Monthly Archives: June 2018

Bowed heads to raised fists

Posted by on 2018-06-30 No comments

Yesterday I attended a “Families Belong Together” rally in New Bedford, one of hundreds of similar events taking place nationwide. Between 400-500 people attended, overflowing into the balcony at the Bethel AME Chuch on County Street. It was good to see friends, neighbors, my sister-in-law, and to hear heartfelt expressions of concern for detained children and famillies. It was a tangible reminder that we — our undocumented friends included — are all members of a single community. It was also an affirmation of our responsibility for one another.

Over the years I’ve been to a number of events like this, often following something horrible — mass shootings, acts of hate, threats to civil liberties. Now it’s the Federal government caging children. Over the years I’ve noticed the same concerned citizens meeting as one, praying as one, the same clergy bowing their heads in unity, making the same reassurances, hearing the same exhortations from politicians and community leaders. There’s a “feel good” aspect to it all that disturbs me. Why aren’t people marching in the streets? Why aren’t there fewer bowed heads and more raised fists?

To be sure, the good friends of immigrants showed up and were counted. Community, union and faith leaders were in the pews. New Bedford House Representative Tony Cabral brought a daughter with every reason to be proud of her dad. New Bedford City Council member Dana Ribeiro spoke warmly to her city, and Brockton Council member Jean Bradley Derenoncourt delivered a moving appeal for America to keep faith with those who arrive here just looking to survive. The Coalition for Social Justice’s Maria Fortes pressed for House adoption of Senate Amendment #1147 — immigrant protections being now considered in conference by the House.

But the event did not reflect well on an overwhelmingly blue Massachusetts House that refused to vote on the Safe Communities Act and on Congressional Democrats who have done little for TPS and DACA recipients (both of whom were present yesterday). With the exception of Tony Cabral, not one other state representative bothered to show up at the New Bedford rally. And the lone U.S. Congressman who spoke should never have been invited.

Bill Keating (MA-09) gave an energetic shirtsleeve speech — all clenched fists and outrage at the Trump administration’s caging of six year-olds. The problem with Keating’s performance was not its dramatic fist-pumping; it was the hypocrisy. Keating has voted repeatedly for GOP anti-immigrant bills. H.R.3009 punished Sanctuary Cities. H.R.4038, the American Security Against Foreign Enemies Act, restricted absorption of Syrian refugees. H.R.3004, “Kate’s Law,” took a hard line against desperate people who re-enter the United States. And Keating’s “On the Issues” statement on immigration reads like it was written by Jeff Sessions himself:

“Bill Keating opposes amnesty. As a District Attorney, Bill Keating enforces our laws and believes that everyone must obey them. His office has prosecuted thousands of criminal cases that resulted in defendants being detained for immigration and deportation action. Bill believes that we must secure our borders, and wants to punish and stop corporations that hire workers here illegally. Bill does not support giving people who are here illegally access to state and federal benefits.”

Toward the end of the rally a group of local children recited ‘families deserve to stay together” in multiple languages, sweetly honoring children now sitting in ICE and CPB cages. With the event ending, clergy lined up awkwardly, a long interfaith blessing was delivered, and attendees filed outside into the hot summer air.

Dreaming of Dred Scott

Posted by on 2018-06-29 No comments

A recent set of Gorsuch-weighted Supreme Court rulings have finally given Republicans something to crow about. The court’s approval of Trump’s Muslim Ban seemed like a blast from the German Vergangenheit but recent labor and reproductive rights rulings have been equally disturbing. Mitch McConnell and Neil Gorsuch met for a photo-op to troll Democrats. Their meeting demonstrated just how badly “checks and balances” work in this country and how shattered American democracy really is.

But while the extreme right exults in the belief that their Crusaders have finally pulled off a Reconquista, let’s remember the Dred Scott decision. Then, as now, the case reflected a Supreme Court that had totally lost its way — and the irreconcilable differences between Americans’ views of what sort of nation we want to be.

Dred Scott was a slave who sued for his and his family’s freedom in a state where slavery was illegal. In 1846 Scott filed suit from St. Louis, Missouri, where since 1824 there had been legal precedent for recognizing the freedom of escaped slaves: “Once free, always free.” Scott’s wife Harriet was friendly with Abolitionists who championed the family’s legal case. Scott lost the suit, re-filed and appealed, and lost again. In 1857 his case was again heard by the United States Supreme Court.

On March 6th, 1857 the Supreme Court ruled 7-2 against Scott. Chief Justice Roger Taney delivered the majority opinion, which was that Africans, free or not, could not be citizens of the United States. “The right of property in a slave is distinctly and expressly affirmed in the Constitution.” Furthermore, African-Americans had “no rights which the white man was bound to respect.” Consequently, freedom and citizenship could not be conferred upon non-whites and, since by the court’s criteria Scott was not a citizen, Scott had lacked “standing” to bring the suit in the first place.

The South did a victory lap. The Richmond Enquirer wrote, “A prize, for which the athletes of the nation have often wrestled in the halls of Congress, has been awarded at last, by the proper umpire, to those who have justly won it. The nation has achieved a triumph, sectionalism has been rebuked, and abolitionism has been staggered and stunned.”

But the Charleston, South Carolina Mercury speculated that this was just the beginning of a greater conflict between North and South: “In the final conflict between Slavery and Abolitionism, which this very decision will precipitate rather than retard, the principles of the judgment in the Dred Scott case may be of some avail to the South in giving an appearance of justice and moderation to its position.”

The Supreme Court had ruled in favor of White Supremacy and slavery but now it was the law. Abolitionists mocked the reckless, immoral ruling and doubled their efforts to end slavery. Ultimately Dred Scott, just as the Mercury had predicted, ignited a national conflagration that overturned slavery and destroyed the South.

Modern-day slavers and reconquistadores want to return us to 1857. America is as deeply divided now as it was then, and the prospects of a Trump Court for decades is deeply unsettling. But the fight for America’s soul is far from over. The arc of justice is frustratingly long but it will arrive. Whether in 2018, 2022, or later — Congress will pass into younger, browner, more progressive hands. Laws will be written to make legally explicit our liberties, protecting them from capricious, partisan rulings. The Trump Court will shuffle around in their robes, dreaming of Dred Scott.

Better Angels

Posted by on 2018-06-28 No comments

The other day I noticed that the liberal-ish press had suddenly become obsessed with civility and had begun hectoring us to listen to our better angels — to “play nice” with the Deplorables. Someone denied a cheeseburger to a White House spokeswoman who lies for a living, defending the cruelest of policies. And you’d have thought the end of civilization was near.

