truthout--2020-06-10--Trump Is Trying to Delude Us, Even as His Campaign Staff Tries to Delude Him

Donald Trump does not enjoy reality anymore , not that he ever had much use for it to begin with .
Reality is mean to him .
It does not feed his ego , so he has dispensed with it , and is instead endeavoring to spread conspiracy theories about anti-fascists ( antifa ) in an effort to distract us from the sea change in public opinion on police brutality that is occurring in response to the historic Black-led protest movement that has galvanized the nation .
“ Buffalo protester shoved by Police could be an ANTIFA provocateur , ” @ @ @ @ @ @ @ laid to rest .
“ 75 year old Martin Gugino was pushed away after appearing to scan police communications in order to black out the equipment… I watched , he fell harder than was pushed .
Was aiming scanner .
Could be a set up ?
” Here in reality , Martin Gugino is a longtime peace activist in the vein of Dorothy Day who has , in his time , marched against nuclear weapons , the Guantanamo Bay prison , climate disruption , and yes , police brutality .
A Buffalo native @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to care for his elderly mother .
Gugino is not , nor has he ever been , an antifa “ provocateur.
” The only thing “ aimed ” was his skull toward the ground , thanks to the cop who pushed him .
Now , Gugino is one of hundreds of protesters whose brutalization at the hands of rioting police over the last two weeks has been captured on camera for all the world to see .
That version of reality sucks for Trump , so in order to try and make it @ @ @ @ @ @ @ murky mayhem of the One America News Network ( OANN ) , a hyper-conservative station that makes Fox News sound like DemocracyNOW !
.
The OANN segment Trump sourced for his batshit accusation against Gugino was made by Kristian Rouz , who also happens to be on the payroll of Sputnik , the Kremlin ’ s main propaganda spigot ( because , y ’ know , birds of a feather and all that ) .
If you think OANN sounds like something Dante and Faust might have collaborated on just to freak people @ @ @ @ @ @ @ off the mark .
Trump is not the only one whistling past this particular graveyard .
His gruesome Gugino tweet has forced a large number of Republican senators to pretend in broad daylight that it never happened .
“ Even faced with documentary evidence of the president ’ s inflammatory remark , most Republicans averted their gaze on Tuesday , ” reports The New York Times , “ declining to comment as they darted through the hallways of Capitol Hill and appearing to wish away what was on paper in front of them.
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ s re-election prospects is a grim landscape of compounded crises and catastrophic polls , so of course , that has to change as well .
Trump is furious about his standing , and according to reports is considering jettisoning not only campaign manager Brad Parscale , but also son-in-law Jared Kushner , the man whose life gives comprehensive lie to the concept of the Peter Principle .
Two days ago , CNN released a poll that has Democratic challenger Joe Biden leading Trump by a walloping 14 points .
This came on the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that have Trump spiraling downward at a remarkable clip .
He is trailing in vital battleground states like Pennsylvania , Michigan , North Carolina , Ohio , Wisconsin and Arizona .
Trump ’ s campaign now finds itself forced to spend time and money defending states like Iowa , Texas and Georgia , which were easy layups four short years ago .
While few will claim that the words “ reality ” and “ polls ” deserve to share a sentence after the debacle of 2016 , Trump sure seems to think the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ he has declared war on that , too .
This time , however , he has done so in one of the strangest , most laughable ways ever witnessed in modern politics .
In this instance , Trump ’ s weapon against reality is disgraced pollster John McLaughlin , who has been tasked to conjure a poll that refutes the CNN poll with the 14-point spread .
You see , even a man of Trump ’ s formidable talents can not be expected to destroy reality without some help .
McLaughlin is a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , and that , friends , is saying something .
McLaughlin cemented his barrel-bottom reputation in 2014 while in the employ of former Republican Rep. Eric Cantor of Virginia ( “ former ” being the rub here ) .
According to McLaughlin ’ s numbers , Cantor was leading primary challenger Dave Brat by 34 points .
When the time came to count the votes , Brat obliterated Cantor by 11 points , ending Cantor ’ s ghastly political career with a meaty thud .
So , yeah , this should work out @ @ @ @ @ @ @ one assisting Trump in taking reality for a long walk off a short pier .
Recently , his campaign spent upwards of $ 400,000 to run aggressively pro-Trump ads in Virginia , Maryland and D.C .
The point of this was not to try and bag those states in November , because there is almost no chance of that happening under any circumstances ; in 2016 , Trump lost Virginia by 5 points , Maryland by 27 points and D.C. by 84 ( yes , 84 ) points .
“ With Trump stuck @ @ @ @ @ @ @ re-election team is hoping that the ads may put him at ease that his formidable political machine is hard at work defending him and attacking his enemies , ” reports The Daily Beast .
“ Trump is a voracious consumer of cable news , and — the thinking goes — is likely to see the spots pop up between segments of his favorite shows.
” Shorter version : The “ audience of one ” concept has reached its zenith with this amazing nonsense .
Trump ’ s own campaign staff is deliberately deluding @ @ @ @ @ @ @ war chest simultaneously .
That Trump is so easily gulled is among the more terrifying elements of this entire ordeal .
In response to the massive public revolt against racist police violence in the wake of George Floyd ’ s murder , White House adviser and vivid fascist Stephen Miller is reportedly drafting a Trump speech on race relations .
Miller ’ s greatest claim to fame is the administration ’ s policy of separating migrant children from their families and housing them in cages indefinitely .
Should it ever come to pass @ @ @ @ @ @ @ reality will be a supernova of distortion , deflection and self-pity .
Finally , Trump ’ s Greco-Roman tussle with reality has put the city of Jacksonville , Florida , directly in the COVID crosshairs .
The pandemic is killing upward of 1,000 people a day here in the U.S. , and a large number of states have seen a dramatic spike in new cases since the Memorial Day weekend .
The fact of COVID motivated North Carolina to balk at Trump ’ s plan to hold a nominating convention before a cheek-to-jowl @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s version of reality does not enjoy the lethal reality of coronavirus , Jacksonville is now the front-runner for his frantic need to be cheered by people who think antifa are coming in buses to steal their Bibles , or something .
There is no way to predict the outcome of the 2020 presidential election , and anyone who tells you otherwise is trying to sell you something .
That being said , the pattern for the next 146 days appears to be set .
Trump is fleeing the reality he has @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the darkened stairs leading to the basement of his own self-delusion .
He is taking us with him while doing so , and without a second thought .
Will Trump fall harder than he was pushed ?
Only time will tell .

Donald Trump does not enjoy reality anymore, not that he ever had much use for it to begin with. Reality is mean to him. It does not feed his ego, so he has dispensed with it, and is instead endeavoring to spread conspiracy theories about anti-fascists (antifa) in an effort to distract us from the sea change in public opinion on police brutality that is occurring in response to the historic Black-led protest movement that has galvanized the nation.
“Buffalo protester shoved by Police could be an ANTIFA provocateur,” Trump tweeted yesterday as George Floyd was laid to rest. “75 year old Martin Gugino was pushed away after appearing to scan police communications in order to black out the equipment… I watched, he fell harder than was pushed. Was aiming scanner. Could be a set up?”
Here in reality, Martin Gugino is a longtime peace activist in the vein of Dorothy Day who has, in his time, marched against nuclear weapons, the Guantanamo Bay prison, climate disruption, and yes, police brutality. A Buffalo native, Gugino returned home some years ago to care for his elderly mother.
Gugino is not, nor has he ever been, an antifa “provocateur.” The only thing “aimed” was his skull toward the ground, thanks to the cop who pushed him. Now, Gugino is one of hundreds of protesters whose brutalization at the hands of rioting police over the last two weeks has been captured on camera for all the world to see.
That version of reality sucks for Trump, so in order to try and make it go away, he reached into the murky mayhem of the One America News Network (OANN), a hyper-conservative station that makes Fox News sound like DemocracyNOW!.
The OANN segment Trump sourced for his batshit accusation against Gugino was made by Kristian Rouz, who also happens to be on the payroll of Sputnik, the Kremlin’s main propaganda spigot (because, y’know, birds of a feather and all that). If you think OANN sounds like something Dante and Faust might have collaborated on just to freak people out, you’re not far off the mark.
Trump is not the only one whistling past this particular graveyard. His gruesome Gugino tweet has forced a large number of Republican senators to pretend in broad daylight that it never happened. “Even faced with documentary evidence of the president’s inflammatory remark, most Republicans averted their gaze on Tuesday,” reports The New York Times, “declining to comment as they darted through the hallways of Capitol Hill and appearing to wish away what was on paper in front of them.”
The current reality of Trump’s re-election prospects is a grim landscape of compounded crises and catastrophic polls, so of course, that has to change as well. Trump is furious about his standing, and according to reports is considering jettisoning not only campaign manager Brad Parscale, but also son-in-law Jared Kushner, the man whose life gives comprehensive lie to the concept of the Peter Principle.
The current reality of Trump’s re-election prospects is a grim landscape of compounded crises and catastrophic polls.
Two days ago, CNN released a poll that has Democratic challenger Joe Biden leading Trump by a walloping 14 points. This came on the heels of a slew of other polls that have Trump spiraling downward at a remarkable clip. He is trailing in vital battleground states like Pennsylvania, Michigan, North Carolina, Ohio, Wisconsin and Arizona. Trump’s campaign now finds itself forced to spend time and money defending states like Iowa, Texas and Georgia, which were easy layups four short years ago.
While few will claim that the words “reality” and “polls” deserve to share a sentence after the debacle of 2016, Trump sure seems to think the threat is real enough, and so he has declared war on that, too. This time, however, he has done so in one of the strangest, most laughable ways ever witnessed in modern politics.
