaganda, Transparency vs. Secrecy Tagged with , , , ,

Dear Senator Gillibrand,

I have been a fan of your since you took office. However, after following your Facebook link to the Planned Parenthood funding survey, I have to say I felt tricked, deceived, and betrayed.

I’ve used this blog to call out unethical marketing from various companies over the years. And even though you and I share many political views (including a strong commitment to women’s rights)—I have to call you out on this.

The initial question that led to the dead end
The initial question that led to the dead end

I had no problem with the initial one-question survey. But then I opted in to the follow-up questions.

First, as a survey instrument, the questions were useless. Each had only a yes or no option, written in language that showed a clear bias toward one answer. Yes, you’ll be able to prepare a press release that could cite a number like 95 percent of respondents—but it’s meaningless. You’d be laughed off the page, or worse, publicly shamed, by journalists who bother to look at the source data.

Second, after I checked off my answers and tried to submit, my phone took me to a page demanding money. I say demanding rather than asking, because there was no way out except by giving money. My submit button was refused when I left the field blank and refused again when I put in a zero. And when I exited the page without contributing, it tried to post to my Facebook page that I had just contributed to you. I have no way of knowing if my responses were actually counted—but I can tell you I did not appreciate being trapped and manipulated like this.

I don’t have a problem being asked for money at the end of a survey, when it’s my choice whether to give or not. But this felt like a shakedown, quite frankly. It left a very bad taste.

I would find this unacceptable from any politician and any charity. But since you were “the very first member of Congress to put her official daily schedule, personal financial disclosure and federal earmark requests online” and cited by The New York Times for your commitment to transparency, I find this an especially bitter pill.

As a marketer, I am saddened to see you resorting to Trumpian tactics based in dishonesty and lack of transparency. You’re better than this. In Michelle Obama’s famous line, “When they go low, we go high.”

Sincerely,

Shel Horowitz, marketing strategist and copywriter

Going Beyond Sustainability | Home

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By Posted on Posted in Business Ethics, Democracy, Ethics in Government, Ethics-International, Politics, propaganda Tagged with , , , , , , , ,

On Monday, the US Electoral College will be officially deciding whether Donald Trump will be president of the United States.

Caricature of Donald Trump by DonkeyHotey, Creative Commons License: https://www.flickr.com/photos/donkeyhotey/5471912349/sizes/m/in/photostream/
Caricature of Donald Trump by DonkeyHotey, Creative Commons License: https://www.flickr.com/photos/donkeyhotey/5471912349/sizes/m/in/photostream/

Alexander Hamilton had several reasons for proposing this convoluted structure. Some of them were not so noble, like giving more power to slave states. But one is worth noting: providing a check against the office going to someone unfit to hold it.

And just because that body has never found a winner unfit doesn’t mean it can’t. This time, there are a whole bunch of reasons why it might want to exercise that power. Some of them are about his complex financial empire, some about his personal actions—and some about the questionable integrity of this year’s voting process. Any one of these should be enough to say, “Hey, wait a minute, this is not OK.” Here are ten among many.

  1. Refusal to divest of investments that could influence policy
  2. Unlike every major party presidential candidate in decades, refusal to disclose his taxes
  3. Probable intervention by a foreign government (Russia), according to the CIA (Central Intelligence Agency)—and the request by some Electors for a briefing on this
  4. His opponent winning the popular vote by an astounding 2,833,224 votes
  5. Trump has been named in at least 169 separate lawsuits—for fraud, antitrust violations, discrimination, and sexual harassment (among other issues). One is especially worth highlighting: A consolidated fraud case (including two class action suits plus one filed by New York State’s Attorney General that Trump settled for $25 million alleged that his Trump University was a scam
  6. Interference in legitimate recount efforts in three states where exit polls showed a Democratic victory but the state was called for Trump
  7. Refusal to accept intelligence briefings, a daily part of every president’s morning since forever
  8. Threats to the First Amendment guarantees of freedom of speech, press, and assembly
  9. Threats and incitements to violence against a vast range of people, from Hillary Clinton to an 18-year-old college student
  10. Insults both to whole classes of Americans and to individuals who disagreed with him

This, unfortunately, isn’t even the whole story. I haven’t discussed the ludicrous lack of government experience among his Cabinet picks…his own inexperience in any government position…the consistent lying…the well-documented cheating of vendors…the lease he has with the federal government for his new Washington, DC hotel which bars any government employee…his insistence on remaining Executive Producer of Apprentice, as if running the country were a side hustle…the extremist agenda he has embraced…his refusal to meaningfully condemn the hundreds of hate crimes in the aftermath of the election…and on and on it goes.