On the importance of maintaining “good form” both CNN and FOX News were in total agreement: “Fox Business host Trish Regan defended CNN’s Jim Acosta on Tuesday, calling verbal attacks on the reporter at a Trump rally are ‘not only bad manners, it’s bad form,’ while calling out both sides for a total lack of civility.”

Lots of people noticed the break from reality and bizarre lack of perspective. Philosopher Robert Paul Wolff (author of “The Poverty of Liberalism”) wrote, “The norms of public political discourse vary considerably from country to country, and even from neighborhood to neighborhood within a country. The British Parliament is much more raucous than the American Congress, and I will not even talk about the Israeli Knesset. Only in the world of the Washington elite does being denied service at a restaurant appear to be a violation of sacred norms calling for serious discussion of the foundations of democratic society. […] But whatever the local norms of civility may be, it can always be asked under what conditions it is right, even required, to violate them as part of a political protest.”

On December 12th, 1964 Malcom X spoke at the Oxford Union Club in England and talked about “the necessity, sometimes, of extremism, in defense of liberty, why it is no vice, and why moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue. […] I doubt that anyone will deny that extremism, in defense of liberty, the liberty of any human being, is a value. Anytime anyone is enslaved, or in any way deprived of his liberty, if that person is a human being, as far as I am concerned he is justified to resort to whatever methods necessary to bring about his liberty again.” Earlier that year Malcom X gave his Ballot or the Bullet speech at King Solomon Baptist Church in Detroit, reminding listeners of the incivility and extremism of the American Revolution. Turns out, for much of American history dissent usually trumps decorum.

Media Matters observed that the “right-wing media are criticizing Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA) after she encouraged people to publicly protest Trump administration officials who are complicit in the atrocious family separation policy at the U.S border. But the ‘civility’ these outlets are touting has been absent in their many vicious past attacks on Waters.”

Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting took the liberal-ish press to task for its preoccupation with manners and distaste for speaking truth to power. FAIR pointed out that the Washington Post had run “three articles between Sunday, June 24, and Monday, June 25, calling for ‘civility’ and criticizing those who interfered with the dining experiences of Trump administration officials.”

In a Bloomberg News editorial, Jonathan Bernstein wrote, “Civility Is Important in a Democracy. So Is Dissent.” Bernstein observed: “In these times, however, it’s a joke to focus on incivility by Democrats even as the Republican president routinely says things that are as bad as or worse than the attacks of the most irresponsible Democratic no-name precinct chair.” In an unusual footnote, Bernstein reminded readers that when it comes to civility in a democracy, “of course incivility wasn’t the most important problem with U.S. democracy; indeed, restrictions on the franchise and full citizenship were so severe that there’s a good case to be made that it wasn’t a real democracy until at least 1965.” Whatever temporary gains we’ve made were made in the street.

Finally, Nation writer Sarah Leonard spoke my mind with her article, “Against Civility: You can’t fight injustice with decorum.” Among Leonard’s excellent points: “Throughout history, activists have seldom won battles against injustice by asking politely. […] The people being targeted [for protest] are adults living and working in a democratic society; facing consequences for their actions, as conservatives would agree, is what grown-ups should all do. […] To cling to civility is to allow the powerful to commit crimes, as long as they do so with a smile and a handshake.”

If we are truly listening to our better angels, they’ve been whispering — “#resist.”

Our answer to hate

Posted by on 2018-06-27 No comments

This my last appeal for citizens to advocate for protections for immigrant families in the 2019 budget. Originally proposed as Budget Amendment #1147 by Senator James Eldridge, these protections have been incorporated into Senate Bill S.2530 and are now in conference with the House. Call your State House Representative to ask them to support immigrant family protections. What’s happening in Washington should terrify and motivate state House Democrats to support such protections. This should be our answer to hate.

Here’s why the protections are so important

The Supreme Court just ruled in favor of Trump’s Muslim Ban. An ACLU petition asks Congress to pass legislation to block racist exclusions like this. While a ban is not the same thing as a registry, we don’t yet know how Trump’s Muslim Ban will affect citizens of the Muslim-majority countries who live in Massachusetts, whether CPB, ICE, or DHS will ask the Commonwealth to help track these Muslim neighbors — or if the occasional law enforcement official might have personal motivations to share data with ICE without authorization.

  • Protections for immigrant families in the 2019 budget bar the Commonwealth from cooperating with such registries.

Trump’s deportation machine is abusing families and children in shockingly cruel ways. Elizabeth Warren has a lengthy report on her visit to a McAllen, Texas Border Patrol facility where she was horrified by the treatment of incarcerated children. A report issued recently describes racially-motivated abuses of detainees in ICE facilities, including the Bristol County House of Correction. Last week it was reported that the Boston Public Schools took it upon themselves to share data with ICE, and on the Cape high school students were reported to ICE by guidance counselors for supposed gang affiliations simply because they spoke Spanish. This insanity must end. Let police deal with real criminals and end vigilantism.

  • Protections for immigrant families in the 2019 budget prevent state officials from being used as federal agents. Only the Massachusetts Department of Corrections will be able to fulfill some of these federal immigration functions.

Customs and Border Patrol is stopping vehicles on parts of I-93 and demanding that passengers produce proof of citizenship. Warrantless stops with requests for “papers!” is creepy and totalitarian enough without state and local police being enlisted in violations of the Fourth Amendment. Even with the 100-mile border “loophole,” many of these stops are unconstitutional. Let’s affirm that, at least in Massachusetts, a “nation of laws” requires warrants and probable cause to stop people.

  • Protections for immigrant families in the 2019 budget define strict rules under which police officers can ask about immigration status and require training on the law for all officers.

Read about these provisions yourself. Despite malicious misinformation, these provisions do not prevent police from arresting real criminals. They do make Massachusetts a lot safer for everyone and strengthen Constitutional protections many of us can still remember once having.

Call your State House Representative to ask them to support protections for immigrant families in the 2019 budget.

Civility

Posted by on 2018-06-26 No comments

As we rapidly slide into authoritarianism led by a racist vulgarian, the press has oddly become fixated on not the danger to our democracy but on civility and balance. To hear some tell it, we have too much democracy. No, we hear a lot lately, the threat to America is bad manners.

The mainstream media considers it “uncivil” to lob hardballs at a politician or shout “non-responsive!” at his evasive answers. Instead, it steers a safe, middle course, avoiding “controversial” phrases and judgments. The “split-screen” showing both sides of an issue is a fixture of the media, whether in the Op-Ed section of a newspaper or on your favorite cable news show.

