“Why The Media Is Duty-Bound To Call Donald Trump A Racist”: That Ugly Fantasy Might Just Become Our Ugly Reality
It was easy to label the Missouri murder of Craig Anderson “racist,” as BuzzFeed did in its excellent accounting of the modern-day lynching. In 2011, a group of white teenagers allegedly shouted racial epithets while beating Anderson and celebrating running him over with a truck. No one would accuse BuzzFeed of bias for calling that horrific crime racist; it’s a simple statement of fact, not a judgment call. Indeed, it’s easy to call a group of violent, ignorant teenagers committing an alleged hate crime racist.
But for some reason, when covering the people vying for the most powerful office in the land, the media is hesitant to apply the “R” word, no matter how apt it may be. And that hesitation could have extraordinarily serious consequences for the country.
Donald Trump, who maintains a comfortable lead in national polls, launched his campaign by arguing that Mexico sends rapists over our border illegally. His subsequent rise in the polls came not in spite of this anti-immigrant rhetoric, but because of it.
There has long been a racist undercurrent in the battle for the Republican presidential nomination. And the Nov. 13 attacks in Paris by ISIS-affiliated terrorists have exposed it to sunlight.
When the Paris attacks were initially — and falsely, it appears — blamed on terrorists who had snuck into Europe with Syrian refugees, each of the Republican presidential candidates strived to be the most fiercely opposed to allowing Syrian refugees into the U.S. Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush suggested we allow just the Christians in, and Texas Sen. Ted Cruz followed up with a bill that would write that policy into law. New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie said he wouldn’t allow 5-year-old Syrian orphans into the country.
But just denying the refugees fleeing terrorism and repression wasn’t enough. The anti-terrorism furor has grown into an anti-Muslim furor. Trump has called for shutting down mosques and refused to rule out a national registry for Muslims. Marco Rubio is trying to out-Trump Trump by calling not just for shutting down mosques, but even cafes or websites where Muslims gather.
Now, to be clear, these ideas would not only fail to combat terrorism — they would probably increase extremist violence. Repressing loyal Muslim-Americans would drive more radicalization and help ISIS and other terrorist organizations with their recruiting drives. Tell 5-year-old orphans they’re too dangerous to seek refuge in America, and you’ll create the next generation of terrorists.
But these proposals aren’t just obviously wrong-headed; they’re racist. And the media — even nominally objective reporters from mainstream outlets — shouldn’t be shy about saying so.
Nazi analogies are usually the worst. People who resort to comparisons to Hitler or concentration camps or the Holocaust are trivializing the 20th century’s greatest horror. They’re invariably overreacting.
But look at where we are today. Leading candidates for presidents are flirting with requiring adherents of a single religion to be registered. To carry identification cards. To be subject to additional surveillance. To be refused entry to the nation even if they’re escaping horrific repression. To have their houses of worship closed down.
Those are racist, fascist policies. To avoid the comparison with early Nazi repression against Jews is to avoid telling the full story. And that’s just what the media is doing by refusing to call these proposals racist.
Calling a candidate for president racist sure sounds biased, doesn’t it? After all, except for a small fringe of extremists, virtually all Americans believe racism is a Very Bad Thing. Tarring a candidate with that label doesn’t sound like objective reporting; it looks like taking sides.
But it isn’t a judgment call to identify the naked racism of Donald Trump for what it is. Several GOP candidates — even the “mainstream” candidates like Christie, Bush, and Rubio — are suggesting ideas that harken back to some of the ugliest stains on American history, like the unjustified internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II.
It’s not just the racism directed at Muslims. On Sunday, Trump retweeted a graphic filled with made-up statistics about how blacks commit a majority of murders against whites in the United States. It was quickly debunked; the majority of murders of both whites and blacks are committed by people of the same race.
“@SeanSean252: @WayneDupreeShow @Rockprincess818 @CheriJacobus pic.twitter.com/5GUwhhtvyN“
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 22, 2015
The fake statistics from a fake organization was accompanied by a racist graphic of a black man, face covered in bandanas, holding a gun sideways. The Hill called this “controversial.” BuzzFeed said it was “questionable.”
It was actually racist.