In this instance, Trump’s weapon against reality is disgraced pollster John McLaughlin, who has been tasked to conjure a poll that refutes the CNN poll with the 14-point spread. You see, even a man of Trump’s formidable talents cannot be expected to destroy reality without some help.
McLaughlin is a notorious laughingstock within the political polling community, and that, friends, is saying something. McLaughlin cemented his barrel-bottom reputation in 2014 while in the employ of former Republican Rep. Eric Cantor of Virginia (“former” being the rub here). According to McLaughlin’s numbers, Cantor was leading primary challenger Dave Brat by 34 points. When the time came to count the votes, Brat obliterated Cantor by 11 points, ending Cantor’s ghastly political career with a meaty thud.
So, yeah, this should work out well.
McLaughlin is not the only one assisting Trump in taking reality for a long walk off a short pier. Recently, his campaign spent upwards of $400,000 to run aggressively pro-Trump ads in Virginia, Maryland and D.C. The point of this was not to try and bag those states in November, because there is almost no chance of that happening under any circumstances; in 2016, Trump lost Virginia by 5 points, Maryland by 27 points and D.C. by 84 (yes, 84) points.
“With Trump stuck in that milieu of anxiety, his re-election team is hoping that the ads may put him at ease that his formidable political machine is hard at work defending him and attacking his enemies,” reports The Daily Beast. “Trump is a voracious consumer of cable news, and — the thinking goes — is likely to see the spots pop up between segments of his favorite shows.”
Will Trump fall harder than he was pushed? Only time will tell.
Shorter version: The “audience of one” concept has reached its zenith with this amazing nonsense. Trump’s own campaign staff is deliberately deluding their candidate while brazenly fleecing his campaign war chest simultaneously. That Trump is so easily gulled is among the more terrifying elements of this entire ordeal.
In response to the massive public revolt against racist police violence in the wake of George Floyd’s murder, White House adviser and vivid fascist Stephen Miller is reportedly drafting a Trump speech on race relations. Miller’s greatest claim to fame is the administration’s policy of separating migrant children from their families and housing them in cages indefinitely. Should it ever come to pass, the collision between that speech and reality will be a supernova of distortion, deflection and self-pity.
Finally, Trump’s Greco-Roman tussle with reality has put the city of Jacksonville, Florida, directly in the COVID crosshairs. The pandemic is killing upward of 1,000 people a day here in the U.S., and a large number of states have seen a dramatic spike in new cases since the Memorial Day weekend.
The fact of COVID motivated North Carolina to balk at Trump’s plan to hold a nominating convention before a cheek-to-jowl crowd of adulating supporters. Because Trump’s version of reality does not enjoy the lethal reality of coronavirus, Jacksonville is now the front-runner for his frantic need to be cheered by people who think antifa are coming in buses to steal their Bibles, or something.
There is no way to predict the outcome of the 2020 presidential election, and anyone who tells you otherwise is trying to sell you something. That being said, the pattern for the next 146 days appears to be set. Trump is fleeing the reality he has created for himself, and tumbling down the darkened stairs leading to the basement of his own self-delusion. He is taking us with him while doing so, and without a second thought.
Will Trump fall harder than he was pushed? Only time will tell.
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truthout--2020-06-10--Khalil Gibran Muhammad Discusses the Significance of Calls to Defund the Police

Protests in defense of Black lives and calls to defund the police continue across the U.S. , from Los Angeles to Minneapolis and New York .
We speak with Khalil Gibran Muhammad , a professor of history , race and public policy at the Harvard Kennedy School and the Suzanne Young Murray professor at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study , about the significance of this moment and the history of policing in the U.S. “ We haven ’ t seen a moment like this in at least half a century , ” Muhammad says .
“ It ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ re going to go from this moment , but it ’ s clear that when we look at the history of policing , we have run out of options in terms of reform , in terms of thinking about what the police can do for themselves.
” This is a rush transcript .
Copy may not be in its final form .
AMY GOODMAN : This is Democracy Now !
, democracynow.org , The Quarantine Report .
I ’ m Amy Goodman , with Juan González .
It ’ s been more @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of George Floyd in Minneapolis sparked a global uprising in defense of Black lives .
The protests , seen in major cities , small towns across the U.S. , show no sign of abating .
As calls to defund the police grow , protesters are beginning to see results .
Last weekend , the majority of Minneapolis City Council pledged to abolish the police department in Minneapolis .
In New York , state lawmakers have voted to ban the use of chokeholds and repeal a law that shields the disciplinary records of police @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Angeles , Mayor Eric Garcetti pledged to cut police funding by $ 150 million .
Residents are now demanding he go much further .
Well , for more on the significance of this moment and the history of policing in America , from slave patrols to the present day , we ’ re joined by Khalil Gibran Muhammad , professor of history , race and public policy at the Harvard Kennedy School and the former director of the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture .
He ’ s the author of The @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , and the Making of Modern Urban America .
Professor Muhammad , it ’ s great to have you with us .
If you could talk about this moment in time , both the uprisings , not only in this country , but around the world , and also the history of policing , that you so profoundly document ?
KHALIL GIBRAN MUHAMMAD : Thanks , Amy .
Thanks , Amy and Juan , for having me on the show .
Listen , we haven ’ t seen a moment like this in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ here in the United States with protesters taking to the streets to demand , once and for all , not just police reform and accountability , but the prospect of a new vision of a relationship between state authorities and the health of a community .
And the health of a community depends on everything , from the public goods and social services that people need , but also safety .
And safety can come in many forms .
So , as far as what we ’ re seeing , we ’ re @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the challenge that rocked the world in 1968 with global movements for various forms of anti-capitalist and anti-imperial and anticolonial organizing that took place both in the Global South and in many of the metropoles of the Global North .
And , you know , it ’ s hard to know for sure where we ’ re going to go from this moment , but it ’ s clear that when we look at the history of policing , we have run out of options in terms of reform , in terms of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ for themselves .
I liken this to asking the police agencies of this country to reform themselves is as ridiculous as asking the fossil fuel industry to solve our climate change crisis .
JUAN GONZÁLEZ : And , Professor , in your book , you talk about the 400 years of legacy of the development of these methods of policing , going back to the slave patrols in the mid-19th century .
I ’ m wondering if you could take our listeners and viewers through some of that history ?
KHALIL GIBRAN MUHAMMAD @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , people intuit and commonsensically understand that as a system of violent control over human beings , slavery required the use of violence to control people .
And so , for the entire period going back to the mid-1600s into the early 1700s , colony after colony , from New York and Massachusetts to South Carolina and Virginia , passed a series of Black Codes or Negro Acts , various laws that were designed to empower everyday white citizens with the responsibility and , let me be clear , the duty to serve @ @ @ @ @ @ @ monitor , to track and , when caught , to dispense corporal punishment against enslaved African people in the colonies .
It was the largest bureaucracy dedicated to a form of policing that we recognize today .
And it was everywhere in the colonies .
By the time the nation was born , in 1790 , while there were gradual abolition laws that took root in many Northern colonies , the antebellum experience of free Blacks was little different .
What went from a slave patrol became the responsibility of a growing cohort @ @ @ @ @ @ @ problem , from slavery to freedom , simply changed uniform and changed the instruments and tools of keeping track of people of African descent , and it expanded in the United States of America .
But there ’ s another part of this history that I think is really important , and that is that policing , in the broadest sense , was always about policing the essential workers of this society .
And this is true in societies in countries all over the globe .
And what do I mean by “ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ who , at the bottom of the society , their freedom has always been constrained by more privileged and more elite , and in this country , whites .
Now , whites , of course , range in class .
And so , one of the ironies is that both poor whites in many parts of the country were policed , especially when they challenged political authority , when they challenged economic inequality , but at the same time , they were able to join police forces .
By the 1840s and 1850s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to both make their way in America , but also begin to join the police force .
They direct their sense of belonging in the United States for policing .
[ inaudible ] both a reflection of a racial and class hierarchy and also a way of giving power to groups that feel like they don ’ t have access to the top of the American economy .
So , policing is a reflection of a tremendous disorder in our economic system .
It is a reflection of racial hierarchies that are deeply @ @ @ @ @ @ @ we see FOP or union leaders represented by working-class white men , partly , they have been empowered to define the profession as their own , not as a reflection of liberal democratic norms and universal ideas , but it is their profession .
So , for me , to talk about the history of policing is also to talk about the history of white supremacy and racial capitalism in the United States of America .
JUAN GONZÁLEZ : [ inaudible ] that I ’ m wondering , because this does not only @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the African American community , but it ’ s also been — this method of using law enforcement and policing as a method of domination has also been used with other people of color , specifically Mexicans , Puerto Ricans , Native Americans .
In 1862 , President Lincoln ordered the hanging of 38 Dakota warriors who had gone to war against the U.S. in the midst of the Civil War .
And they were hanged as criminals and as murderers , not as enemy combatants .
And I ’ m thinking of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ created to control and dominate Mexicans , who were called “ bandits , ” because they were defending their land .
And even with Puerto Ricans , from Albizu Campos to Oscar López Rivera , all the freedom fighters were always branded as criminals and dealt with as criminals within the justice system .
I ’ m wondering , this whole issue of the territorial expansion of the country necessitating even more police repression on these populations of color , your sense of it in your historical studies .
KHALIL GIBRAN MUHAMMAD : @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the summaries and examples you just gave are incredibly important , because , to take it back to the very beginning , my colleague , Kelly Lytle Hernández , who has written about the U.S. Border Patrol and its origins in policing the movement of Mexicans coming to the country because the country wanted them here to work — but she also describes that the infrastructure of American colonial settlement , the very basis upon which the country literally expanded , as you say , the territorial expansion , was the jail .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ beginning , in the 1700s , to what is now the city of Los Angeles , which used to be the Tongva Basin , which used to be populated by Indigenous populations .