Civility is why “nationalist” is the style guide’s choice for Richard Spencer — instead of the more accurate “white supremacist” or “neo-Nazi.” If a Congressman uses the N-word it will be reported as a “racially-charged remark” and not as a “racist” epithet. When reporting climate change there must be “balance” to the 99% of scientists who regard it as fact. Civility means fairness and fairness requires false balance. So readers are obliged to hear from petrochemical lobbyists to provide indispensable new insights into a nonexistent “debate.”

Recently the press began worrying that Sarah Huckabee Sanders was denied a cheeseburger at a Virginia restaurant. The liberal press fretted — is this the end of civility? The Washington Post warned in its best Mom voice, “Let the Trump team eat in peace.” Al Jazeera worried that liberal vexation at a mendacious fundamentalist White House spokeswoman reflected “growing concern about political tribalism” in the United States.

When U.S. Representative Maxine Waters suggested challenging Trump administration figures in public, Politico headed for the bomb shelter: “Waters scares Democrats with call for all-out war on Trump.” House minority leader Nancy Pelosi rebuked Waters, calling for “unity” — even though a recent CNN poll showed that 42 percent of Americans want Trump to be impeached — including a very unified 77 percent of Democrats.

The liberal reticence to vigorously challenge Trump seems based on fears of ridiculous things Trumpistas might say. In a piece entitled “The Left Loses its Cool,” Politico quoted Florida’s GOP Attorney General Pam Bondi: “When you’re violent and cursing and screaming and blocking me from walking into a movie, there’s something wrong,” she said. “The next people are going to come with guns. That’s what’s going to happen.” For Trump supporters having an unpleasant lunch is worse than ICE throwing children into cages or dying because somebody took your healthcare away. Nonsense like this often goes unchallenged.

While the president was busy signing, un-signing, and re-signing executive orders on family separations, the press seemed far less intererested in discovering why sitting U.S. Senators were denied entry to DHS detention facilities. When immigration attorney David Leopold appeared on CNN and pointed the finger for the White House’s inhuman family separation policies at “white nationalist, Stephen Miller,” host Kate Bolduan cut him off: “I don’t know if you want to go as far as to — I mean, let’s not — I just did an entire segment about civility here. I don’t know if you want to call Stephen Miller a white nationalist.”

Thus “civility” ended what could have shed some light on the issue of family separations. Leopold was on the right track: to really understand White House immigration policies you first have to understand its White Supremacists. Yet while the mainstream media pulls its punches, censors guests, and cuts off lines of inquiry, FOX and Sinclair, right-wing radio and conservative papers throughout the country dispense with such niceties and play hardball.

“When they go low, we go high,” Michelle Obama told Democrats shortly before the 2016 election. This was a sweet sentiment. But during that same campaign Donald Trump mocked a disabled journalist and called Mexicans rapists and criminals. This became the new standard of civility. Last March Trump tweeted that Maxine Waters was a “very low IQ individual.” The Tweet was reported but Waters largely had to defend herself in the press.

The stakes have never been higher. We ought to worry less about civility and more about democracy. If we really want to salvage what’s left of it we need to take the gloves off and aggressively confront injustice and untruth.

That goes for both liberals and for a very timid and diminished Fourth Estate.

Hodgson owes us an apology

Posted by on 2018-06-22 No comments

Last week Bristol County Sheriff Tom Hodgson went before the cameras to demand an apology from the Attorney General. He should have instead taken the opportunity to apologize to the people of the Commonwealth.

Maura Healey heard the growing complaints about abuses at Hodgson’s facilities — the highest suicide rate in the state, high recidivism, abuses of the mentally ill, overuse of solitary confinement, chronically overcrowded and dirty facilities, inadequate food and denial of medication and medical care, kickbacks from a phone vendor, civil rights violations of inmates, and violation of the Supreme Judaical Court’s ruling on ICE detentions. Hodgson is knee deep in lawsuits. The Attorney General was duty-bound to address the worst of the abuses so she sent a letter to Executive Office of Public Safety and Security’s Daniel Bennett asking him to investigate.

But to hear Tom Hodgson tell it, it’s all a big Democratic witch hunt. “It smacks of partisan politics, given my work on immigration.” His “work,” as he puts it, consists of relentless shilling for the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), which the Southern Poverty Law Center lists as a hate group. On any given day Tom Hodgson can be heard on talk radio conflating immigrant children with MS-13 gang members, suggesting that Massachusetts mosques are Al Qaeda recruiting stations, or that immigrants are disease vectors. You probably heard him grandstanding from the Rio Grande or testifying for anti-immigrant legislation in Washington. Hodgson fancies himself an immigration expert but he can’t even handle the job he was actually hired to do — competently running a county jail.

Hodgson has only himself to blame for his jail’s suicide rate. “If something happens to me, I want people to know that I’ve been getting no help, no matter how many mental health slips I’ve put in,” Michael Ray wrote shortly before his suicide. Only weeks before, an article in the Globe asked, “Why Is The Suicide Rate In Bristol County Jails So High?” If Hodgson’s’ talk radio schedule hadn’t been so full he might have rolled up his sleeves and done something about it.

But on June 1, 2017 Tom Hodgson was having brunch with the Mass Fiscal Alliance, a group that promotes anti-immigrant rhetoric just like the Federation for American Immigration Reform, where Hodgson sits on the advisory board with its white supremacist founder, John Tanton. Nine days later Michael Ray was dead. Two weeks after Ray’s death, on June 28th, Hodgson was back flogging anti-immigrant talking points at a far-right event called “Hold Their Feet to the Fire.” Hodgson appeared with gay-basher Sandy Rios, FAIR president Dan Stein, VDARE contributor Michelle Malkin, white nationalist Congressman Steve King, Muslim-basher Robert Spencer, and Sebastian Gorka, another self-styled “Muslim expert” whose ties to a Hungarian Nazi group were too much for even the White House. Rather than dealing with the suicides Hodgson had better things to do.

So hats off to Maura Healey. She has nothing to apologize for. Unlike Hodgson, she’s actually doing her job — which includes seeking justice for those abused, neglected, and left to die by callous disregard for their human rights. The Sheriff must be held accountable. There is such a level of willful neglect and poor leadership at the Bristol County House of Correction that it is an insult to hear the Sheriff demanding an apology for the many lawsuits he has brought upon himself and his staff.

It is Tom Hodgson who owes us an apology.

Children deserve rights everywhere

Posted by on 2018-06-18 No comments

Suddenly a few Republicans are demonstrating that they actually have souls. Franklin Graham, Laura Bush and even Melania Trump are among those who have recently spoken out against separating children from their parents at the border.

