POLITICUSUSA
When things don’t go Donald Trump’s way, it is always someone else’s fault. The 45th president spent the entirety of his term painting himself as a victim. And that sense of victimhood has trickled down to Conservative media and Trump supporters.
Senate Republicans are now gearing up to acquit Trump in an impeachment trial on the specious rationale that putting a former officeholder on trial is unconstitutional, even though legal scholars, including some from the conservative Federalist Society, have broadly affirmed the constitutionality of such a proceeding.
Too many in America, caught in throes of misinformation and conspiracy theories, are busy slaying mythical dragons rather than engaging in the truly wise, loving, and heroic activities of the real revolution for democracy.
Donald Trump has always said that he is a great friend to people of Jewish faith. How could he be anti-Semitic, Trump argues, his son-in-law Jared Kushner is Jewish and his daughter Ivanka converted when she married him.
But the president has also been slow to condemn his supporters who have anti-Semitic beliefs. After white supremacists marched in the city of Charlottesville, Virginia chanting “Jews will not replace us,” Trump famously referred to them as “very fine people.”
And now, it seems that some of Trump’s supporters associate his name with anti-Semitism and racism. A Jewish cemetery was recently defaced with vandals spray painting the name Trump on headstones.
Notably the incident took place in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Trump will be holding the final rally on his campaign in Grand Rapids.
The vandalism was first reported by the Anti-Defamation League of Michigan, who tweeted, “We are appalled by the reported desecration of gravestones at the Ahavas Israel Cemetery in Grand Rapids, MI. We are in close touch with the Jewish community and Law Enforcement to investigate this vandalism.”
We are appalled by the reported desecration of gravestones at the Ahavas Israel Cemetery in Grand Rapids, MI. We are in close touch with the Jewish community and Law Enforcement to investigate this vandalism. pic.twitter.com/mVeGrlsWxE
According to the latest Monmouth poll, 61 percent of Americans say the way President Donald Trump is handling nationwide protests is actually worsening things, not making them better.
“
Most Americans (61%) say that Trump’s handling of the protests has made the situation worse and just 24% say he has made it better. These results are basically unchanged from late June (62% worse and 20% better). Nearly 9 in 10 non-Republicans say Trump has made the situation worse, including 88% who are white, 87% who are Black, and 86% who are of another racial minority group. Republicans and GOP-leaners stand alone in their feeling that the president has made the situation better (46%) rather than worse (30%). These findings are similar to the late June poll results,” Monmouth observes.
According to a new ABC News/Ipsos poll released today, the majority of Americans believe the way President Donald Trump is responding to civil unrest is making things worse.
55 percent of Americans say they believe Trump is worsening matters as the nation grapples with a slew of protests against racism and police brutality. 29 percent said they don’t believe Trump’s comments have had an effect on protests.
30 percent of Republicans believe the president’s rhetoric is improving things, though 26 percent say otherwise. Among
white, non-college educated Americans, a key voting bloc for the president, just 18 percent believe his rhetoric has been successful and 41 percent say his comments have negatively impacted the national conversation on racial inequity.
President Donald Trump’s son-in-law and senior adviser Jared Kushner dismissed NBA players who’ve opted not to play games as part of a protest against police brutality against Black Americans, saying they are “fortunate” to have enough wealth to “take a night off from work.”
“I think the NBA players are very fortunate that they have the financial position where they’re able to take a night off from work without having to have the consequences for themselves financially,” Kushner said in an interview with CNBC’s “Squawk Box.” “So they have that luxury, which is great.”
“With the NBA, there’s a lot of activism and I think that they put a lot of slogans out, but I think that we need to turn that from slogans and signals to actual action that’s gonna solve the problem,” he added.
Kushner went on to tout the president’s “historic criminal justice reform,” giving particular mention to the creation of Opportunity Zones, which say states may designate up to 25% of low-income census tracts.
“We just have to take this conversation from an emotional one to a constructive one and say what are the policies that we can agree on,” Kushner said, urging the United States to “come together on a policy platform.”
You can watch Kushner’s interview below.
"The NBA players are very fortunate that they have the financial position where they're able to take a night off from work without having to have the consequences to themselves financially," says White House senior advisor Jared Kushner on the NBA player boycotts last night. pic.twitter.com/nHlRBNIzaf
Marc Short, the Chief of Staff to Vice President Mike Pence, criticized NBA players who’ve opted not to play games as part of a protest against police brutality against Black Americans, calling the boycotts “absurd” and “silly.”
“I don’t know that you’re going to see the administration weigh in on that one way or the other. In my mind, it’s absurd, it’s silly,” Short told CNN’s Alisyn Camerota on “New Day” when asked if the vice president supports the boycott.
“If they want to protest, I don’t think we care,” he added, noting that the administration shouldn’t speak out on the boycott “one way or the other.”
Last night, @Mike_Pence drew a contrast between an America that continues to hope for more freedoms but also continues to protect our law enforcement vs. an America that would lead to socialism and decline and continue to attack our law enforcement. pic.twitter.com/RlGDZnTo7H
Karen Bass has accused Donald Trump of emboldening racists and of running a racist reelection campaign. The Democratic congresswoman said there’s clear evidence for the President’s own prejudices.