And she said it was precisely the introduction of the physical jail as the instrument of control and domination , but a domination that was always rooted in harnessing the labor power of people , not to exterminate or to exclude them altogether , but to ensure that their labor would be extracted for the purposes of work , and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that their freedom would be constrained .
And that story is the story of every group in every part of the country whose labor power was the most important contribution that they would make .
Their civil liberties , their civil rights , their human rights , their humanity itself , was optional , was secondary .
Their right to political dissent was secondary .
So , you can look at Chinese immigrants in San Francisco in the 1880s and see the same story .
You can look in Chicago in the midst @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , with foreign-born immigrant whites demanding fair treatment in the workplace , and see the same story .
You can look at Texas and look and see the story of the Texas Rangers , which enforced literal white property theft of Tejano and Mexican descendant landowners , people who not only had once been part of Mexico before the Mexican Revolution and before the annexation of Mexico by the United States in 1848 , but people who were law-abiding , respectable citizens in their communities .
And white settlers showed up and essentially @ @ @ @ @ @ @ them , and Texas Rangers enforced that .
So , across time , across space and across groups , policing has a tortured history of being enforcers of various forms of domination .
AMY GOODMAN : You know , this is so interesting .
This is so interesting , Khalil , because you , before you were a Harvard professor , you were the head of the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture , which was established by Arturo Alfonso Schomburg , who was an African American Puerto Rican , bringing together @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ m wondering if you now can go back , as you have , talking about the history of police repression , and talk about the history of the resistance to it ?
KHALIL GIBRAN MUHAMMAD : Yeah .
So , the resistance is fascinating , because for every slave patrol was an individual or group of individuals who sought to subvert the system .
And , of course , the most famous of those who fought against it was Harriet Tubman .
And while often we think of her as a kind @ @ @ @ @ @ @ history , she embodied the earliest forms of resistance to the system itself , but also to challenging the very violent instruments of that system .
We can look at the resistance of laborers , who armed themselves to fight against private security and police officers at the gates of companies in various cities of Massachusetts in the 1870s , in steel country in the Midwest , and the rise-up of populist , anti-capitalist organizing of socialist leaders in the turn of the 20th century .
White workers and Black workers , in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ fought together to change the very understanding of their rights as economic beings and as citizens of this country .
And most certainly , we can look at Northern cities as places where African Americans showed up , beginning in World War I , and completely transforming the understanding of work and citizenship in this nation by virtue of the Great Migration .
And in time after time , instance after instance , African Americans demanded equality at the workplace , demanded equality in the homes , and they fought against white police @ @ @ @ @ @ @ We saw commissions beginning in , really , the 1890s around white police agencies focused on immigrants , and then we saw the same thing occur in the Great Migration period , beginning in Chicago , as the result of an anti-Black riot in 1919 .
These commissions came to the same conclusion over and over again .
For over a century , from Chicago to the consent decree in Chicago in 2017 around the Laquan McDonald shooting , you have the arc of a hundred years of history saying the same story @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of violence by a police officer is only the tip of the iceberg of a submerged story of hundreds , in some cases thousands , of people being subject to various forms of everyday forms of abuse and trauma by the police .
And that resistance , in the form of those commissions , is Black folks speaking to their condition .
Of course , the Black freedom movement gave us the Black Panther Party and other radical groups that essentially centered police brutality as the key issue for securing Black dignity and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , and they were subject to the full weight of the federal government in repressive tactics , including COINTELPRO and other mechanisms , including assassination , which , in the most high-profile case , killed Fred Hampton in 1969 in Chicago .
AMY GOODMAN : I want to turn to U.S. Attorney General William Barr speaking Sunday on CBS ’ Face the Nation .
Asked if he believes there ’ s systemic racism in law enforcement , this is his response .
It ’ s not playing .
But let me ask you @ @ @ @ @ @ @ you ’ ve talked about the resistance through history .
How does what we ’ re seeing now — it looks like we have William Barr .
AMY GOODMAN : “ I don ’ t think that the law enforcement system is [ systemically ] racist.
” Professor Muhammad , your response ?
KHALIL GIBRAN MUHAMMAD : Well , I mean , I was actually more impressed with some of the concessions he made in that speech than this fine line he draws between individual rotten apples and the system itself .
I @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to think about this this way .
This would be the akin of saying that Americans ’ prisons are not built to dehumanize , given everything we know what goes on inside of them , despite the fact that people who show up to work every day are not necessarily evil people .
That ’ s the problem we ’ re having around this conversation around policing .
Policing , as a system , has been a system of control that sorts people and decides who gets to live and who gets to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ criminality .
That is not true in white affluent communities .
It is not true in communities where political elites are .
We just saw a parade of criminality in the Trump administration , and all we kept hearing is federal prosecutors say , “ We ’ re not sure we can win this case .
We ’ re not sure we can bring the case.
” We didn ’ t see Michael Cohen be subjected to pepper spray or flash grenades or a knee on his neck .
So , there is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , that police are enforcing white supremacy , and they ’ re enforcing economic hierarchy .
And until we come to terms with that , in the way that we should be coming to terms with what happens inside of our prisons , we ’ re going to continue to see the resistance take to the streets and demand justice and transformation .
JUAN GONZÁLEZ : And , Khalil , I wanted to ask you about a particular aspect of the role of the press and the media narrative in the issues of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of the country ’ s history — and I ’ ve done quite a bit of studying of the history of the press in America — the press functioned almost as an intelligence operation for the dominant white community .
During the colonial period , as much as a third of all of the content of American newspapers was intelligence to the white settlers about what the African American or the Native American communities were doing .
But even up to the ’ 60s , the press were largely white , and even @ @ @ @ @ @ @ they reporting from a white perspective , as the Kerner Commission noted .
But in recent years , as the press themselves have become diversified , we ’ re seeing both in the mainstream media , and of course now with citizen videos , this enormous change in the narrative as to what the role of the police is .
I ’ m wondering if you think that that , along with the public resistance movement , will have a more lasting effect in terms of redirecting or changing the nature of policing @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Juan , it ’ s a great question , and I certainly appreciate even your sharing your own research and brief history of media in the past .
I think it ’ s important .
So , if the question is “ Can we see this moment for the democratization of media itself ?
” obviously , by virtue of social media and the fact that citizens can aggregate and spread news in ways that they could not before , I do think this is a fundamentally different moment .
The gatekeeping of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ down in many ways , both for good and for bad .
But on the good side of the ledger , there ’ s no question that this is a moment of possibility , because there is a crisis of legitimacy in our democratic institutions , most obviously in the executive branch with the White House .
But it is also true that news agencies around the country , no matter who ’ s in charge — a Black person or white prison or a Latino or Asian American — have been deferential @ @ @ @ @ @ @ accounts .
And the crisis of legitimacy for police agencies has led many of those news directors , no matter who they are , to begin to think , like , we can ’ t trust the official record .
In the case of Derek Chauvin ’ s killing of George Floyd , he lied on the police record .
So , the deference that has been assumed up to this time now is breaking down .
The ability to shoot in real time the killing and execution of people by police , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ as is the case in Buffalo and many other places as police use brutality to stop protesters from protesting against brutality , means that this crisis of legitimacy will be resolved .
The only question of what the resolution looks like is : How long will people stay in the streets demanding change ?
AMY GOODMAN : Khalil Gibran Muhammad , finally , defund the police .
Do you see a comparable movement in history ?
And how this has changed the narrative ?
KHALIL GIBRAN MUHAMMAD : The defund-the-police moment is an @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , that has mostly been about activists seeding the notion that these institutions are fundamentally broken .
Organizations like Critical Resistance , that Ruth Gilmore and Angela Davis began many decades ago , have helped to develop the theory of change , of which abolition in our prison system and in our police have been developed .
Defund takes the core idea of abolition and says , “ If we were to start over , what would we decide police should be doing versus not be doing ?
” Now , I ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the notion that we simply wipe out police altogether , which is one abolitionist version of it .
But defund , as it is being articulated in places like Minneapolis , is really a conversation of : We ’ re going to start over , and we ’ re going to start over by putting together a list , from everything from nuisance calls to wellness checks to claims of violent crime , and we ’ re going to decide what the police ought to be doing .
And once we see what @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s the percentage of the budget that the police , a new version of the police , will keep .
The rest will go to other public services .
We can use violence interrupters , who are public health workers trained in the community , by the community , for the community , to in fact deal with conflict resolution .
This is how it works in nearly every other country where police have not been militarized and given unlimited resources and power to police their own citizens as if they were @ @ @ @ @ @ @ conflicts inside of healthy , functioning communities .
So people in this country need the same training and resources to be able to do similar things .
That ’ s what defund is about .
I ’ ll say one more thing about this .
And that is that police unions are a problem .
So , those on the left can not be ambivalent about the need for opening up collective bargaining agreements where police unions are concerned , because they are a major impediment to the reforms and the defund or @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to emerge out of this moment .
AMY GOODMAN : Khalil Gibran Muhammad , I want to thank you so much for being with us , professor of history , race and public policy at the Harvard Kennedy School , Suzanne Young Murray professor at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study , author of The Condemnation of Blackness : Race , Crime , and the Making of Modern Urban America .
When we come back , we look at the story of Martin Gugino , the 75-year-old Buffalo peace activist who ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the ground by two Buffalo police officers .
Now President Trump has attacked him on Twitter .
Stay with us .