Another insidious form of child abuse has taken place for decades in Palestinian occupied territories, where Israel routinely rounds up and imprisons hundreds of children each year. I am forwarding an appeal from Jeff Klein, of Mass Peace Action, asking Congress to support the McCollum Bill, which so far has only two Massachusetts Congressional sponsors. I have written about Betty McCollum’s legislation before. Please read Jeff’s letter and then contact Congressional Reps. Richard Neal, Niki Tsongas, Joseph Kennedy III, Katherine Clark, Michael Capuano, Stephen Lynch, and Bill Keating, to let them know they need to be on the right side of this issue. They need to be better friends to children than to a government that just last month slaughtered hundreds of demonstrators.

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STAND UP AGAINST THE ABUSE OF PALESTINIAN CHILDREN

Dear Activist,

When many Americans and their elected officials are protesting the mistreatment of immigrant minors at our southern border, it is time to renew our demand that Members of Congress also speak up to protect Palestinian children.

When we sent out our earlier alert on the McCollum Bill, Promoting Human Rights by Ending Israeli Military Detention of Palestinian Children Act, H.R. 4391, only one member of the Massachusetts delegation, Rep. Jim McGovern CD2), had co-sponsored the resolution. Since then, CD6 Rep Seth Moulton has joined him in supporting the bill. But other members of our delegation have not yet taken a stand against the abuse of Palestinian children. This is unacceptable.

There are two things you can do.

  1. CALL YOUR MEMBER OF CONGRESS to ask that they co-sponsor the McCollum Bill. Do it again even if you have called before. (And please thank Reps. McGovern and Moulton for their co-sponsorship.)

This is Rep. McCollum’s explanation of the bill:

“Given that the Israeli government receives billions of dollars in assistance from the United States, Congress must work to ensure that American taxpayer dollars never support the Israeli military’s detention or abuse of Palestinian children. Congresswoman McCollum’s legislation, the Promoting Human Rights by Ending Israeli Military Detention of Palestinian Children Act, requires that the Secretary of State certify that American funds do not support Israel’s military detention, interrogation, abuse, or ill-treatment of Palestinian children.”

  1. ASK THAT THEIR OFFICES ATTEND A BRIEFING JUNE 25 on H.R. 4391 and the situation for Palestinian children after the U.S. embassy move to Jerusalem. You can use the No Way To Treat a Child campaign tool to send an email asking Members of Congress to send a representative to the briefing. If you are in contact with a relevant Congressional staffer, also please phone them directly.

Each year the Israeli military arrests and prosecutes around 700 Palestinian children. Last year alone, more than fourteen Palestinian boys and girls under the age of 18 were shot dead by Israeli occupation forces in the West Bank and Gaza Strip — and many more were wounded – using resources provided by our own government. We cannot allow this situation to continue.

For Massachusetts Peace Action and its New Day for Israel and Palestine organizing project.

Jeff Klein, Convener, MAPA Palestine/Israel Working Group

Please sign the letter today!

A NEW DAY is a network sponsored by Massachusetts Peace Action.

PLEASE SIGN UP for regular “A NEW DAY” Action Alerts if you have not already done so and please reach out to your contacts to have them sign up for by emailing (and please note your Congressional District).

(NEW DAY members will receive a limited number of action-oriented emails)

Massachusetts Peace Action 11 Garden St., Cambridge, MA 02138 617-354-2169 Follow us on Facebook or Twitter

Dreaming of Camelot

Posted by on 2018-06-16 No comments

Both Conservatives and Liberals are awash in nostalgia for days long gone. Trump Republicans long for the good old days when men were men and women and Blacks and Hispanics and gays and foreigners knew their place. Centrist Democrats dream of the glory days of Obama and Camelot. Or what might have been with Hillary.

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) is pouring money into entrepreneurs, ex-prosecutors, ex-security establishment, and ex-military for Congressional races that don’t challenge Democratic incumbents. Even in “safe” Congressional races, Democratic candidates still like to play up their national security bona fides, for example as Alexandra Chandler is doing in MA-03, or incumbent Bill Keating does at every opportunity in MA-09.

In a recent piece in Blue Mass Group, Chandler penned an essay that spelled out her vision for the proper use of American power. She didn’t challenge the misuse of that power, only that more of it should be in Congressional hands. Otherwise, Chandler argued for a return to a “rules-based international order,” return of a Cold War footing regarding Russia, strengthening of military and intelligence alliances, and defending spy agencies (even after learning of rogue torture, surveillance and rendition programs).

Like many Democrats, Chandler makes excuses for Israel’s murders of Gazan demonstrators while still managing to blame Hamas (“I am confident that given different orders and rules of engagement — for instance, not to use live ammunition and to use numerous specialized riot and border control tools at their disposal — they could have protected themselves, and the security of the Israeli-Gaza border, notwithstanding Hamas-directed provocateurs among the protestors.”) Chandler strongly touts her national security resume but has little to say about criminal justice or immigration reform. And not a shred of criticism of the super-predatory capitalism we experience in the 21st Century.

Chandler is the perfect example of Democratic nostalgia for the good old days when NATO and the G7, the IMF, the World Bank, and Western institutions and alliances could put the screws to Russia while still pursuing their own colonial interests. The good old days when America (together with allies who couldn’t say “no”) would throw around their weight with a higher class of people running the show. In this nostalgic Democratic daydream, as long as well-spoken men and women (not reincarnated P. T. Barnums like Trump) have the codes to nuclear footballs and are the ones spying on the citizenry for their own good, the world is in good hands. But Democrats forget that the Kennedys, Johnsons, Clintons, and Obamas were also frightening stewards of American military, surveillance, nuclear, and economic power.

Someone sent me a link to a piece from the Cato Institute perfectly titled “A World Imagined.” Libertarians are not clear-eyed critics of Capitalism but they do seem to have 20-20 vision when it comes to the defects of Neoliberalism. In this piece the author shows why we should not be so quick to embrace a lopsided world order long loved by Republicans and Democrats alike. The author argues convincingly that Trump’s polices and authoritarian inclinations are simple-minded exaggerations of the old realpolitik long practiced by Kissinger, Albright, Cheney, Bush, Kerry, Clinton, and their friends in the national security establishment. They embrace a world order based on American Exceptionalism, a world run by white men of privilege, with foreign and domestic policies ultimately resting on authoritarianism, austerity, and privilege. Trump’s only innovation is exulting in a widespread view that a master race deserves to run the world and make the country great again.