I hope the Electors in the Electoral College do their patriotic duty, and (in the words made famous by Nancy Reagan) “just say no.”

Note: dozens of petitions to the Electoral College are circulating. Here’s one I like. It allows you to write your own letter (be polite!)

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By Posted on Posted in Activism, censorship, Diversity, Energy & Sustainability, Ethics in Government, Politics, propaganda, Protests and Crackdowns, Social and Economic Justice Tagged with , , , , , ,

NOTE: You’ll find several action steps at the bottom of this post. If you don’t want to read the whole thing, please scroll down to that section and take action before leaving this page.

Watch this video made by Standing Rock Water Protector Candida Rodriguez Kingbird on November 14.

Read a transcript by clicking this link. She claims that a crop duster was spraying the encampment, and only the encampment. Kingbird’s video, or commentary on it, has appeared on many progressive sites and social media profiles.

We know the level of repression against Standing Rock Water Protectors has been consistently shockingly high. There are numerous reports of the authorities using water cannons, tear gas, and even rubber bullets against this peaceful group of Native people fighting nonviolently to protect their water—from a project that was originally to go very close to Bismark, but was rerouted because of worries about what it would do to the water supply.

The link in the paragraph above is to a Christian Science Monitor story with video. The Monitor is a respected mainstream news outlet known for its good journalism over many decades.

We know that the temperature has been in the 20s (Fahrenheit) at Standing Rock—well below freezing—and we know that both demonstrators and journalists have been injured and are being deliberately soaked: a clear recipe for hypothermia. It’s all-too-reminiscent of the tactics used by police departments in the American South against black nonviolent civil rights marchers in the 1950s and 1960s.

I see no reason to doubt Kingbird’s account.

Although a search for “chemical weapons standing rock” didn’t turn up any video of the spraying or any reportage based on a claim by someone else—or coverage in mainstream media, I find Kingbird’s testimony thoroughly believable. I found her a credible witness, someone clearly not used to being a public figure. I didn’t feel she was acting, just reporting—and speaking from the heart.

Brookings Institution researchers felt the job-creation benefits of the pipeline were only half of what pipeline backers have claimed. Former US Secretary of Labor Robert B. Reich says the entire project is economically unsound and will “go belly-up” (scroll back to his post of November 16, 2016). But Donald Trump stands to gain financially by its completion and is an outspoken advocate of tar sands, fracking, and other highly destructive fossil fuel extraction technologies. If Reich is correct, there is no economic justification for the project. In any case, there’s no excuse for the violence. And even if the project were financially viable, it’s been long-acknowledged that one way to avoid climate catastrophe is to STOP extracting fossil fuels, especially those extracted in the most environmentally destructive ways—like the tar sands at issue in the Dakotas and Western Canada.

There is the (faint, IMHO) hope that Obama will protect the area either by revoking the DAP permit or protecting the land as a National Monument in his final weeks, but I am personally not optimistic that either will happen, or that it will survive a near-certain overturn attempt form the new administration.

Actions You Can Take

Petitions (click the marked text to sign, then share them widely):

Stop the violence (Really American)

Declare the area a National Monument (Bernie Sanders supports this approach)

Of course, personal letters count much more, so if you’re inspired, go for it!

 

Phone Calls (with script)

Call the Morton County, ND Sheriff’s Department to tell them to stop attacking. Call the Army Corps of Engineers to tell them to revoke the construction permits. And call the US Department of Justice demanding an investigation into police violence at Standing Rock. (Single action page for all three, via Daily Kos—be sure to click “Not Dina?” if that text shows up on the right)

 

Donate Moneyor Goods to Standing Rock Water Protectors
These organizations were recommended by a friend who was recently out at Standing Rock.