Part of the Series The Road to Abolition
Protests in defense of Black lives and calls to defund the police continue across the U.S., from Los Angeles to Minneapolis and New York. We speak with Khalil Gibran Muhammad, a professor of history, race and public policy at the Harvard Kennedy School and the Suzanne Young Murray professor at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, about the significance of this moment and the history of policing in the U.S. “We haven’t seen a moment like this in at least half a century,” Muhammad says. “It’s hard to know for sure where we’re going to go from this moment, but it’s clear that when we look at the history of policing, we have run out of options in terms of reform, in terms of thinking about what the police can do for themselves.”
TRANSCRIPT
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The Quarantine Report. I’m Amy Goodman, with Juan González. It’s been more than two weeks since the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis sparked a global uprising in defense of Black lives. The protests, seen in major cities, small towns across the U.S., show no sign of abating.
As calls to defund the police grow, protesters are beginning to see results. Last weekend, the majority of Minneapolis City Council pledged to abolish the police department in Minneapolis. In New York, state lawmakers have voted to ban the use of chokeholds and repeal a law that shields the disciplinary records of police officers from the public. In Los Angeles, Mayor Eric Garcetti pledged to cut police funding by $150 million. Residents are now demanding he go much further.
Well, for more on the significance of this moment and the history of policing in America, from slave patrols to the present day, we’re joined by Khalil Gibran Muhammad, professor of history, race and public policy at the Harvard Kennedy School and the former director of the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture. He’s the author of The Condemnation of Blackness: Race, Crime, and the Making of Modern Urban America.
Professor Muhammad, it’s great to have you with us. If you could talk about this moment in time, both the uprisings, not only in this country, but around the world, and also the history of policing, that you so profoundly document?
KHALIL GIBRAN MUHAMMAD: Thanks, Amy. Thanks, Amy and Juan, for having me on the show.
Listen, we haven’t seen a moment like this in at least half a century, both here in the United States with protesters taking to the streets to demand, once and for all, not just police reform and accountability, but the prospect of a new vision of a relationship between state authorities and the health of a community. And the health of a community depends on everything, from the public goods and social services that people need, but also safety. And safety can come in many forms.
So, as far as what we’re seeing, we’re seeing a moment that is akin to the challenge that rocked the world in 1968 with global movements for various forms of anti-capitalist and anti-imperial and anticolonial organizing that took place both in the Global South and in many of the metropoles of the Global North.
And, you know, it’s hard to know for sure where we’re going to go from this moment, but it’s clear that when we look at the history of policing, we have run out of options in terms of reform, in terms of thinking about what the police can do for themselves. I liken this to asking the police agencies of this country to reform themselves is as ridiculous as asking the fossil fuel industry to solve our climate change crisis.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, Professor, in your book, you talk about the 400 years of legacy of the development of these methods of policing, going back to the slave patrols in the mid-19th century. I’m wondering if you could take our listeners and viewers through some of that history?
KHALIL GIBRAN MUHAMMAD: Absolutely. So, of course, people intuit and commonsensically understand that as a system of violent control over human beings, slavery required the use of violence to control people. And so, for the entire period going back to the mid-1600s into the early 1700s, colony after colony, from New York and Massachusetts to South Carolina and Virginia, passed a series of Black Codes or Negro Acts, various laws that were designed to empower everyday white citizens with the responsibility and, let me be clear, the duty to serve in an official capacity to surveil, monitor, to track and, when caught, to dispense corporal punishment against enslaved African people in the colonies. It was the largest bureaucracy dedicated to a form of policing that we recognize today. And it was everywhere in the colonies.
By the time the nation was born, in 1790, while there were gradual abolition laws that took root in many Northern colonies, the antebellum experience of free Blacks was little different. What went from a slave patrol became the responsibility of a growing cohort of modern police officers. And this problem, from slavery to freedom, simply changed uniform and changed the instruments and tools of keeping track of people of African descent, and it expanded in the United States of America.
But there’s another part of this history that I think is really important, and that is that policing, in the broadest sense, was always about policing the essential workers of this society. And this is true in societies in countries all over the globe. And what do I mean by “essential workers”? Meaning the people who, at the bottom of the society, their freedom has always been constrained by more privileged and more elite, and in this country, whites.
Now, whites, of course, range in class. And so, one of the ironies is that both poor whites in many parts of the country were policed, especially when they challenged political authority, when they challenged economic inequality, but at the same time, they were able to join police forces. By the 1840s and 1850s, we see the Irish Americans beginning to both make their way in America, but also begin to join the police force. They direct their sense of belonging in the United States for policing. [inaudible] both a reflection of a racial and class hierarchy and also a way of giving power to groups that feel like they don’t have access to the top of the American economy.
So, policing is a reflection of a tremendous disorder in our economic system. It is a reflection of racial hierarchies that are deeply entrenched in our society. And when we see FOP or union leaders represented by working-class white men, partly, they have been empowered to define the profession as their own, not as a reflection of liberal democratic norms and universal ideas, but it is their profession. So, for me, to talk about the history of policing is also to talk about the history of white supremacy and racial capitalism in the United States of America.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: [inaudible] that I’m wondering, because this does not only affect — although it has largely affected the African American community, but it’s also been — this method of using law enforcement and policing as a method of domination has also been used with other people of color, specifically Mexicans, Puerto Ricans, Native Americans. In 1862, President Lincoln ordered the hanging of 38 Dakota warriors who had gone to war against the U.S. in the midst of the Civil War. And they were hanged as criminals and as murderers, not as enemy combatants. And I’m thinking of the Texas Rangers, who were largely created to control and dominate Mexicans, who were called “bandits,” because they were defending their land. And even with Puerto Ricans, from Albizu Campos to Oscar López Rivera, all the freedom fighters were always branded as criminals and dealt with as criminals within the justice system. I’m wondering, this whole issue of the territorial expansion of the country necessitating even more police repression on these populations of color, your sense of it in your historical studies.
KHALIL GIBRAN MUHAMMAD: Listen, Juan, I mean, the summaries and examples you just gave are incredibly important, because, to take it back to the very beginning, my colleague, Kelly Lytle Hernández, who has written about the U.S. Border Patrol and its origins in policing the movement of Mexicans coming to the country because the country wanted them here to work — but she also describes that the infrastructure of American colonial settlement, the very basis upon which the country literally expanded, as you say, the territorial expansion, was the jail. And she goes back to the very beginning, in the 1700s, to what is now the city of Los Angeles, which used to be the Tongva Basin, which used to be populated by Indigenous populations. And she said it was precisely the introduction of the physical jail as the instrument of control and domination, but a domination that was always rooted in harnessing the labor power of people, not to exterminate or to exclude them altogether, but to ensure that their labor would be extracted for the purposes of work, and then everything else would be controlled, that their freedom would be constrained.
And that story is the story of every group in every part of the country whose labor power was the most important contribution that they would make. Their civil liberties, their civil rights, their human rights, their humanity itself, was optional, was secondary. Their right to political dissent was secondary. So, you can look at Chinese immigrants in San Francisco in the 1880s and see the same story. You can look in Chicago in the midst of the labor upheavals of the 1890s, with foreign-born immigrant whites demanding fair treatment in the workplace, and see the same story. You can look at Texas and look and see the story of the Texas Rangers, which enforced literal white property theft of Tejano and Mexican descendant landowners, people who not only had once been part of Mexico before the Mexican Revolution and before the annexation of Mexico by the United States in 1848, but people who were law-abiding, respectable citizens in their communities. And white settlers showed up and essentially accused them of false crimes, criminalized them, and Texas Rangers enforced that. So, across time, across space and across groups, policing has a tortured history of being enforcers of various forms of domination.
AMY GOODMAN: You know, this is so interesting. This is so interesting, Khalil, because you, before you were a Harvard professor, you were the head of the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, which was established by Arturo Alfonso Schomburg, who was an African American Puerto Rican, bringing together all of these different cultures. I’m wondering if you now can go back, as you have, talking about the history of police repression, and talk about the history of the resistance to it?
KHALIL GIBRAN MUHAMMAD: Yeah. So, the resistance is fascinating, because for every slave patrol was an individual or group of individuals who sought to subvert the system. And, of course, the most famous of those who fought against it was Harriet Tubman. And while often we think of her as a kind of caricature person who stands outside of history, she embodied the earliest forms of resistance to the system itself, but also to challenging the very violent instruments of that system.
We can look at the resistance of laborers, who armed themselves to fight against private security and police officers at the gates of companies in various cities of Massachusetts in the 1870s, in steel country in the Midwest, and the rise-up of populist, anti-capitalist organizing of socialist leaders in the turn of the 20th century. White workers and Black workers, in some cases, side by side, fought together to change the very understanding of their rights as economic beings and as citizens of this country. And most certainly, we can look at Northern cities as places where African Americans showed up, beginning in World War I, and completely transforming the understanding of work and citizenship in this nation by virtue of the Great Migration. And in time after time, instance after instance, African Americans demanded equality at the workplace, demanded equality in the homes, and they fought against white police and white citizens in that effort.
We saw commissions beginning in, really, the 1890s around white police agencies focused on immigrants, and then we saw the same thing occur in the Great Migration period, beginning in Chicago, as the result of an anti-Black riot in 1919. These commissions came to the same conclusion over and over again. For over a century, from Chicago to the consent decree in Chicago in 2017 around the Laquan McDonald shooting, you have the arc of a hundred years of history saying the same story, which is that some precipitating act of violence by a police officer is only the tip of the iceberg of a submerged story of hundreds, in some cases thousands, of people being subject to various forms of everyday forms of abuse and trauma by the police. And that resistance, in the form of those commissions, is Black folks speaking to their condition.
Of course, the Black freedom movement gave us the Black Panther Party and other radical groups that essentially centered police brutality as the key issue for securing Black dignity and citizenship in this country and other places, and they were subject to the full weight of the federal government in repressive tactics, including COINTELPRO and other mechanisms, including assassination, which, in the most high-profile case, killed Fred Hampton in 1969 in Chicago.