The other night I was watching “The Good Shepherd.” You might say it’s a movie about privileged white men keeping each other’s secrets — until they decide to betray one another. Matt Damon plays Edward Wilson, a Yale undergraduate inducted into the “Skull and Bones” society, who then becomes an OSS operative and later a CIA director. Wilson has a lot of blood on his hands — and not just for the Bay of Pigs but for sins much closer to home. Make some popcorn. The movie’s decent, if perhaps a bit too long.

At one point Wilson visits a mobster named Joseph Palmi (played by Joe Pesci), who controls criminal enterprises in Cuba. His character is based loosely on Sam Giancana and Santo Traficante, who Kennedy enlisted for the Bay of Pigs. Palmi agrees to help Wilson. At one point there is this exchange:

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Joseph Palmi: Let me ask you something… we Italians, we got our families, and we got the church; the Irish, they have the homeland; the Jews their tradition; even the niggers, they got their music. What about you people, Mr. Carlson, what do you have?

Edward Wilson: The United States of America. The rest of you are just visiting.

The movie, of course, is fiction. But the scene nevertheless holds a very real truth. We shouldn’t become too nostalgic for the Kennedy years or the post-war “rules-based international order” and its domestic reflection in a segregated nation. The America of 1961 and an administration some still wistfully call “Camelot” bore all too many similarities to Trump’s America of 2018.

Der Judenstaat

Posted by on 2018-06-11 No comments

When Theodor Herzl published Der Judenstaat in 1896, anti-Semitism was the raison d’etre for a Jewish state. “Die Welt widerhallt vom Geschrei gegen die Juden, und das weckt den eingeschlummerten Gedanken auf.” (The world resonates with screams against the Jews, and that wakes long-slumbering thoughts.)”

Herzl had in mind either a Jewish state in what is now Argentina or in the “ever-memorable historic home” of Palestine, which was clearly his his preference. Herzl saw the poorest European Jews emigrating first to the new state — the most desperate, those of “mediocre intellects” who would do the rough work of establishing a foothold. They would then be followed later by “those of a higher grade.”

Herzl thought it would be necessary to entreat the Sultan [Turkish emperor] to give European Jews some of the land Turkey was then occupying. In exchange, Herzl daydreamed, Jews would get the Ottoman Empire’s finances back in order. The new Jewish state would be neutral, form a bulwark against Asian “barbarism,” and would be a Eurocentric state “in contact with all Europe, which would have to guarantee our existence.” In exchange, the Jewish state would guard the extra-territorial sanctuaries of Christendom and Christians would be grateful to a people they once hated.

It may irk today’s Zionists to hear Israel referred to as a “colonial enterprise,” but this is precisely what Herzl imagined it to be in its infancy. Israel was to be created by two separate organizations — the Society of the Jews, and by the Jewish Company. Like the Hudson Bay Company which explored Canada, and the London Company, which founded the American colonies, Herzl’s Jewish Company (later the Jewish National Fund, and later still national offshoots like the American and Canadian Jewish Federations) were set up to create a pipeline of colonists to a new land. The Jewish Company was to be based in London.

The chapter, “The Jewish Company,” describes how the company acquires land and builds housing for its first wave of poor Russian and Romanian workmen. There would have to be inducements to work for their homes, to stay out of trouble — and the seven hour day was one such inducement. No man was to be idle, for development of a moral citizenry was one of Herzl’s goals. A tenth of the citizenry was to be tasked with military defense. The Jewish Company would provide housing, set up bank accounts, provide loans, create employment by creating industries, purchase a family’s assets when they emigrated, and help them as soon as they arrived in the Jewish state. What Herzl described was — without irony or exaggeration — a vast “colonial enterprise.”

Herzl anticipated the use of indigenous, non-Jewish labor. This was the 19th Century, slavery was not an alien concept, and Herzl worried about the misuse of local slave labor instead of well-compensated seven-hour-a-day workers, which he regarded as a morally repugnant shortcut. The Jewish Company would, therefore, prevent the abuse and enslavement of non-Jewish labor by using boycotts (the irony!), roadblocks, or “various other methods.”

In “Local Groups: Our Transmigration,” Herzl describes the process of resettlement. No one would have to migrate in steerage, though luxury travelers would have plenty of travel options. Each travel group would have a rabbi, who would be enlisted in the nation-building project. “Our rabbis, on whom we especially call, will devote their energies to the service of our idea, and will inspire the congregations by preaching it from the pulpit.” The long history of Zionist co-optation of Judaism seems to begin with this.

The Middle Classes — and by such Herzl was not referring to sad-sack “mediocre intellects” from Russia and Romania, but German-speaking Austro-Hungarian elites of whom he was a member — would lead this new society. What Herzl described sounds very much like the world of English colonials in India: “The middle classes will involuntarily be drawn into the outgoing current, for their sons will be officials of the Society or employees of the Company ‘over there.’ Lawyers, doctors, technicians of every description, young business people — in fact, all Jews who are in search of opportunities, who now escape from oppression in their native country to earn a living in foreign lands — will assemble on a soil so full of fair promise. The daughters of the middle classes will marry these ambitious men. One of them will send for his wife or fiancee to come out to him, another for his parents, brothers and sisters. Members of a new civilization marry young. This will promote general morality and ensure sturdiness in the new generation; and thus we shall have no delicate offspring of late marriages, children of fathers who spent their strength in the struggle for life. Every middle-class emigrant will draw more of his kind after him. The bravest will naturally get the best out of the new world.”

Herzl’s theory of the state is simplistic. He rejects Rousseau’s Social Contract out of hand, instead grasping at the Roman Empire’s concept of “gestor” — advocate. The role of “gestor” is played by the Society of the Jews. “This organ of the national movement, the nature and functions of which we are at last dealing with, will, in fact, be created before everything else. Its formation is perfectly simple. It will take shape among those energetic Jews to whom I imparted my scheme in London.” The “energetic Jews” Herzl was referring to were members of the Maccabean Club in London, with whom he met in 1895.

In describing how the land would be occupied by the new settlers, Herzl writes, “In America the occupation of newly opened territory is set about in naive fashion. The settlers assemble on the frontier, and at the appointed time make a simultaneous and violent rush for their portions. We shall not proceed thus to the new land of the Jews.” Herzl, the cultured Viennese idealist, would never have imagined today’s hilltop settlers of the West Bank.