Standing Rock Healers Council: website and Facebook page

Indigenous Youth Council Facebook page

Postal and Paypal addresses for donations :

PayPal: www.paypal.me/ocetisakowincamp

Checks or cash may be sent to:
Oceti Sakowin Camp
P.O. Box 298
Cannon Ball, ND  58528

List of MATERIALS they are seeking
https://www.ocetisakowincamp.org/donate

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By Posted on Posted in Activism, Democracy, Diversity, Ethics in Government, language, People Helping People, Politics, Protests and Crackdowns, Shel's Personal Life, Social and Economic Justice Tagged with , , , , , , , ,

I have publicly condemned election-related/hate crime violence on both sides.  But it’s important to note that there are already more than 700 documented instances of right-on-minority or right-on-female violence and a far smaller number of left-on-Trump-voter incidents.

I do not condone the violence on either side. But I’m sorry, when you have just elected a president who has given license to bullies and attackers for months, it is time for Trump voters also to say “this is not OK.”

Spectators applaud the Forbes Library contingent, #Nohopride 2011
Spectators applaud an LGBT pride march. Photo by Shel Horowitz.

And if DT is really going to take his own “president for all Americans” election-night rhetoric seriously, he needs to issue a far stronger and more convincing demand to stop that behavior than the wimpy few words he reluctantly issued after a CBS reporter asked him directly to rebuke the attackers. And those who voted for DT for reasons that have nothing to do with the subjugation of women, people of color, and non-Christians need to speak out loudly and publicly. Hate crimes of any kind are not OK—and the Right as well as the Left both need to say so.

Trump voters who refuse to speak out and call for cessation of the violence are proving Hillary’s “deplorables” comment. The way to prove her wrong (and I think she is) is to speak out loudly that you, as a Trump voter, will not tolerate violence and threats against racial/religious/sexual minorities and women. That we as a country are better than this. That we can disagree and still be a democracy.

I am putting a safety pin on my coat as a sign that I am someone willing to intervene if I am a witness to a hate crime. I’ve been trained in nonviolence and conflict de-escalation (though it was long ago). If you’ve had some training, think about joining that movement. And if you haven’t, find a way to get that training. Google “nonviolence training” with your city’s or state’s name. And if DT actually implements his proposed Muslim registry, I will be part of a movement to flood that database with non-Muslim registrants so it becomes useless. These are personal risks I am willing to take. We have seen too many times what happens when good people do nothing while others perpetuate evil in their name.

I understand if those actions might be more than you’re willing to do; here’s one that’s totally safe: Sign this petition. Please note in the comments section of THIS that you’ve signed, or better yet, share your own personal letter that you’ve written to Trump.

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By Posted on Posted in Activism, Democracy, Demographics/Psychographics, Diversity, Ethics in Government, Marketing Techniques and Philosophies, Marketing Trends/News, People Helping People, Politics, Psychology, Social and Economic Justice Tagged with , , ,

Two kernels of wisdom to help us all understand what happened on Tuesday.

First, this story in the Boston Globe, “The red state no one saw coming.” A few things worth noting there. First, Hillary’s campaign has only themselves to blame for being complacent, for not shoring up a weak base in states, like Wisconsin, they took for granted.

Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts
Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts

When Sanders trounced her by 13 points in the Wisconsin primary, she didn’t see the warning signs. She didn’t see that people were hurt and angry and demanding change. She didn’t bother to campaign in Wisconsin, while Trump visited five times in the past few months. She didn’t even start running ads there until the final week. And a thin wisp of a margin lost her the state. Rinse and repeat in other places, and you see the pattern. The Globe article notes that some Sanders voters switched to Trump, and this pattern (in my very unscientific observation via Facebook and elsewhere) shows up all across the country. Others, of course, stayed home or voted third-party.

Yes, there were those who voted for Trump out of bigotry. But according to Elizabeth Warren, in a powerful post-election speech, more of his voters were voting for economic change. They supported (she claims) the liberal parts of his agenda, such as trade reform, restoring Glass-Steagall (which I don’t remember him supporting), and rebuilding our country’s infrastructure while creating jobs. Undeterred by the lack of specifics and in many cases holding their noses over his character issues, they voted for a Republican with an old-line Democrat domestic agenda and an appeal to the racist populism that propelled the Democratic Party even into the 1960s. The above link takes you to the video. Full transcript: https://www.elizabethwarren.com/blog/president-elect-donald-trump. Watch or read it; there’s much to learn about how we frame this election and where we go from here.

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By Posted on Posted in Activism, Ethics in Government, People Helping People, Politics Tagged with , ,

Waking up to the shock of almost every swing state going for Trump, crying the first tears I’ve ever shed over an election result, it would be very easy to join the hair-pulling and overanalyzing that will be sure to follow.