AMY GOODMAN: I want to turn to U.S. Attorney General William Barr speaking Sunday on CBS’ Face the Nation. Asked if he believes there’s systemic racism in law enforcement, this is his response. It’s not playing. But let me ask you this. Professor Khalil Gibran Muhammad, you’ve talked about the resistance through history. How does what we’re seeing now — it looks like we have William Barr.
ATTORNEY GENERAL WILLIAM BARR: I think there’s racism in the United States still, but I don’t think that the law enforcement system is systemically racist. I understand the distrust, however, of the African American community, given the history in this country. I think we have to recognize that for most of our history, our institutions were explicitly racist. … Since the 1960s, I think we’ve been in a phase of reforming our institutions and making sure that they’re in sync with our laws and aren’t fighting a rearguard action to impose inequities.
AMY GOODMAN: “I don’t think that the law enforcement system is [systemically] racist.” Professor Muhammad, your response?
KHALIL GIBRAN MUHAMMAD: Well, I mean, I was actually more impressed with some of the concessions he made in that speech than this fine line he draws between individual rotten apples and the system itself.
I’d like your listeners and viewers to think about this this way. This would be the akin of saying that Americans’ prisons are not built to dehumanize, given everything we know what goes on inside of them, despite the fact that people who show up to work every day are not necessarily evil people. That’s the problem we’re having around this conversation around policing. Policing, as a system, has been a system of control that sorts people and decides who gets to live and who gets to die with even the mere accusation of criminality. That is not true in white affluent communities. It is not true in communities where political elites are. We just saw a parade of criminality in the Trump administration, and all we kept hearing is federal prosecutors say, “We’re not sure we can win this case. We’re not sure we can bring the case.” We didn’t see Michael Cohen be subjected to pepper spray or flash grenades or a knee on his neck.
So, there is a double standard of justice in America, that police are enforcing white supremacy, and they’re enforcing economic hierarchy. And until we come to terms with that, in the way that we should be coming to terms with what happens inside of our prisons, we’re going to continue to see the resistance take to the streets and demand justice and transformation.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, Khalil, I wanted to ask you about a particular aspect of the role of the press and the media narrative in the issues of policing and police abuse. For most of the country’s history — and I’ve done quite a bit of studying of the history of the press in America — the press functioned almost as an intelligence operation for the dominant white community. During the colonial period, as much as a third of all of the content of American newspapers was intelligence to the white settlers about what the African American or the Native American communities were doing. But even up to the ’60s, the press were largely white, and even the rebellions of the ’60s, they reporting from a white perspective, as the Kerner Commission noted. But in recent years, as the press themselves have become diversified, we’re seeing both in the mainstream media, and of course now with citizen videos, this enormous change in the narrative as to what the role of the police is. I’m wondering if you think that that, along with the public resistance movement, will have a more lasting effect in terms of redirecting or changing the nature of policing in America.
KHALIL GIBRAN MUHAMMAD: Juan, it’s a great question, and I certainly appreciate even your sharing your own research and brief history of media in the past. I think it’s important.
So, if the question is “Can we see this moment for the democratization of media itself?” obviously, by virtue of social media and the fact that citizens can aggregate and spread news in ways that they could not before, I do think this is a fundamentally different moment. The gatekeeping of information and distribution of knowledge has broken down in many ways, both for good and for bad. But on the good side of the ledger, there’s no question that this is a moment of possibility, because there is a crisis of legitimacy in our democratic institutions, most obviously in the executive branch with the White House.
But it is also true that news agencies around the country, no matter who’s in charge — a Black person or white prison or a Latino or Asian American — have been deferential, over the past, to official accounts. And the crisis of legitimacy for police agencies has led many of those news directors, no matter who they are, to begin to think, like, we can’t trust the official record. In the case of Derek Chauvin’s killing of George Floyd, he lied on the police record. So, the deference that has been assumed up to this time now is breaking down.
The ability to shoot in real time the killing and execution of people by police, or the brutality directed by police, as is the case in Buffalo and many other places as police use brutality to stop protesters from protesting against brutality, means that this crisis of legitimacy will be resolved. The only question of what the resolution looks like is: How long will people stay in the streets demanding change?
AMY GOODMAN: Khalil Gibran Muhammad, finally, defund the police. Do you see a comparable movement in history? And how this has changed the narrative?
KHALIL GIBRAN MUHAMMAD: The defund-the-police moment is an incredible adjustment to the issue of abolition, that has mostly been about activists seeding the notion that these institutions are fundamentally broken. Organizations like Critical Resistance, that Ruth Gilmore and Angela Davis began many decades ago, have helped to develop the theory of change, of which abolition in our prison system and in our police have been developed.
Defund takes the core idea of abolition and says, “If we were to start over, what would we decide police should be doing versus not be doing?” Now, I’m already picking a middle position between the notion that we simply wipe out police altogether, which is one abolitionist version of it. But defund, as it is being articulated in places like Minneapolis, is really a conversation of: We’re going to start over, and we’re going to start over by putting together a list, from everything from nuisance calls to wellness checks to claims of violent crime, and we’re going to decide what the police ought to be doing. And once we see what’s left over, then that’s the percentage of the budget that the police, a new version of the police, will keep. The rest will go to other public services.
We can use violence interrupters, who are public health workers trained in the community, by the community, for the community, to in fact deal with conflict resolution. This is how it works in nearly every other country where police have not been militarized and given unlimited resources and power to police their own citizens as if they were soldiers in occupied territory. People resolve conflicts inside of healthy, functioning communities. So people in this country need the same training and resources to be able to do similar things. That’s what defund is about.
I’ll say one more thing about this. And that is that police unions are a problem. So, those on the left cannot be ambivalent about the need for opening up collective bargaining agreements where police unions are concerned, because they are a major impediment to the reforms and the defund or whatever version of new policing is going to emerge out of this moment.
AMY GOODMAN: Khalil Gibran Muhammad, I want to thank you so much for being with us, professor of history, race and public policy at the Harvard Kennedy School, Suzanne Young Murray professor at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, author of The Condemnation of Blackness: Race, Crime, and the Making of Modern Urban America.
When we come back, we look at the story of Martin Gugino, the 75-year-old Buffalo peace activist who’s continuing remaining hospitalized after being pushed to the ground by two Buffalo police officers. Now President Trump has attacked him on Twitter. Stay with us.
Tired of reading the same old news from the same old sources? So are we! That’s why we’re on a mission to shake things up and bring you the stories and perspectives that often go untold in mainstream media. But being a radically, unapologetically independent news site isn’t easy (or cheap), and we rely on reader support to keep the lights on.
If you like what you’re reading, please consider making a tax-deductible donation today. We’re not asking for a handout, we’re asking for an investment: Invest in a nonprofit news site that’s not afraid to ruffle a few feathers, not afraid to stand up for what’s right, and not afraid to tell it like it is.
This piece was reprinted by Truthout with permission or license. It may not be reproduced in any form without permission or license from the source.


truthout--2020-06-10--Trump Mulls Replacing Jared Kushner After Blaming Him for Tanking Poll Numbers

Though President Donald Trump publicly praised his son-in-law Jared Kushner as “ my star ” on Monday , he has privately fumed about his top adviser over his sagging poll numbers , according to Vanity Fair ’ s Gabriel Sherman .
Trump and Kushner participated in a roundtable event at the White House on Monday , where Kushner appeared to declare both police brutality and systemic racism fixed .
“ The law enforcement community heard the cries from the community , saw the injustices in the system that needed to be fixed and they responded by coming together to fix @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to the First Step Act , a criminal justice bill primarily aimed at reducing prison sentences .
“ And it ’ s been a great partnership to do that.
” Trump thanked Kushner , whom he praised as “ my star.
” But behind the scenes , Trump has raged over his tanking voter support and “ mulled taking oversight of the campaign ” away from Kushner , according to Sherman .
“ Trump is malignantly crazy about the bad poll numbers , ” a former West Wing official told Vanity Fair .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ Kushner and [ campaign manager Brad ] Parscale — the numbers are not getting better , ” a Republican source close to the campaign added .
Trump has blown up “ frequently ” at Kushner in the past , apparently angry that Kushner “ received too much positive press ” earlier this year when he appeared on the cover of Time , a longtime Trump obsession .
“ Any time Jared is in the papers , Trump complains , ‘ We have to get Jared back to New York ! '
” a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Sherman .
“ This is typical with him and Jared.
” Trump ’ s complaints have grown as his poll numbers have plummeted amid protests over the death of George Floyd and his threats to deploy the military to police the demonstrations .
Former Secretary of Defense James Mattis , who publicly criticized Trump last week , has privately called the president a “ proto-neofascist , ” according to Sherman .
Trump called up his New York friends and outside advisers over the weekend in hopes they would confirm his “ belief that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to the report .
“ He ’ s asking people to agree with him that the polls are biased , ” a Republican briefed on the calls .
said .
“ But no one is telling him what he wants to hear.
” Trump on Monday tried to counter polls showing him down big to presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden by tweeting a memo by notoriously wrong pollster John McLaughlin which claimed that they had undersampled Republicans .
“ McLaughlin is notorious for producing rosy polling data on behalf of his clients .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ on behalf of his clients , who often find themselves unpleasantly surprised on election night . )
, ” New York Magazine reported .
“ A lengthy stream of overly optimistic polls culminated in McLaughlin convincing his client , Eric Cantor , that he was leading primary challenger David Brat by 34 points in 2014 .
Cantor lost by 11 , at which point leading Republicans began begging their party not to hire him.