Herzl did not have a democracy in mind, nor would differences of opinion be permitted in the new state: “I incline to an aristocratic republic. This would satisfy the ambitious spirit in our people, which has now degenerated into petty vanity. Many of the institutions of Venice pass through my mind; but all that which caused the ruin of Venice must be carefully avoided. We shall learn from the historic mistakes of others, in the same way as we learn from our own; for we are a modern nation, and wish to be the most modern in the world. Our people, who are receiving the new country from the Society, will also thankfully accept the new constitution it offers them. Should any opposition manifest itself, the Society will suppress it. The Society cannot permit the exercise of its functions to be interpreted by short-sighted or ill-disposed individuals.” It seems he got his wish.

Today the state that Herzl envisioned still operates without a constitution. Its borders remain in dispute. Its citizens argue whether they are Jews or Israelis. Israel has greater religious diversity than the United States owing to large Palestinian, Bedouin, and non-Jewish European groups. And a million of its citizens live abroad.

My Empathy Gap

Posted by on 2018-06-06 No comments

Book Review: Strangers in Their Own Land: Anger and Mourning on the American Right, by Arlie Russell Hochschild. ISBN: 9781620972250

This is a frustrating, disappointing book. It is a book that will make no one happy. Carlos Lozada’s review in the Washington Post, for example, accuses Hochschild of condescension and preconceived notions about the Tea Party. The former is partly true. I don’t think the author successfully manages to disprove the view many have of the Southern Far Right — that they’ll believe any stupid damned thing and will stubbornly vote against their own self-interest. But some Tea Partiers actually liked her book. Ralph Benko, writing in Forbes, called it a “delight” — which might be going a bit overboard.

I found myself wondering where Hochschild was headed in her “exploratory” and “hypothesis generating” study. It took over a hundred pages to lay out her thesis, finally described in Chapter 9, “The Deep Story.” From time to time Hochschild acknowledges the racism of the South, but there is really only one page (146-147 in the hardcover edition) devoted to it. Instead, environmental protection is the lens through which she timidly chooses to look at values of Louisianans. In Chapter 14 (“the Fires of History”) Hochschild discusses the shocks to poor whites following the Civil War that might account for so many today still holding racist views and repressed class antagonisms (think Faulkner’s “Abner Snopes”). But, again, it’s only mentioned in passing.

Ultimately, Hochshild’s book is a fool’s errand. It’s impossible to bridge the empathy gap with people who themselves have no empathy for anyone but White Christians. And, though her efforts to empathize with people who reject science, fact, and blame all their problems on others, may be praiseworthy, I just can’t bring myself to do it. These are seriously delusional people who have given up on remediating their fracked bayous because they think the Rapture is the proper solution for environmental problems.

There is some truth in right-wing critiques of the book, like Lozada’s, that the book paints cartoon characters. In order to explain her subjects’ irrational, dangerous, delusional, anti-social, and self-destructive views and behaviors, Hochschild concocts several two-dimensional archetypes — the Team Player, the Worshipper, and the Cowboy. A better analysis would have looked at the effects of generational racism coupled with the toxic effects of propaganda from FOX News and right-wing pastors. And it would have included a critique of Capitalism, a topic Hochschild won’t touch any more than her subjects. But Hochschild’s goal was to befriend them, not to truly explain the pathology.

I’m sorry, but it’s hard to feel sorry for people who home-school their children or indoctrinate them in Christian madrassas, vote to bring cancer-producing industries into their communities, to kill themselves and their children — and then pay the petrochemical companies for the privilege. It’s hard to feel much pity for people who believe every stupid lie they hear on FOX News or from the pulpit and uncritically support the most rapacious version of Capitalism — while blaming every brown face in the world for the failures of their verkakte worldview.

Rather than bridging the compassion gap, Hochschild’s book convinced me that we need to let these people go. Let them secede and form their own Kingdom of Gilead, where they can spend their money on guns, church tithes, and petrochemicals. Let them live with self-inflicted poor health, poverty, superstition, and ignorance until the Rapture vacuums them up.

There are huge and irreconcilable differences between the two Americas. Half of us believe in democracy, the other half in Adam and Eve romping with Ayn Rand around a Deepwater Horizon platform.

Let’s get the divorce over with.

The Sheriff will see you now

Posted by on 2018-06-04 No comments

Would you let your county sheriff fix your teeth or provide home health visits for a parent? Would you permit him to perform surgery on you or provide psychiatric services? Of course not. Your county sheriff is a man with a badge and a gun. So why on earth would you expect him to provide expert treatment and rehabilitation to those with substance abuse problems? Unfortunately, this is exactly what’s happening right now in Massachusetts.

The Legislature just passed long-awaited criminal justice reforms. An important objective was to keep people with substance abuse disorder out of jail and provide needed treatment. Yet several recent jail projects are already undermining the intent of these reforms. And they show just how inclined we are, as a punitive society, to always look to incarceration as the solution to a social problem.

In Hampden County, MassLive reports, Sheriff Nick Cocchi is rolling out an 86-bed “treatment facility” for opioid abusers in his jail. Cocchi says it’s conceivable another 100 beds will be needed. Within the next 60 days people with substance abuse disorder will be civilly committed under Section 35 and incarcerated in either the Hampden County jail or in the Hampden County Sheriff’s WMRWC Mill Street facility.

Sheriff Cocchi, like many sheriffs in Massachusetts, is now left with “empty beds” in his jail because of drug courts and other diversion programs. In some jails these “beds” are now being filled by ICE detainees and civil commitment is seen as a mechanism for filling others. Cocchi says “he anticipates seeking additional funding from the legislature during next year’s budget” and that “the new programs are for now carved out through savings and reallocations from within the annual Sheriff’s Department budget.”

A new report in MassInc by Ben Forman and Michael Widmer (“Revisiting Correctional Expenditure Trends in Massachusetts”) documents the cost of incarcerating someone at the Hampden County jail at almost $80,000 per year. A 90-day Section 35 commitment would cost almost $20,000. Certainly, more comprehensive and cost effective treatment can be provided outside of jail.

Civil commitment can either be a part of a criminal sentence or (more and more likely) a process initiated by a “spouse, blood relative, guardian, a police officer, physician, or court official.” But if sheriffs and legislators believe addiction is a disease, why then is prison the cure? In Massachusetts there have been a number of lawsuits challenging the incarceration of substance abusers precisely because prisons are not even close to being treatment centers.

In Suffolk County Sheriff Steven Tompkins wants to “partner” with AdCare to run a Vivitrol program at his South Bay jail. The Suffolk County program will target “pre-trial detainees” — those not convicted of any crime. The ultimate responsibility for the safety and effectiveness of a client’s rehabilitation program will rest with a law enforcement official, not a psychological or medical professional. And by outsourcing services to a private corporation — what could possibly go wrong?