Trump spread a false statistic about black-on-white crime to drive up an unfounded fear of black criminals. He was trying to make white people afraid so they’ll vote for him.
This is racist.
Donald Trump is the leading candidate for the Republican nomination for president. He has expressed outright racism against Latinos, Muslims, and African-Americans. His words have already had real-world consequences. Trump supporters kicked and beat a Black Lives Matter protester at a rally Saturday. The next day Trump said “maybe he should have been roughed up.” Two men cited Trump when they beat a homeless Latino Boston man in August. Trump said his supporters were “passionate.”
The America Trump promises to build is ugly: walled off, repressive, and racist. If the media fails to call racism what it is, if they fail to tell the full story, then that ugly fantasy might just become our ugly reality.
By: Jesse Berney, The Week, November 25, 2015
“ACA Plays ‘Remarkable’ Role In Cancer Detection”: A Striking Picture Of Increased Early-Stage Diagnoses Among Young Women
As the Affordable Care Act has taken root, there’s been quite a bit of anecdotal evidence pointing to people whose lives were saved – quite literally – by the law’s existence. But at this point, we’re also able to measure the ACA’s efficacy beyond just the anecdotes.
The New York Times reported on a substantial increase in the number of young women who’ve been diagnosed with early-stage cervical cancer, and there doesn’t seem to be much of a mystery to explain the trend. Because “Obamacare” covers young adults before their 26th birthday, the percentage of uninsured 19- to 25-year-olds has plummeted.
You can probably guess what that means: more young women are able to see a doctor, more doctors are able to do cancer screenings, and more exams are detecting cancer at early stages. From the Times’ report:
Researchers from the American Cancer Society wanted to examine whether the expansion of health insurance among young American women was leading to more early-stage diagnoses. Early diagnosis improves the prospects for survival because treatment is more effective and the chance of remission is higher. It also bolsters women’s chances for preserving their fertility during treatment. And women with health insurance are far more likely to get a screening that can identify cancer early.
Researchers used the National Cancer Data Base, a hospital-based registry of about 70 percent of all cancer cases in the United States. They compared diagnoses for women ages 21 to 25 who had cervical cancer with those for women ages 26 to 34, before and after the health law provision began in 2010.
The results painted a striking picture of increased early-stage diagnoses among the younger group, with no meaningful change in the older group.
One of the researchers, Dr. Ahmedin Jemal, said the effect of the Affordable Care Act is hard to miss, leading to results he described as “very remarkable.”
For the ACA’s proponents, it’s additional evidence to suggest the law is literally a life-saver, and for the ACA’s opponents, it’s another challenge in explaining why the law must be destroyed in its entirety, regardless of the consequences.
By: Steve Benen, The Maddow Blog, November 25, 2015
“He Has Adopted A Retro Racism Strategy”: Donald Trump Is Running The Most Explicitly Racist Campaign Since 1968
Donald Trump’s presidential candidacy is unique and remarkable in many ways. Never before has someone with no experience in government, not even a shred of understanding of public policy, and little in the way of an organized campaign done so well. Trump has been leading the Republican race for nearly five months, and shows no sign of faltering.
And here’s one other way it’s remarkable: After decades of rhetorical evolution from Republicans on matters of race, Donald Trump is now running the most plainly, explicitly, straightforwardly racist campaign since at least George Wallace’s third-party run in 1968, and maybe even Strom Thurmond’s in 1948.
All the way back in 1981, Republican strategist Lee Atwater explained how his party’s candidates had changed the way they talked about race and government to white voters over time. “You start out in 1954 by saying, ‘Nigger, nigger, nigger,'” Atwater said. “By 1968 you can’t say ‘nigger’ — that hurts you, backfires. So you say stuff like, uh, forced busing, states’ rights, and all that stuff, and you’re getting so abstract. Now, you’re talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you’re talking about are totally economic things and a byproduct of them is, blacks get hurt worse than whites.”