” “ Nearly a dozen Republican strategists who ’ ve worked with McLaughlin over the years say they try @ @ @ @ @ @ @ don ’ t trust his polling , ” The Hill reported .
But as he tries to spin media polls , his own internal campaign poll numbers paint a similarly dire picture five months from the election , according to The New York Times .
Trump reportedly threatened to fire and “ sue ” Parscale after the campaign ’ s internal polls similarly showed him struggling against Biden in key battleground states in April .

Trump tried to counter polls showing him down big by tweeting a memo by notoriously wrong pollster John McLaughlin.
Though President Donald Trump publicly praised his son-in-law Jared Kushner as “my star” on Monday, he has privately fumed about his top adviser over his sagging poll numbers, according to Vanity Fair’s Gabriel Sherman.
Trump and Kushner participated in a roundtable event at the White House on Monday, where Kushner appeared to declare both police brutality and systemic racism fixed.
“The law enforcement community heard the cries from the community, saw the injustices in the system that needed to be fixed and they responded by coming together to fix it,” Kushner said, referring to the First Step Act, a criminal justice bill primarily aimed at reducing prison sentences. “And it’s been a great partnership to do that.”
Trump thanked Kushner, whom he praised as “my star.”
But behind the scenes, Trump has raged over his tanking voter support and “mulled taking oversight of the campaign” away from Kushner, according to Sherman.
“Trump is malignantly crazy about the bad poll numbers,” a former West Wing official told Vanity Fair.
“He’s going to broom Kushner and [campaign manager Brad] Parscale — the numbers are not getting better,” a Republican source close to the campaign added.
Trump has blown up “frequently” at Kushner in the past, apparently angry that Kushner “received too much positive press” earlier this year when he appeared on the cover of Time, a longtime Trump obsession.
“Any time Jared is in the papers, Trump complains, ‘We have to get Jared back to New York!'” a Republican who had discussions with Trump told Sherman. “This is typical with him and Jared.”
Trump’s complaints have grown as his poll numbers have plummeted amid protests over the death of George Floyd and his threats to deploy the military to police the demonstrations. Former Secretary of Defense James Mattis, who publicly criticized Trump last week, has privately called the president a “proto-neofascist,” according to Sherman.
Trump called up his New York friends and outside advisers over the weekend in hopes they would confirm his “belief that the polls are wrong,” according to the report.
“He’s asking people to agree with him that the polls are biased,” a Republican briefed on the calls. said. “But no one is telling him what he wants to hear.”
Trump on Monday tried to counter polls showing him down big to presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden by tweeting a memo by notoriously wrong pollster John McLaughlin which claimed that they had undersampled Republicans.
…Crooked Hillary Clinton in 2016. They are called SUPPRESSION POLLS, and are put out to dampen enthusiasm. Despite 3 ½ years of phony Witch Hunts, we are winning, and will close it out on November 3rd! pic.twitter.com/4IhuLUZjsv — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 8, 2020
“McLaughlin is notorious for producing rosy polling data on behalf of his clients. (Or, at least, purportedly on behalf of his clients, who often find themselves unpleasantly surprised on election night.),” New York Magazine reported. “A lengthy stream of overly optimistic polls culminated in McLaughlin convincing his client, Eric Cantor, that he was leading primary challenger David Brat by 34 points in 2014. Cantor lost by 11, at which point leading Republicans began begging their party not to hire him.”
“Nearly a dozen Republican strategists who’ve worked with McLaughlin over the years say they try to steer their clients elsewhere and increasingly don’t trust his polling,” The Hill reported.
But as he tries to spin media polls, his own internal campaign poll numbers paint a similarly dire picture five months from the election, according to The New York Times.
Trump reportedly threatened to fire and “sue” Parscale after the campaign’s internal polls similarly showed him struggling against Biden in key battleground states in April.
Tired of reading the same old news from the same old sources? So are we! That’s why we’re on a mission to shake things up and bring you the stories and perspectives that often go untold in mainstream media. But being a radically, unapologetically independent news site isn’t easy (or cheap), and we rely on reader support to keep the lights on.
If you like what you’re reading, please consider making a tax-deductible donation today. We’re not asking for a handout, we’re asking for an investment: Invest in a nonprofit news site that’s not afraid to ruffle a few feathers, not afraid to stand up for what’s right, and not afraid to tell it like it is.
This piece was reprinted by Truthout with permission or license. It may not be reproduced in any form without permission or license from the source.


truthout--2020-06-10--Georgia Election Condemned as Result of Deliberate GOP Voter Suppression

Photos of would-be Georgia voters standing — and , in some cases , sitting — in long lines after 11 pm to cast their ballots in the state ’ s primary on Tuesday encapsulated what rights groups and lawmakers decried as a disastrous day for democracy and an entirely predictable result of years of deliberate voter suppression efforts by Republican lawmakers and the U.S. Supreme Court .
The myriad issues that plagued Georgia ’ s primary Tuesday — malfunctioning new voting machines , an insufficient number of paper ballots , too-few poll workers , polling places opening late — are @ @ @ @ @ @ @ given that similar problems threw the 2018 midterm contests into chaos , sparking calls for better preparation and stronger protections against disenfranchisement .
The coronavirus pandemic added another layer of hurdles , and provided Republicans with additional opportunities to limit ballot access .
“ The ACLU warned that insufficient resources were allocated for polling places , machines , in-person election staff , and staff to process absentee ballots and that this would result in the disenfranchisement of voters in 2020 , ” Andrea Young , executive director of the ACLU of Georgia , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ gives us no pleasure to be proven right.
” “ Whether it is incompetence or intentional voter suppression , ” Young added , “ the result is the same — Georgians denied their rights as citizens in this democracy.
” In response to drone footage showing long lines outside of a polling place in Atlanta , Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez ( D-N.Y. ) suggested it ’ s more of the latter , writing , “ This is by design , and it ’ s their test run for November.
” “ Republicans don ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ chips away at their ability to do exactly this : target and disenfranchise black voters and people of color , ” Ocasio-Cortez wrote .
“ These scenes are specifically happening in black communities , not white ones.
” Rep. Pramila Jayapal ( D-Wash. ) , co-chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus , echoed Ocasio-Cortez .
“ This is no accident , ” Jayapal said .
“ Black and brown people have been kept out of our elections — 100 % on purpose and by design .
We must end racist voter suppression efforts @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , and build a democracy that ensures every voice is heard.
” As Ari Berman of Mother Jones noted late Tuesday , Georgia — which is poised to play a major role in the 2020 presidential election in November — “ closed 214 polling places after the Supreme Court gutted the Voting Rights Act ” in 2013 .
“ There were 80 fewer polling places for the June primary in metro Atlanta , where a majority of black voters live , ” Berman tweeted .
“ Mitch McConnell is blocking legislation passed by @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Georgia ’ s Republican Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger , who ignored repeated warnings that the state ’ s new voting system would not be ready by 2020 , was quick to point fingers at individual counties — particularly DeKalb and Fulton , which both have large black populations — for the voting problems , vowing to in a statement to launch an investigation to “ determine what these counties need to do to resolve these issues before November ’ s election.
” Michael Thurmond , Chief Executive Officer of DeKalb County , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Secretary of State ’ s responsibility to train , prepare , and equip election staff throughout the state to ensure fair and equal access to the ballot box.
” “ Those Georgians who have been disenfranchised by the statewide chaos that has affected the voting system today in numerous DeKalb precincts and throughout the state of Georgia deserve answer , ” Thurmond added .
With the results of the statewide primary contests still rolling in , Common Cause Georgia executive director Aunna Dennis said in a statement that “ the obstacles that Georgia @ @ @ @ @ @ @ election are simply unacceptable.
” “ It ’ s also unacceptable that the officials entrusted with administering the elections have spent the day dodging blame , rather than accepting responsibility , ” said Dennis .
“ Today ’ s problems were avoidable — and they disenfranchised voters .
That must not be allowed to happen again .
”

Voters in Georgia waited in long lines until after 11 pm to cast their ballots in the state’s primary on Tuesday.
Photos of would-be Georgia voters standing — and, in some cases, sitting — in long lines after 11 pm to cast their ballots in the state’s primary on Tuesday encapsulated what rights groups and lawmakers decried as a disastrous day for democracy and an entirely predictable result of years of deliberate voter suppression efforts by Republican lawmakers and the U.S. Supreme Court.
The myriad issues that plagued Georgia’s primary Tuesday — malfunctioning new voting machines, an insufficient number of paper ballots, too-few poll workers, polling places opening late — are hardly unheard of in the state, given that similar problems threw the 2018 midterm contests into chaos, sparking calls for better preparation and stronger protections against disenfranchisement.
The coronavirus pandemic added another layer of hurdles, and provided Republicans with additional opportunities to limit ballot access.
“The ACLU warned that insufficient resources were allocated for polling places, machines, in-person election staff, and staff to process absentee ballots and that this would result in the disenfranchisement of voters in 2020,” Andrea Young, executive director of the ACLU of Georgia, said in a statement. “It gives us no pleasure to be proven right.”
“Whether it is incompetence or intentional voter suppression,” Young added, “the result is the same — Georgians denied their rights as citizens in this democracy.”
In response to drone footage showing long lines outside of a polling place in Atlanta, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) suggested it’s more of the latter, writing, “This is by design, and it’s their test run for November.”
“Republicans don’t want vote by mail because it chips away at their ability to do exactly this: target and disenfranchise black voters and people of color,” Ocasio-Cortez wrote. “These scenes are specifically happening in black communities, not white ones.”
Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), co-chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, echoed Ocasio-Cortez. “This is no accident,” Jayapal said. “Black and brown people have been kept out of our elections — 100% on purpose and by design. We must end racist voter suppression efforts, restore, and expand voting rights, and build a democracy that ensures every voice is heard.”