Bass is considered a major contender for former Vice President Joe Biden’s VP nod. She spoke to CNN’s David Axelrod on Thursday about Trump and was asked if she thinks he’s a racist.
“Yes, I do. I don’t think there’s anything new about that,” she said.
“I think he’s second generation, I mean, his father was. They were charged with discrimination, housing discrimination, sued by the federal government.”
“Everything that has come out of his mouth, not just against Black people, I mean, he started his campaign with racist attacks on Mexicans,” Bass went on.
“He’s attacked Native Americans and his latest attacks are on Asian Americans by calling the [Coronavirus] as the China virus. And there has been attacks against the Asian Pacific Islander community. “
“People have been hurt because of his essentially giving license to racists that might have been a little dormant for a minute, but who now feel completely emboldened and empowered.”
Bass added that Trump’s approach to his reelection this year was in part to appeal to racism.
“I’m very clear that the Republican Party has two strategies for this election. And one is to resurrect the ghost of Joe McCarthy and the Cold War,” she said.
“And two is to resurrect the ghost of George Wallace and run a racist campaign.”
Bass pointed to Trump’s recent comments about low income housing in the suburbs and added: “You know, I think that he doesn’t use dog whistles. He uses a bullhorn.”
Follow Darragh Roche on Twitter
Ted Cruz has lashed out at Oprah Winfrey after she openly discussed the issue of white privilege in a new interview. The Republican senator accused Winfrey of racism.
Cruz sent a tweet sharing an article from conservative outlet The Blaze slamming Winfrey for highlighting white privilege during an interview on her new Apple TV+ show The Oprah Conversation.
“Billionaire Oprah lectures the rest of us,” Cruz wrote.
Billionaire Oprah lectures the rest of us:
"You still have your whiteness. That's what the term 'white privilege' is. It means that whiteness still gives you an advantage, no matter.”
What utter, racist BS. https://t.co/02PADVJkrZ
Reverend Al Sharpton expressed his disgust following Donald Trump’s remarks about the suburbs and low income housing. He believes Trump has gone beyond dog whistling.
The President tweeted on Wednesday that he had changed an Obama era rule about low income housing that he claimed was harming house prices and causing crime in suburban neighborhoods.
Sharpton told MSNBC on Thursday that this was clearly a racial message.
“We’ve gone from dog whistling to dog barking now, and hoping that if he barks at the dog, the dog will bark back,” Sharpton said.
“He has made a business and political career out of ‘they are going to ruin your neighborhood. I will keep them out of your neighborhood. I will protect you from the Blacks.’ And that’s what he’s going to hear.”
“In a blatant way with no cover, saying they will ruin your neighborhood. It’s all of that that comes with it, they’re robbers, they’re thieves, they will rape your daughters, that’s what he’s messaging here,” he said.
Sharpton sharply criticized Trump for making the statement as the nation mourns Civil Rights icon and Democratic Congressman John Lewis.
“And what is even more offensive, because those of us in the Civil Rights community that have known him are not surprised by it, but what is so blatantly despicable, Joe, is he does it on the period of time we’re mourning John Lewis, who will be funeralized today,” Sharpton said.
“Not only did he not do anything to say in any serious manner how great John Lewis was, he’s going to use this, that we have three presidents on their way to John Lewis’s funeral, to blatantly play the race card and appeal to what he hopes are the white fears that are still there.”
“This is about as low as you can go.”
President Donald Trump
tweeted
A clear majority of American voters now believe U.S. society is racist. This represents a significant trend as protests against the treatment of African Americans continue.
A Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll finds that 56% of Americans think the country is racist, while a staggering 71% believe race relations are bad at the moment.
Brenda Lee is a pollster who worked on the poll. She thinks George Floyd’s death has affected public attitudes.
“Americans are concerned about issues of inequality, and George Floyd’s death helped contribute to that,” Lee said.
“We’ve moved the needle a great deal in terms of just clearly identifying that we, as Americans, have an issue with racism in this society.”
However, there are major partisan differences on the issue of race – a fact that’s been evident in many similar polls.
While 90% of Democrats believe African Americans are discriminated against, just 26% of Republicans agree.
Republicans are also far less likely to think the country is racist. Just 30% believe that it is, compared to 82% of Democratic respondents.
The survey also showed that a majority of voters – 57% – support the protests sparked by Floyd’s death. These numbers will not be welcome news to President Donald Trump’s campaign.
Mary Trump has claimed that members of her family commonly used racist slurs when she was growing up. She says this is partly to blame for Donald Trump’s own racism.
The President’s niece, who has written a book, Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created the World’s Most Dangerous Man, gave an interview to The Washington Post on Wednesday.
Trump said her uncle is “clearly racist” and that it stems in part from the Trump family’s regular use of racist slurs.
“It comes easily to him and he thinks it’s going to score him points with the only people who are continuing to support him,” she said.
She said her family had “a knee-jerk anti-Semitism, a knee-jerk racism.”