The White House. Photo by Emilien Auneau
The White House. Photo by Emilien Auneau

I have lots of ideas about that–but I’m not going to play that game. The past is past. The future is at stake.

The Left needs to ask itself two questions:

  1. What will effective nonviolent resistance to the expected aktions (I deliberately use the German word) around immigrant rights, freedom of the press, etc. (as well as the day-to-day policy struggles around the 1%, climate change, and other issues) look like?
  2. How do we most successfully organize that resistance?

On #2, I finally signed up for (and sent money to) Bernie Sanders’ Our Revolution movement today. I think it has the best chance of bringing this movement forward through electoral channels. But of course, we need a lot more than electoral channels. We need to challenge this new and ugly reality at every turn. The resistance must be strong, rooted in the power of nonviolence, and willing to use every tactic of other successful nonviolent struggles like the US Civil Rights and women’s suffrage movements, the Gandhian struggle for Indian independence, and yes, Occupy.

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By Posted on Posted in Activism, Democracy, Demographics/Psychographics, Diversity, Ethics in Government, language, Marketing Techniques and Philosophies, Marketing Trends/News, People Helping People, Politics, propaganda, Psychology, Social and Economic Justice Tagged with , , , , , , , , , ,

“When they go low, we go high.”—Michelle Obama

The US election is tomorrow, and I’m hoping for a result that utterly repudiates the racism, misogyny, and general hatred spewing from the mouth and keyboard of Donald Trump. That hope got me thinking about a column that ran in our local paper this summer.

The writer is progressive and I usually agree with him. But when he wrote about his experiences as a counterprotestor at a Trump rally, tossing insults at the attenders with his child in tow, I had a growing sense of unease.

Michelle Obama gardening with an elementary school student. Photo courtesy of Whjte House Public Domain
Children from Bancroft Elementary School in Washington, D.C. help First Lady Michelle Obama plant the White House Vegetable Garden, April 9, 2009. (Official White House Photo by Samantha Appleton)

He forgot Michelle Obama’s excellent advice at the Democratic Convention not to stoop to the level of those we oppose.

Yes, it’s very easy to get caught up in a temporary good feeling, hurling insults at Trumpsters and feeling like you’re striking a blow for what’s right and true. But it negates the other side’s humanity. It demeans people. It ignores the phrase popularized by 17th-century Quaker theologian George Fox, “that of God in every [hu]man.”

And it accomplishes the reverse of the desired goal! No one’s mind is changed by being insulted. If anything, when people are belittled, they are more likely to harden their hearts, reinforce their defenses, and stand resolute against what they perceive as the rowdy mob.

Think about the mindset of a Trump supporter encountering a protestor hurling insults. Many of Trump’s supporters are already feeling attacked; that’s why they respond to ideas like building a wall to keep Mexicans out or blocking any Muslim from entering the US. When they get insulted, they’re going to feel even more attacked. Instead of changing their minds, they’re more likely to come away from an encounter with a name-calling protestor feeling more justified in their condemnation of protestors. Instead of being touched at a human level, they wall themselves into the gated communities of a mind that now finds more safety in Trump’s lies and empty threats.

He writes, “what became clear as we shouted back and forth is that there is no common ground whatsoever between Trumpistas and the rest of us.”

But I disagree. When we focus on our differences, on the “otherness” of our “enemy,” we lose sight of what binds us together—yet our commonalities are still there. We all want a word where we feel safe, can earn a decent living, and can raise our children to feel like they matter in this world.

Are there some Trump supporters who are attracted to Trump’s blatant racism and misogyny, the constant lying, incessant bullying and name calling, and all the rest of his hateful message? Of course. But I don’t think it’s anything close to a majority of his voters. He has learned the fine art of framing. Helped by a vitriolic, slanderous 20+ year campaign against his Democratic opponent in right-wing media, he has framed his opponents as crooked and incompetent liars, who are bringing this country down, and he portrays himself as the Messianic savior who can turn the whole thing around, even without clear policy positions—and he’s managed to get enough people to believe this to win the nomination.