Vivitrol is both controversial and currently the the go-to treatment for sheriffs. Vivitrol blocks the “high” from opioids for up to a month. Other Medically Assisted Treatments (MAT) with buprenorphine or methadone are not favored by sheriffs, although Vivitrol is problematic in many ways and may result in fatal overdoses. The drug made news recently because the Trump administration’s opioid treatment plan is typical of his style of crony capitalism — “a single drug, manufactured by a single company, with mixed views on the evidence regarding its use.” Vivitrol will be the only drug treatment given federal prisoners. Through an “Inspiration Grant” Alkermes gave to the National Sheriff’s Association, prison staff and contractors all over the country get a “taste” of the drug, then are allowed to buy more with taxpayer money. No wonder that Vivitrol CEO Richard Pops says “the best days of Vivitrol are still ahead of it.”

Over in Worcester County Sheriff Lewis Evangelidis is building a $20 million “intake” section for his jail, he says, for people with substance abuse disorder. The intake process will also screen for gang affiliation, prior offenses, and determine if those about to be incarcerated are detoxing or need psychological services. But, given the suicide epidemic among county jail prisoners in Massachusetts, legislators ought to be asking why medical issues are not being treated in medical facilities run by real medical professionals.

Some feel the brand-new criminal reform bill is a good start. But Massachusetts could learn something from Portugal, where medical, not carceral, treatment is used for drug addiction. Under Portugal’s 2001 decriminalization law, “anyone caught with less than a 10-day supply of any drug — including heroin — gets mandatory medical treatment. No judge, no courtroom, no jail.”

Prison is an inhumane and ineffective solution for dealing with drug addiction. So why, in a state with some of the best medical care in the nation, can’t we can do better than turning over drug treatment to sheriffs? Why should a sheriff — having no clinical expertise and possibly even unethical relationships to vendors— be permitted to determine treatments for drug rehabilitation? Why not invest in community-based treatment on demand instead of arresting and incarcerating people for low-level crimes committed and driven by their addiction? And why aren’t we taking the tens of millions of dollars used to civilly commit people and instead investing it in health and mental care in our communities?

If we believe substance abuse disorder is a medical problem, let’s put our money where our mouth is — in treatment rather than more investment in jails.

Fighting for the soul of the party

Posted by on 2018-06-02 No comments

It does not surprise me that the tagline for the Poor People’s Campaign is “a national call for moral revival.” In politics, given a choice between money and morality, you know which will win. It’s also no surprise that the demands of this campaign are not strictly economic but target racism, the environment, criminal justice, voter disenfranchisement, healthcare, foreign policy, militarism, budget priorities, and democratic institutions. The very existence of this movement is a clue that, for all their lofty platform planks, Democrats simply haven’t been listening to America’s most vulnerable people.

Tip O’Neill famously said that all politics is local. Perhaps. But local politics are now national. Dozens of Congressional primary races highlight the ideological wars being fought within the Democratic Party — viciously and with considerable help from out of state donors.

UMass Amherst political science professor Raymond LaRaja writes that, for all the Democratic Party’s disagreements, “if there is one thread that links party adherents today, it is a view of themselves as outsiders trying to gain for themselves and others a share of the fruits of American democracy and capitalism, which have been denied to them by social status.” But there any agreement ends.

In this authoritarian age a lot is at stake. Democratic Party centrists think they can tinker with and improve Capitalism, while progressives and socialists know that only radical change — and a stronger defense of democracy — will make life better for working families. These are irreconcilable philosophies that must eventually end in divorce. But for the moment — here we are together in a very odd bed.

Unlike Republicans, who abhor heterogeneity and tightly enforce party discipline, Democrats function more as a coalition than a party. LaRaja writes, “Coalitions do not make it easy to come up with coherent campaign slogans. But a more profound problem of Democratic pluralism is that the party can be biased toward a few moneyed and highly organized factions who do not reflect the broader rank-and-file. These factions include pro-environment groups, abortion rights organizations and public sector unions. They may champion important causes, but their dominance over the party’s agenda has a powerful impact on who runs for office as Democrats and what kinds of issues get pushed in government.”

No surprise, then, that the “moneyed and highly organized factions” run their political races differently too. Since their objective is to win and not necessarily fight for principles (either during or after an election), Democratic centrists run campaigns based on “viable candidates” while progressives are more interested in principles. Centrist Democrats won’t waste a dime on a candidate who can’t win, and they will look for one who can — even if he is barely distinguishable from a Republican.

Progressives, on the other hand, are willing to see their candidate go down in flames — if only for the chance to have her issues heard by voters or to keep the party from sliding even farther to the right. And progressives often have to fight the good fight with little or no support from Democratic Party institutions like the DNC or DCCC. This too is an irreconcileable difference that must eventually end in divorce.

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) doesn’t yet have a Fifty State strategy but is trying to get there. It previously conceded elections in some states and put all its chips on “sure things” in others. The DCCC’s “Majority Makers” program is targeting dozens of Red districts thought to be winnable. The special Alabama Senate election of Doug Jones provided the party with new energy — but lowered the bar for its candidates. The DCCC doesn’t even conceal its bias toward Blue Dogs like Henry Cuellar over progressives and has even gone out of its way to sabotage the campaigns of progressives like Laura Moser. In the New York primary DNC Chair Tom Perez endorsed Andrew Cuomo, breaking a promise that the DNC would never again interfere in a primary election.

Last April I attended a meeting of Marching Forward in Dartmouth. The group was recruiting campaign volunteers after deciding to support four swing state Congressional candidates in the midterm elections. Three of their four candidates were DCCC “Majority Makers” — Andy Kim (NJ-03); Mikie Sherill (NJ-11); and Perry Gershon (NY-01). Volunteers would travel to these swing states and essentially take their marching orders from the DCCC.

It’s difficult to begrudge Marching Forward’s efforts. After all, each of their candidates is challenging an especially noxious Trump Republican. Each was chosen, like genes for therapeutic treatment, to target a specific defect in a specific Congressional district with precisely calibrated politics and personal attributes. Andy Kim, for example, is a former Defense Department analyst; Mikie Sherill is a decorated Navy helicopter pilot and “get-tough” federal prosecutor; and Perry Gershon is the Chief Investment Officer at Jefferies LoanCore Capital Markets LLC. None is what anyone would call a progressive. And the number of DCCC candidates waving military and national security resumes should worry everyone in post-911 America.