“Growing up, it was sort of normal to hear them use the n-word or use anti-Semitic expressions,” Mary Trump said.
“Homophobia was never an issue because nobody ever talked about gay people, well, until my grandmother called Elton John [a slur],” said Trump, who is gay.
Trump believes the U.S. government has become a “macro version of my incredibly dysfunctional family.”
President Trump has “an unerring instinct for finding people who are weaker than he is” but he’s also “eminently usable by people who are stronger and savvier than he is,” she said.
Many Americans have been compelled by the recent mass protests to seek a fuller understanding of United States history and particularly the African American experience in that history, up to and including ongoing racism, discrimination, and violence against people of color. Black bookstores in particular are being flooded with orders for literary works that portray African American experiences, historical studies that chronicle U.S. history from an African American experience, and books that offer sociological analyses of race and racism in the U.S. Even Amazon Prime created a category featuring films and television shows about African American life, culture, and history.
The United Nations’ Human Rights Council will debate systemic racism and police brutality in the United States following a call from all 54 African nations.
“Structural racism and police violence are issues, which are commonly raised by states and civil society at meetings of the council, as are unlawful killings by police and racial bias in policing,” U.N. human rights spokesman Rolando Gomez told Voice of America. “And, the aim, of course, is to prevent such abhorrent acts.”
The announcement comes as protests continue to galvanize millions across the nation to speak out against racial injustice and police brutality following the killing of George Floyd, an unarmed black man who died in police custody in Minneapolis. The Minneapolis City Council caved to public pressure last week, unanimously passing a resolution to disband the police force with a community-led model.
“The tragic events of 25 May in Minneapolis that led to the death of George Floyd led to protests around the world in protest of injustice and police brutality that persons of African descent face on a daily basis in many regions of the world,” Burkina Faso’s ambassador to the U.N., Dieudonné W. Désiré Sougouri, said in the formal urgent debate request. “The death of George Floyd is unfortunately not an isolated incident. Many other cases of persons of African descent having faced the same fate because of the origin and police violence exist.”
The United States is not a member of the 47-member state forum in Geneva. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and then-U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley withdrew the U.S. two years ago after alleging bias against Israel.
Recent polling indicates that an overwhelming number of Americans, close to 75%, support the protests, inspired by George Floyd’s murder, against racism and police brutality. This approval, polls reveal, stretches across party lines and racial lines.
During a hearing on whether to declare racism a public health crisis, Ohio Senator Steve Huffman (R), who also happens to be an emergency room physician, asked if “the colored population” is more disproportionately impacted by the novel coronavirus because they “don’t wash their hands as well.”
“My point is I understand African Americans have a higher incidence of chronic conditions and it makes them more susceptible to death from COVID,” Huffman said. “But why doesn’t it make them more susceptible to just get COVID?”
Fox News personality Tucker Carlson is facing a wave of criticism after using the classic PBS show Sesame Street as an example of “decades of relentless propaganda.”
“All of it designed to make us feel that we have no right to stand up for ourselves, to stand up for our country,” he said. “We are too sinful to resist, we deserve whatever we get. Shut up and take it, America.”
Carlson said Sesame Street, which was featured during a CNN town hall about the killing of George Floyd and the ensuing protests against racial injustice and police brutality that his death sparked, was teaching children that “America is a very bad place, and it’s all your fault.”
A clip from the event shows Elmo’s dad Louie explaining racism in a way children can understand.
“They are sad and upset, and they have every right to be Elmo. People are upset because racism is a huge problem in our country,” Louie says. “Racism is when people treat other people unfairly because of the way they look or the color of their skin. Not all streets are like Sesame Street. On Sesame Street, we all love and respect one another. Across the country, people of color, especially in the black community, are being treated unfairly because of how they look, their culture, race and who they are. What we are seeing is people saying, ‘Enough is enough.’ They want to end racism.”
“Not all streets are like Sesame Street. … What we are seeing is people saying 'enough is enough.' They want to end racism.”@Elmo’s dad Louie explains why people are protesting across the US. https://t.co/icV04F4FNW #CNNSesameStreet pic.twitter.com/1efrMAzZ8V
John Lewis has called on the American people to band together and elect former Vice President Joe Biden. The Civil Rights icon made an impassioned plea on Sunday.
Lewis, a Democratic congressman, urged a vote for Biden in an email to Biden supporters over the weekend. He framed November’s election as a last chance to save democracy.
“This President threatens the democracy I spilled blood to protect,” the fundraising email begins.
“Since the day he took office, I’ve witnessed this President turn a blind eye to hatred in this nation and refuse to protect American citizens from violence and discrimination.”
“I watched this President rip newborn infants from their mothers’ arms, put them into cages, and leave them separated for weeks on end. I refuse to let his reign of terror continue.”
“He must be stopped. And we are the only people who can stop him.”
“If – and only if – we band together, will we elect Joe Biden and save our democracy.”
“None of us can do it alone. I know better than anyone it takes a group of people taking a stand.”
“We’re fighting for the very soul of our nation,” Lewis wrote.
“I can’t overstate the urgency of defending our democracy against this dangerous President.”