This drone footage shows a long line of voters waiting to cast ballots in Atlanta on Tuesday. Georgia election officials, poll workers and voters have reported major trouble with voting in Atlanta and elsewhere. Read the latest. https://t.co/wRnW8f5tng pic.twitter.com/BVU9J9CF79 — The New York Times (@nytimes) June 9, 2020
As Ari Berman of Mother Jones noted late Tuesday, Georgia — which is poised to play a major role in the 2020 presidential election in November — “closed 214 polling places after the Supreme Court gutted the Voting Rights Act” in 2013.
“There were 80 fewer polling places for the June primary in metro Atlanta, where a majority of black voters live,” Berman tweeted. “Mitch McConnell is blocking legislation passed by House Dems to restore the VRA.”
Georgia’s Republican Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, who ignored repeated warnings that the state’s new voting system would not be ready by 2020, was quick to point fingers at individual counties — particularly DeKalb and Fulton, which both have large black populations — for the voting problems, vowing to in a statement to launch an investigation to “determine what these counties need to do to resolve these issues before November’s election.”
Michael Thurmond, Chief Executive Officer of DeKalb County, fired back. “It is the Secretary of State’s responsibility to train, prepare, and equip election staff throughout the state to ensure fair and equal access to the ballot box.”
“Those Georgians who have been disenfranchised by the statewide chaos that has affected the voting system today in numerous DeKalb precincts and throughout the state of Georgia deserve answer,” Thurmond added.
Y’all it’s 10pm in Georgia and Black folk are STILL in line waiting to vote!!!!! Here are photos taken by @cliff_notes 5 minutes ago. 😡😡@angela_rye @sunny pic.twitter.com/hqc1eGJ36t — LaTosha Brown (@MsLaToshaBrown) June 10, 2020
Just a reminder that Georgia is on eastern time and IT’S PAST 11PM AND PEOPLE ARE STILL WAITING TO VOTE !!!!! https://t.co/Db73uBffx1 — Mary Ibarra (@MaryIbarra_11) June 10, 2020
With the results of the statewide primary contests still rolling in, Common Cause Georgia executive director Aunna Dennis said in a statement that “the obstacles that Georgia’s voters have faced in this election are simply unacceptable.”
“It’s also unacceptable that the officials entrusted with administering the elections have spent the day dodging blame, rather than accepting responsibility,” said Dennis. “Today’s problems were avoidable — and they disenfranchised voters. That must not be allowed to happen again.”
Tired of reading the same old news from the same old sources? So are we! That’s why we’re on a mission to shake things up and bring you the stories and perspectives that often go untold in mainstream media. But being a radically, unapologetically independent news site isn’t easy (or cheap), and we rely on reader support to keep the lights on.
If you like what you’re reading, please consider making a tax-deductible donation today. We’re not asking for a handout, we’re asking for an investment: Invest in a nonprofit news site that’s not afraid to ruffle a few feathers, not afraid to stand up for what’s right, and not afraid to tell it like it is.
This piece was reprinted by Truthout with permission or license. It may not be reproduced in any form without permission or license from the source.


truthout--2020-06-10--We Won’t Win the Climate Fight Without Youth Leadership

Jamie Margolin , 18 , youth climate lawsuit litigant and founder of youth-led climate activist group Zero Hour , gets a lot done .
By noon on a typical day in school , as Margolin chronicles in her guide for youth activists , Youth to Power , she has already posted on Zero Hour and her own social media , responded to DMs and emails , done her homework , gone to classes , fielded messages that say , “ Call me , our debit card isn ’ t letting us book the venue , ” or “ BIG PROBLEM @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a congress member , we need to do damage control on this ASAP , ” and still squeezed in some time to hang out with friends .
But , as she ’ s learned , compartmentalization is hugely important for her mental health — so she treats herself to not taking any calls at the 40 minutes she gets for lunch .
Youth to Power is a guide for youth activism , but adults have a lot to learn from it , too .
Margolin walks her readers through the steps of becoming @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to learning how to organize to creating a school-work-life balance out of it all .
It ’ s the book that Margolin says she wishes she had when she was first starting out .
Margolin is one leader in a growing movement of youth activists fighting for climate action , a movement that ’ s gained not only attention but also political power in the past few years .
The youth-led Sunrise Movement made waves with Green New Deal protests in 2018 ; Margolin has testified in court and on Capitol Hill ; @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Summit last year and Time magazine named her 2019 person of the year ; and as many of them reach voting age , they even have the potential to swing elections .
Youth activists , Margolin argues , have the moral high ground as activists , which is part of what makes their voices so effective .
“ No one can point a finger back at us and say , ‘ You ’ re corrupt too !
’ because we ’ re just kids trying to create a better world , ” she @ @ @ @ @ @ @ high school and is headed to college later this year , recently spoke with Truthout about who she hopes Truth to Power helps , how she balances her climate activism and her creative life , and what she plans on doing — and writing — next .
Sharon Zhang : What are you going to be studying when you head to college this year ?
Jamie Margolin : I ’ m going to be majoring in film and television .
I really want to create the representation that I always wished that I @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Hispanic lesbian , there ’ s not a lot of people like me .
I would be watching television , and I ’ d be watching shows , and I could never relate .
And it wasn ’ t until recently when I saw the true power of representation and seeing people like me on TV [ that ] I really understood what it meant to be represented and the value that that had .
Before I ’ m an activist , I ’ m a writer .
Ever since I was six @ @ @ @ @ @ @ up with stories .
I ’ ve always been a creative storyteller .
And lately , I ’ ve devoted my entire existence to fighting the climate crisis and it gets really exhausting — giving up who you are as a person for a cause — and I lost that balance .
I lost the balance of who I was as a person and I just lost myself to the cause .
I was planning to study political science , a field which people would expect me to do , but something that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ do .
That was the plan for a long time — “ Oh , you know , Jamie she ’ s going to go into political science because that ’ s just , you know , who she is , blah blah blah.
” But I really don ’ t like studying that .
I ’ m a very political person , but I am already living out political science .
Who do you hope reads this book ?
I really hope that all those people who just are wondering how to take @ @ @ @ @ @ @ read the book , because I feel like this is going to answer a lot of their questions .
It ’ s going to give them a lot of the tools that they clearly need and that they ’ ve clearly wanted for a long time .
And so those are the people who I most want to read the book .
And then , also , I know it ’ s “ youth to power , ” but it actually works for people of all ages .
So , I really want @ @ @ @ @ @ @ can better support youth activism in a productive way — I want them to read the book as well .
I also want people who consider themselves non-political or don ’ t think of themselves as political activists to read the book ; a lot of people stay away from politics and activism … ( a ) because that ’ s a privilege that they have , but ( b ) because they just are too scared and they don ’ t know how to get involved .
I really urge them to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ clarifies a lot in it and it gives a lot of “ how to ” get involved .
It just answers a lot of questions .
And people who are already activists , and just want new perspectives , new knowledge , more information — this book is for them , too .
It isn ’ t a jargon-y book .
There ’ s not a lot of complex language or theories because I wanted to make it accessible for anyone .
For Youth to Power , you interviewed friends and fellow activists @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ?
Doing research for this book gave me such an even bigger appreciation for the work that is done .
When you ’ re in the climate movement , you ’ re kind of in that silo .
I interviewed people of all different movements for this book and it took me out of that silo and made me understand and appreciate — I always knew and appreciated the work that people outside of my movement did — but it just gave me an insight into their world and made me realize how @ @ @ @ @ @ @ same things even if we ’ re in different causes .
I was just not even just learning about their movements , but also just learning things that they do in their lives that are just really good things to do for any activist .
I was just learning a lot .
What would you say to people who are on the fence about becoming involved or becoming an activist ?
Being apolitical is a huge privilege .
The chances are , if you ’ re not politically involved , it ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ make it so you have the ability to be not political .
Like with what we ’ re seeing right now with what ’ s happening with George Floyd — white people have the privilege to choose whether to be involved in those conversations.… I would encourage people who are like , “ Oh , I ’ m not really a political person , ” to think of the privilege that that comes from , and acknowledge that many people don ’ t have the choice whether to be political or not ; @ @ @ @ @ @ @ be using whatever privilege you have if you don ’ t find yourself affected by any systems of oppression in your own life , then use your privilege to speak up for those who — not speak up for because you don ’ t want to take their place in any way — but use your privilege to be a voice to speak up and uplift their voices .
Silence in the face of injustice is siding with the oppressor .
There ’ s really no room for anyone ’ s silence , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ tools that you need — well , not the tools , physically , because it ’ s a book — but it gives you enough ideas and inspirations and people ’ s insights to give you some semblance of an idea of what to do .
So , I feel like there ’ s not really an excuse .
I ’ m not saying that everyone needs to go out and work for an organization .
I ’ m just saying that those with privilege need to be doing everything that they can @ @ @ @ @ @ @ your perspective on activism ?
This reminded me how little control I have .
It ’ s really showed me that the world is actually not in my control .
Because I think organizers , we kind of have a warped sense of like , “ Okay , if I do this , then this is going to happen , ” because that ’ s just who we are as organizers , I feel .
We build things , we work on things .
This has kind of reminded me that it is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ I just have to do my best to roll with the punches and be the best activist that I can be , considering everything .
I feel like my new state of existence has just been rolling with punches .
That ’ s all I ’ ve been able to do — is just adapt , adapt , adapt .
I haven ’ t really been in a space to like create anything .
You try to take a day to just create and then you see all these horrible things happening in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ just doing rapid response .
Right now , with what ’ s happening , I ’ ve just been doing rapid response to that .