Atwater’s point — that you could get whites to vote on the basis of racial resentments without using explicitly racist language — formed the basis of the GOP’s “Southern Strategy,” first adopted by Richard Nixon. Though you can hear blatant race-baiting just by turning on your favorite conservative radio host (particularly during the Obama presidency), what comes from the man at the top of the ticket has for some time been more subtle. Ronald Reagan may have complained in 1976 about the “strapping young buck” buying steak with his food stamps, and four years later thundered about “welfare queens,” but a Republican candidate today wouldn’t talk in those terms. In 1988, Atwater masterminded the campaign of George Bush, which made “Willie Horton” a household name, convincing voters that Michael Dukakis was going to send murderous, hypersexualized black men to rape their women and kill their men (though not in so many words, of course). But today no GOP nominee would use that story the way the Bush campaign did, because they know they’d be immediately called out for the clear racism of their appeals.
But here comes Donald Trump, who started his campaign by ranting about how Mexican immigrants are rapists and drug dealers — in his announcement speech, no less. It was clear right then that Trump would say what others would only imply. And in the last week or so he has claimed that in Jersey City, “thousands and thousands of people were cheering” as the World Trade Center fell on 9/11. After a Black Lives Matter protester was punched and kicked at a Trump rally, Trump said “Maybe he should have been roughed up.” And he retweeted a graphic with fake statistics about black people supposedly murdering whites, which turns out to have been created by a neo-Nazi.
After innumerable media outlets confirmed that there were no mass celebrations in Jersey City on 9/11, Trump could have said, “I guess you’re right — I was probably remembering scenes I saw of people cheering in the West Bank.” But he didn’t; instead, he insists that he’s right and the facts are wrong. But the real point isn’t that Trump isn’t telling the truth; that has happened many times before and will again. What’s important is the thing Trump is trying to communicate with this story.
It isn’t an argument about the alleged threat posed by Syrian refugees, or something about ISIS (which didn’t exist in 2001). Trump is talking about Americans. He’s telling his supporters: Your Muslim friends and neighbors? They’re not the assimilated, patriotic Americans they want you to believe. They’re not regular people with jobs and families and lives like yours. They’re a threat, people to be surveilled and harassed and hated and feared.
Let’s be clear about one thing: The rest of the Republican Party’s more subtle language on race doesn’t excuse their actions. Making it as hard as possible for black people to vote and stirring up racial resentment on the part of whites are still at the core of GOP strategy. But whether out of the goodness of their hearts or simple political calculation, they’ve agreed that certain kinds of naked bigotry are simply unacceptable in the 21st century.
Donald Trump is not willing to go along with that consensus. So he has adopted a retro racism, telling primary voters in no uncertain terms that if you’re looking for the candidate who will indulge and validate your ugliest impulses, Trump is your man. And nearly as shamefully, his opponents tiptoe around the issue, unwilling to criticize him too severely. Even Chris Christie, whose own constituents are the ones being slandered by Trump’s 9/11 celebration lie, could only muster that “I do not remember that. And so, it’s not something that was part of my recollection. I think if it had happened, I would remember it. But, you know, there could be things I forget, too.” The supposedly tough guy from Jersey turns out to be a moral coward of the first order.
The reason isn’t hard to discern: Christie and the other candidates don’t want to alienate Trump’s supporters, who are greater in number than those behind any other Republican candidate. And that could be the most disheartening thing of all: not that there’s a candidate willing to make these repugnant appeals, but that so many Republican voters hear them and cheer.
By: Paul Waldman, Senior Writer, The American Prospect; Contributor, The Week, November 25, 2015
“Satan’s Office Party”: It’s Black Friday And The Religious Zealots Are Running Out Of Places To Shop
On this Black Friday, apparently members of the religious right are running into a problem. After having joined the bandwagon of turning Christmas into a commercialized shopping extravaganza, Linda Harvey says that they’re running out of places to spend their money that are content to discriminate against LGBT people.
Of course she warns people to stay away from the usual suspects like Macy’s for allowing a transexual to use a woman’s dressing room and Target for selling gay pride t-shirts. But oh my, she now has to add that conservative bastion known as Wal-Mart to the list for opposing “religious freedom” bills in Arkansas and Indiana.
But my very favorite is her problem with Mattel.
If you’re thinking toys, avoid Mattel. They just created “Moschino Barbie” with an ad featuring a tragically feminized little boy who plays with Barbies, a wicked accommodation to the current gender-destructive culture.
Little boys playing with Barbies? What is the world coming to? For our “gender-destructive culture,” Harvey has a totally hyperbolized name…”Satan’s Office Party.”