Trump is a master of crowd psychology. He speaks to the amygdala, the “reptilian” part of the brain that doesn’t care about facts—and he knows how to work an audience. I’m guessing that he’s probably read many works on manipulating the psyche, including Neurolinguistic Programming. I’m guessing that he has carefully studied the methods the Nazis used to get elected in 1933. This makes his refusal to be bound by facts more understandable. Catch him in a lie and he denies he ever said it, or denies it means what it appears to—because to admit and apologize would pry loose his grip on the minds of his followers. If we mirror his nastiness, we fertilize the field where his metaphorical bacteria can grow. But when we take the high road, we defuse his manipulations with a powerful natural antibiotic: the truth of our common humanity.

Let’s not stoop to Trump’s level. Let’s honor Michelle Obama’s call to take the high road. Rather than call our opponents nasty names, we must win them over to the promise of a better world than Trump can offer: a world that helps them achieve our common universal desires—without stomping on the backs of others.

“When they go low, we go high.” Let’s go really high tomorrow, and show that as a country, we are better than that.

 

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By Posted on Posted in Demographics/Psychographics, Diversity, Ethics in Government, language, Marketing Trends/News, Politics, propaganda, Psychology Tagged with , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

I read a comment by the author of a new book called President Obama Created Donald Trump, claiming that President Obama saw himself and the country as post-racial, and thus didn’t prepare for the consequences of “the catalyst for racial backlash and unrest” that led to Trump’s nomination.

The White House. Photo by Emilien Auneau
The White House. Photo by Emilien Auneau

Interesting theory. But it sounds to me like blame-the-victim. I’m too young to remember FDR, who I know was adamantly hated by conservatives—and who, despite that hostility, was elected four times. When the Republicans got power again in 1952, their standard-bearer was no radical demagogue. It was Eisenhower, a moderate who feared the oligarchy and was the first to call it “the military-industrial complex.”

Obama has borne the brunt of more hostility than any US president in my lifetime (much of it due to his color)—and handled it with remarkable grace. In this author’s view, he is somehow to blame for racism?

Here’s my contrasting view: When the Democratic Party and especially (Texan/Southerner) LBJ began to get serious about undoing racism, the Republicans, starting at least with Richard Nixon and his Southern Strategy (if not earlier) began courting and nurturing the most racist right-wing fanatics in the party. Richard Viguere and his ilk brought fundraising, marketing, and organizing prowess. Reagan came to the party with a new economic agenda geared toward the 1%. Bush II added megalomaniacal ignorance and disastrous foreign and economic policies, yielding two wars and the Great Recession–and a hankering for “change.”

Obama rode that wave but faced an intransigent Congress openly dedicated to sabotaging his efforts. Progressives perceive him (falsely) as not accomplishing much. Yet the Republicans see him as usurping power. Neither accusation has merit, but that’s the public perception.

So people are eager for change. We saw it in the remarkable primary successes of not only Trump but Bernie Sanders (who I supported and voted for, incidentally—and like Bernie, I’m voting for Clinton next month). People feel disenfranchised, powerless, and thoroughly disgusted with the Establishment. Hillary Clinton, destined perhaps to be an even more hated president than Obama or FDR, is the embodiment of that establishment, as is Jeb Bush–one of the first GOP candidates to drop out.

Trump stepped into the vacuum, with lowest-common-denominator messages of hate masked in “Make America great again” rhetoric. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that many of his statements closely parallel quotes from Hermann Goering:

Trump: “I love the poorly educated!”
Goering: “Education is dangerous—every educated person is a future enemy.”

Trump: “The security guys said, Mr. Trump, there may be some people in the back with tomatoes in the audience. If you see somebody with a bag of tomatoes, just knock the crap out of them, would you? I promise you, I will pay for the legal fees.”
Goering: “Shoot first and ask questions later, and don’t worry, no matter what happens, I will protect you.”

Trump: “By the way, if she gets to pick, if she gets to pick her judges, nothing you can do, folks. Although the Second Amendment people, maybe there is, I don’t know. But I tell you what, that will be a horrible day.”
Goering: “Whenever I hear the word culture, I reach for my Browning.”

While his psychopathologies and abusive behaviors (not just the groping, but the lying, cheating, physical intimidation, psychological intimidation, threats of violence, etc.) go beyond even the Republican Party of Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld, Trump’s thinking is a logical extension of his party’s reach for the bottom of the bottom of the bottom of the barrel. He is the next iteration of a pattern that began in the GOP nearly 50 years ago. He is merely the next step the Republican Party has aimed toward for decades.

 

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