And it ’ s just — how do you even create in a world that just is asking you to constantly respond to disaster , you know ?
Do you anticipate making films and telling stories about the climate ?
No .
It could tie into it , maybe .
My climate activism will always exist but that would be separate from the creative career I want to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to film school to make climate documentaries ; I ’ m going to film school to bring badass feminist stories to life .
Really , the purpose of me going to film school is more to ( a ) just be creative and create art that I feel needs to exist , and ( b ) advocate for another cause that I deeply care about , which is LGBT rights and representation .
The themes I would be covering would be a lot more around that .
How do you feel like your @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ?
My passion and having a reason for doing things outside of simply fighting against an existential crisis inform the way I fight for climate action , because I ’ m not fighting for climate action because it ’ s a hobby that I took up , because it ’ s an identity that I found .
I ’ m fighting for it because I want to create a world in which I and others can pursue our own individual dreams and live happily , and be able to be creative , and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ we want without having this impending ecological disaster .
The reason why I want to get into this is because media create culture , and then culture creates politics , and then politics creates laws .
It ’ s not like I ’ m not being an activist by going into Hollywood .
That is activism because , oh my god , does Hollywood need a makeover .
I guess I ’ d be subconsciously weaving all of those messages that I ’ m learning and fighting for in my activism in my @ @ @ @ @ @ @ activism and politics inform who I am because your activism and politics are an extension of who you are .
That will show up in any work that I create .

Part of the Series Covering Climate Now
This story is part of Covering Climate Now , a global journalism collaboration strengthening coverage of the climate story.
Jamie Margolin, 18, youth climate lawsuit litigant and founder of youth-led climate activist group Zero Hour, gets a lot done.
By noon on a typical day in school, as Margolin chronicles in her guide for youth activists, Youth to Power, she has already posted on Zero Hour and her own social media, responded to DMs and emails, done her homework, gone to classes, fielded messages that say, “Call me, our debit card isn’t letting us book the venue,” or “BIG PROBLEM, I think we might have upset a congress member, we need to do damage control on this ASAP,” and still squeezed in some time to hang out with friends. But, as she’s learned, compartmentalization is hugely important for her mental health — so she treats herself to not taking any calls at the 40 minutes she gets for lunch.
Youth to Power is a guide for youth activism, but adults have a lot to learn from it, too. Margolin walks her readers through the steps of becoming an activist, from finding your purpose to learning how to organize to creating a school-work-life balance out of it all. It’s the book that Margolin says she wishes she had when she was first starting out.
Margolin is one leader in a growing movement of youth activists fighting for climate action, a movement that’s gained not only attention but also political power in the past few years. The youth-led Sunrise Movement made waves with Green New Deal protests in 2018; Margolin has testified in court and on Capitol Hill; Greta Thunberg testified at the UN Climate Summit last year and Time magazine named her 2019 person of the year; and as many of them reach voting age, they even have the potential to swing elections.
Youth activists, Margolin argues, have the moral high ground as activists, which is part of what makes their voices so effective. “No one can point a finger back at us and say, ‘You’re corrupt too!’ because we’re just kids trying to create a better world,” she writes.
Margolin, who recently graduated high school and is headed to college later this year, recently spoke with Truthout about who she hopes Truth to Power helps, how she balances her climate activism and her creative life, and what she plans on doing — and writing — next.
Sharon Zhang: What are you going to be studying when you head to college this year?
Jamie Margolin: I’m going to be majoring in film and television.
I really want to create the representation that I always wished that I had. Growing up as a young Hispanic lesbian, there’s not a lot of people like me. I would be watching television, and I’d be watching shows, and I could never relate. And it wasn’t until recently when I saw the true power of representation and seeing people like me on TV [that] I really understood what it meant to be represented and the value that that had.
If you’re not politically involved, it’s because you have many privileged identities that make it so you have the ability to be not political.
Before I’m an activist, I’m a writer. Ever since I was six, I was writing stories, coming up with stories. I’ve always been a creative storyteller. And lately, I’ve devoted my entire existence to fighting the climate crisis and it gets really exhausting — giving up who you are as a person for a cause — and I lost that balance. I lost the balance of who I was as a person and I just lost myself to the cause.
I was planning to study political science, a field which people would expect me to do, but something that I don’t actually want to do. That was the plan for a long time — “Oh, you know, Jamie she’s going to go into political science because that’s just, you know, who she is, blah blah blah.” But I really don’t like studying that. I’m a very political person, but I am already living out political science.
Who do you hope reads this book?
I really hope that all those people who just are wondering how to take action but don’t know how read the book, because I feel like this is going to answer a lot of their questions. It’s going to give them a lot of the tools that they clearly need and that they’ve clearly wanted for a long time. And so those are the people who I most want to read the book.
And then, also, I know it’s “youth to power,” but it actually works for people of all ages. So, I really want adults who want to know how they can better support youth activism in a productive way — I want them to read the book as well. I also want people who consider themselves non-political or don’t think of themselves as political activists to read the book; a lot of people stay away from politics and activism … (a) because that’s a privilege that they have, but (b) because they just are too scared and they don’t know how to get involved. I really urge them to read this book because I think it clarifies a lot in it and it gives a lot of “how to” get involved. It just answers a lot of questions.
And people who are already activists, and just want new perspectives, new knowledge, more information — this book is for them, too. It isn’t a jargon-y book. There’s not a lot of complex language or theories because I wanted to make it accessible for anyone.
For Youth to Power, you interviewed friends and fellow activists. What did you learn from them?
Doing research for this book gave me such an even bigger appreciation for the work that is done. When you’re in the climate movement, you’re kind of in that silo. I interviewed people of all different movements for this book and it took me out of that silo and made me understand and appreciate — I always knew and appreciated the work that people outside of my movement did — but it just gave me an insight into their world and made me realize how we’re all fighting for the same things even if we’re in different causes. I was just not even just learning about their movements, but also just learning things that they do in their lives that are just really good things to do for any activist. I was just learning a lot.
What would you say to people who are on the fence about becoming involved or becoming an activist?
Being apolitical is a huge privilege. The chances are, if you’re not politically involved, it’s because you have many privileged identities that make it so you have the ability to be not political. Like with what we’re seeing right now with what’s happening with George Floyd — white people have the privilege to choose whether to be involved in those conversations.…
I would encourage people who are like, “Oh, I’m not really a political person,” to think of the privilege that that comes from, and acknowledge that many people don’t have the choice whether to be political or not; they have to be. You should be using whatever privilege you have if you don’t find yourself affected by any systems of oppression in your own life, then use your privilege to speak up for those who — not speak up for because you don’t want to take their place in any way — but use your privilege to be a voice to speak up and uplift their voices. Silence in the face of injustice is siding with the oppressor.
There’s really no room for anyone’s silence, and this book really gives you the tools that you need — well, not the tools, physically, because it’s a book — but it gives you enough ideas and inspirations and people’s insights to give you some semblance of an idea of what to do. So, I feel like there’s not really an excuse. I’m not saying that everyone needs to go out and work for an organization. I’m just saying that those with privilege need to be doing everything that they can.
How has the global pandemic affected your perspective on activism?
This reminded me how little control I have. It’s really showed me that the world is actually not in my control. Because I think organizers, we kind of have a warped sense of like, “Okay, if I do this, then this is going to happen,” because that’s just who we are as organizers, I feel. We build things, we work on things. This has kind of reminded me that it is actually out of my control, so I just have to do my best to roll with the punches and be the best activist that I can be, considering everything.
I feel like my new state of existence has just been rolling with punches. That’s all I’ve been able to do — is just adapt, adapt, adapt. I haven’t really been in a space to like create anything. You try to take a day to just create and then you see all these horrible things happening in the world, so you’re just doing rapid response. Right now, with what’s happening, I’ve just been doing rapid response to that. And it’s just — how do you even create in a world that just is asking you to constantly respond to disaster, you know?
Do you anticipate making films and telling stories about the climate?
No. It could tie into it, maybe. My climate activism will always exist but that would be separate from the creative career I want to pursue. I’m not going to film school to make climate documentaries; I’m going to film school to bring badass feminist stories to life. Really, the purpose of me going to film school is more to (a) just be creative and create art that I feel needs to exist, and (b) advocate for another cause that I deeply care about, which is LGBT rights and representation. The themes I would be covering would be a lot more around that.
How do you feel like your storytelling and climate activism inform each other?
My passion and having a reason for doing things outside of simply fighting against an existential crisis inform the way I fight for climate action, because I’m not fighting for climate action because it’s a hobby that I took up, because it’s an identity that I found. I’m fighting for it because I want to create a world in which I and others can pursue our own individual dreams and live happily, and be able to be creative, and live our lives, and do whatever we want without having this impending ecological disaster.
The reason why I want to get into this is because media create culture, and then culture creates politics, and then politics creates laws. It’s not like I’m not being an activist by going into Hollywood. That is activism because, oh my god, does Hollywood need a makeover.
I guess I’d be subconsciously weaving all of those messages that I’m learning and fighting for in my activism in my creative life. But I think my activism and politics inform who I am because your activism and politics are an extension of who you are. That will show up in any work that I create.
Tired of reading the same old news from the same old sources? So are we! That’s why we’re on a mission to shake things up and bring you the stories and perspectives that often go untold in mainstream media. But being a radically, unapologetically independent news site isn’t easy (or cheap), and we rely on reader support to keep the lights on.
If you like what you’re reading, please consider making a tax-deductible donation today. We’re not asking for a handout, we’re asking for an investment: Invest in a nonprofit news site that’s not afraid to ruffle a few feathers, not afraid to stand up for what’s right, and not afraid to tell it like it is.
Copyright © Truthout. May not be reprinted without permission.