Here’s a thought. What if these religious zealots actually DID run out of places to shop and had to spend some time thinking about what the whole Christmas season was originally about?
Let me tell you something about the Jesus that I know.
He was a real man. Born in a poor region to working poor parents. He loved learning, he loved his mother and his father.
But he left them and spent his life with the poor, the outcast, the rejected, the defiled, the sick, the sinners, the bedraggled, the bereft, the self-hating, the lonely, the banished, the foul, the miserable, the desperate and finally, those sick with their own power.
He did this, not because of his ideology or his creed. He did this not because of his doctrine. He did this, quite simply, because he loved them. He preferred them.
Making up a fictionalized “war on Christmas” is a way to avoid the discomfort these folks would feel if they really did attempt to put Christ back in Christmas.
By: Nancy Letourneau, The Political Animal Blog, The Washington Monthly, November 27, 2015
“Current Law, But Not Settled Law”: Rubio Not Done Fighting Against Marriage Equality
For a presidential candidate who’s often preoccupied with his youth and reputation for looking forward, Sen. Marco Rubio’s (R-Fla.) policy vision can be strikingly regressive.
Marriage equality, for example, is already the law of the land in the United States, but Right Wing Watch flagged Rubio’s new interview with Pat Robertson’s Christian Broadcasting Network, where the senator made clear he’s not done fighting against equal marriage rights, calling the status quo “current law,” but “not settled law.”
“If you live in a society where the government creates an avenue and a way for you to peacefully change the law, then you’re called on to participate in that process to try to change it – not ignoring it, but trying to change the law.
“And that’s what we’re endeavoring to do here. I continue to believe that marriage law should be between one man and one woman.”
For most of the country, there’s a realization that there is no credible proposal to turn back the clock. Rubio didn’t elaborate on how, exactly, he wants to “change the law” to prevent same-sex couples from getting married, and if he tried, he’d likely fail.
But the key here is understanding just how far the Florida senator is willing to go with the culture war. For Rubio, it’s still not too late to bring back discriminatory marriage laws.
And then, of course, there are reproductive rights, where Rubio still intends to be the most far-right major-party presidential nominee of the modern era.
As regular readers know, Rubio’s position on abortion is that it must be outlawed – without exception. If a woman is impregnated by a rapist, for example, Rubio believes the government has the authority to force that woman to take that pregnancy to term, whether she wants to or not.
This came up in a recent interview with the New Yorker.
On several issues, Rubio has taken a position that suits the faithful in the primaries but is guaranteed to repel voters in a general election. His most obvious vulnerability is on abortion. In the first Republican debate, Rubio said that his opposition to abortion extends to cases of rape or incest – a position at odds with that of more than three-quarters of Americans. [Democratic strategist David] Axelrod told me, “No exceptions is a position so extreme that no Republican candidate has ever held it. Presidential races are defined by moments. Maybe he will try to amend that position, but in the age of video it’s hard to extinguish a declarative statement like that.”
When I asked Rubio about it, he said, somewhat confusingly, “Look, I personally believe that all life is worthy of protection, and therefore I don’t ever require, nor have I ever advocated, that I won’t support a law unless it has exceptions.” After some more twists and turns, I sensed that we had reached the line he plans to use in a general election: “My goal is to save as many lives as possible, and I’ll support anything that does that. Even if it has exceptions.”
This led to some confusion, prompting Rubio to clarify matters in an interview yesterday with the Associated Press. “I, as president, will sign a bill that has exceptions,” he said. “I’ve supported bills that have exceptions.” The senator added, “I do not personally require a bill to have exceptions – other than life of the mother – in order for me to support it. But I will sign a bill as president that has exceptions.”
Here’s the bottom line: if a Republican Congress sends President Rubio an anti-abortion bill, he’ll sign it, even if it includes some exceptions he personally disagrees with. When it comes to abortion restrictions, he’ll take what he can get and then fight for more.
But as far as what Rubio actually, personally wants U.S. policy to be, he’s opposed to exceptions, even in cases of rape and incest – a position further to the right than any Republican nominee since Roe was decided more than 40 years ago.
By: Steve Benen, The Maddow Blog, November 25, 2015
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