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These candidates, to use LaRaja’s words, all want “peace, protecting the environment, separation of church and state, guarding the right to an abortion, and quality of life issues like eating locally-grown food.” But generally absent from the campaigns of these genetically-engineered DCCC candidates are issues important to brown, black, and poor people. Each represents the Clintonite wing of a Democratic Party that Thomas Frank describes in “Listen, Liberal” — gatekeepers, lawyers, entrepreneurs, prosecutors, the security establishment, technocrats.

Of course, the U.S. Congress is not the only battlefield. Republicans must be fought in state houses too. EveryDistrict has an approach similar to the DCCC’s, but aims to put more Democrats in state government, neglected for decades by the DNC. And who in their right mind would wish for EveryDistrict to fail? In 26 of 50 states Republicans have a trifecta — total control of both houses of the legislature and the governor’s office. In contrast, Democrats have only 8. EveryDistrict’s strategy is to pick horseraces it thinks it can win, and Democratic winners twill then make the state more liberal. At least that’s the theory.

The Bernie wing of the Democratic Party consists of idealists, progressives, and socialists. Funding their candidates are various PACs that endorse and support progressive campaigns and/or candidates of color — people with a serious personal stake in making real change. They include: Color of Change, Democracy for America, Justice Democrats, Our Revolution, and The Collective PAC. They don’t take corporate money, they don’t have much support from the Democratic Party, and their campaigns are funded by individual donations. Sometimes even their campaign videos are self-produced, as in the case of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who is challenging Blue Dog Democrat Joe Crowley in the NY-14 Congressional primary.

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Massachusetts primaries will be here in roughly 90 days. The primaries and the general election will provide more clues about the future and the soul of the Democratic Party. Last September I pondered where Democrats were headed:

It’s still a bit early to definitively answer the question of what kind of Democrat represents the future of the party, but we should know by the time the Democratic primaries come around. If Reagan Democrats like Keating remain unchallenged, and a slew of Baby Keatings appear on ballots, then we’ll know the party’s true character — regardless of whatever lofty language is written into the platform.

We are indeed knee deep in Manchins, Joneses, Heitkamps, Moultons, and Baby Keatings. But I no longer think the future of the Democratic Party can be divined so quickly or easily. The fight for the party’s soul could take a decade — after all, it took the Tea Party twelve years to turn the GOP into a bunch of goose-stepping kleptocrats. This fight will continue as America becomes browner and poorer — and as our democratic institutions struggle to recover from the shocks of years of authoritarianism.

If you compare the two videos in this post there are obvious differences between Democrats. The America I want to live in will not be led by PAC-reliant, flag-waving technocrats but by courageous working people with moral centers and very personal stakes in an inclusive democracy. But for now we may need the technocrats — and they us — to keep the Republic from sliding even further into the abyss.

Deplorable

Posted by on 2018-06-01 No comments

It turns out that Hillary Clinton was right about one thing — Trump’s supporters are Deplorables.

It was a fleeting, and uncharacteristically harsh, judgment from a party now running its own right-to-lifers, gun-toters, and militarists, lip-syncing the GOP’s lyrics that White America was somehow “left behind.” Taking a cue from the GOP, the Clintons’ DNC and DCCC is now downplaying racial injustice in order to court Deplorables with their Better Deal – which Dems announced last Summer from the Heart of Dixie. But their midterm strategy – sending people of color to the back of the bus if not throwing them under it – neglects the stinking rot at the root of our so-called American “democracy.”

A new study by Diana Mutz from the Department of Political Science at the University of Pennsylvania, debunks the theory that White America voted for Trump because they were afraid of losing their jobs. They were simply afraid of losing their privilege.

Mutz’s abstract:

“This study evaluates evidence pertaining to popular narratives explaining the American public’s support for Donald J. Trump in the 2016 presidential election. First, using unique representative probability samples of the American public, tracking the same individuals from 2012 to 2016, I examine the “left behind” thesis (that is, the theory that those who lost jobs or experienced stagnant wages due to the loss of manufacturing jobs punished the incumbent party for their economic misfortunes). Second, I consider the possibility that status threat felt by the dwindling proportion of traditionally high-status Americans (i.e., whites, Christians, and men) as well as by those who perceive America’s global dominance as threatened combined to increase support for the candidate who emphasized reestablishing status hierarchies of the past. Results do not support an interpretation of the election based on pocketbook economic concerns. Instead, the shorter relative distance of people’s own views from the Republican candidate on trade and China corresponded to greater mass support for Trump in 2016 relative to Mitt Romney in 2012. Candidate preferences in 2016 reflected increasing anxiety among high-status groups rather than complaints about past treatment among low-status groups. Both growing domestic racial diversity and globalization contributed to a sense that white Americans are under siege by these engines of change.”

Another study by Steven V. Miller at Clemson and Nicholas T. Davis at Texas A&M confirms Mutz’s “loss of privilege” theory, and also refutes the notion that democratic traditions inoculate Americans from fascist leanings. In “White Outgroup Intolerance and Declining Support for American Democracy,” Miller and Davis write:

“Democracy has been durable in the United States – so durable, in fact, that serious inquiry into Americans’ attitudes toward it has been uncommon. No more.”

Working from World Values Survey data from 1995 to 2011, Miller and Davis discovered that:

“White Americans who would not want an immigrant/foreign worker, someone who spoke a different language, or someone from a different race as a neighbor are more likely to support strongman rule in the United States, rule of the U.S. government by the army, and are more likely to outright reject having a democracy for the United States. These findings are robust across multiple model specifications we analyze and report in the appendix as well.”

Their study documents the strong correlation between White America’s bigotry and proto-fascist leanings. Once White America perceives that the benefits of democracy are being extended to “others” their commitment to democracy is quickly abandoned. Like a child playing a board game, if they can’t win, they won’t play.

But this hardly comes as a surprise to the rest of America:

“[White] American citizens have not historically exhibited the sort of lofty, normative commitments to things like equality and tolerance that we might expect from one of the richest and longest-running continuous electoral democracies in the world. As Sullivan and Transue (1999) note, most citizens were willing to apply double standards that afforded one set of rights to popular groups while denying rights to more extreme or less popular groups.”

Tinkering with Capitalism may sound like a plan, but Democrats need to do a better of job of defending democracy. The surest way to do this is by defending the rights of all citizens and opposing every institution of an authoritarian, surveillance, and police state America. Once Democrats are back in power – unless they roll back the Patriot Act, stop the endless wars, pare back the military budget, dismantle FISA courts and institute sweeping reforms of the criminal justice system and ensure police accountability – they will have done nothing to rescue what’s left of our shredded democracy.