thenation--2020-06-03--The President Wants You to Be Misinformed

These days , teaching graduating college seniors has me , as the Brits would say in the London Underground , “ minding the gap.
” In my case , however , it ’ s not the gap between the platform and the train I ’ m thinking of , but a couple of others : those between US citizens and our government , as well as between different generations of Americans .
The Covid-19 crisis has made some of those gaps far more visible than usual , just as my students leave school with many of their personal expectations in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ coronavirus are many : the gender pay gap ; the wealth gap between African Americans and Latinos on one side and white Americans on the other , not to speak of the gap in their health care access and health outcomes ; the gap in the amount of domestic work and child care done by women and men ; and that ’ s just to start down a longer list .
Covid-19 has exacerbated all of these gaps in very concrete ways .
To take just one example , the children of families @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ones most affected by missing almost half a school year or more .
The generous resiliency of my racially diverse students continues to surprise me .
They know it ’ s a bitter world out there , but many of them seem determined , gaps or not , to change it .
Born in 1952 , I was too young for the “ missile gap , ” which animated John F. Kennedy ’ s 1960 run for president .
On the Senate floor , as early as 1958 , he began claiming that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Soviet Union in the production and deployment of nuclear missiles .
In reality , that gap was all in the other direction , but it did help get him elected and spurred a major escalation of US nuclear development and testing .
Eventually , a series of agreements would reduce Cold War nuclear tensions , although it now looks as if the Trump administration is going to withdraw from the last of those pacts early next year .
It ’ s already pouring staggering amounts of money into further nuclear arms development , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ since 1992 .
So prepare for a new “ missile gap.
” The first national abyss I personally became aware of was the “ credibility gap.
” That phrase signified the distance between what the US government claimed was happening in Vietnam and the country ’ s doomed war effort there .
As that conflict lumbered on , the gap only grew .
Reporters in South Vietnam were , for instance , regularly treated to what came to be known as “ the Five O ’ Clock Follies.
” These were , as @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Yorker , “ nightly briefings at which American military leaders claimed , citing a variety of bogus statistics , half-truths , and misleading reports from the front , to be winning a war that they were , in fact , losing.
” The Follies featured daily “ body counts ” of the dead presented like so many football scores , except that winner was the team with the fewest “ points.
” Somehow the visitors always won , and yet , after apparently taking every game , we lost the war .
In @ @ @ @ @ @ @ out the lights on the war effort , having lost more than 58,000 soldiers , while killing millions of Vietnamese , Laotians , and Cambodians—another less-noted gap .
( In recent months , headlines like this one from Reuters became commonplace : “ U.S .
coronavirus deaths surpass Vietnam War toll ” —quite true if you don ’ t count the dead from the countries where that war was fought . )
As others have pointed out , President Trump ’ s coronavirus press briefings were contemporary Five O ’ Clock Follies , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ this country leads the world in Covid-19 testing .
It ’ s worth remembering , however , that modern presidential dissembling hardly began with Donald Trump .
Sadly enough , the credibility gap is associated with Lyndon Johnson who , from 1963 to 1968 , actually presided over the country ’ s greatest efforts to end poverty since Franklin Delano Roosevelt ’ s Great Depression–era New Deal .
He also oversaw the first organized federal-level challenges to racial injustice since Reconstruction .
If it weren ’ t for the Vietnam War , Johnson @ @ @ @ @ @ @ war ” entirely , his War on Poverty , which gave us Head Start , an academic and nutritional enrichment program for poor children , and Medicare , guaranteeing health care for people 65 and older .
And it was Johnson who finagled—through a Congress that still contained a host of white supremacists—passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act , the 1965 Voting Rights Act , and the 1968 Fair Housing Act .
None of those laws dismantled institutional racism but each provided legal leverage for those seeking to ameliorate its worst effects @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ( and our own ) was that , in those years , his Vietnam-inspired credibility gap created fertile ground in which to plant the greatest gap of all : a robust distrust of government in general , a belief that collective action at the national level represented a dangerous and intractable obstacle to the common good .
Partially thanks to that very credibility gap , he would be succeeded by Richard Nixon , who would continue the Vietnam War in an increasingly mendacious fashion , including the secret bombing of Cambodia .
Nixon @ @ @ @ @ @ @ moral and logistical support to General Augusto Pinochet ’ s 1973 coup against Chile ’ s democratically elected socialist president Salvador Allende , plunging that country into decades of torture , murder , and dictatorship .
Nixon ’ s own presidency collapsed under the weight of the duplicity and corruption that came to be known as “ Watergate.
” So redolent of scandal did the name of that Washington office complex ( where Nixon ’ s minions burgled Democratic National Committee headquarters ) become that decades of scandals-to-come would regularly be labeled “ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ latest is , of course , “ Obamagate , ” Donald Trump ’ s attempt to conjure up a scandal out of thin air about our last president .
When The Washington Post ’ s Philip Rucker tried to winkle an actual definition of the supposed crime involved out of the president , he replied , “ You know what the crime is .
The crime is very obvious to everybody .
All you have to do is read the newspapers , except yours.
” Ronald Reagan would go on to manipulate Johnson @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of distrust over his eight years in office .
In his January 1981 inaugural address , he proclaimed that “ government is not the solution to our problem , government is the problem.
” He then set out to dismantle Johnson ’ s War on Poverty programs , attacking the unions that underpinned white working-class prosperity , and generally starving the beast of government .
We ’ re still living with the legacies of that credo .
The Reagan revolution , as it was called , actually continued in the years of Bill @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Gingrich , then the speaker of the House of Representatives , supposedly helped write what would be called the Contract with America .
Originally conceived in the bowels of the conservative Heritage Foundation , that document contained language taken directly from Reagan ’ s 1985 State of the Union address .
It enshrined his version of the credibility gap in 10 pieces of proposed legislation .
Among them were mandatory sentencing laws that helped make the United States the world ’ s leader in mass incarceration .
Keeping so many people in jail @ @ @ @ @ @ @ supposedly rooted in a commitment to getting government out of people ’ s lives .
Nor should we forget those lies about Saddam Hussein ’ s reputed weapons of mass destruction and his links to Al Qaeda .
This doctored intelligence allowed President George W. Bush to launch his much-desired , and disastrous , invasion and occupation of Iraq—another credibility gap–based folly of the first order .
Now , after three and a half years of Donald Trump , many Americans and much of the world simply accept that the US has a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Somehow , it ’ s become so much the norm that , even as The Washington Post has tallied up 18,000 of Trump ’ s “ false and misleading statements , ” few Americans expect to have a president who actually tells the truth anymore .
The credibility gap of the 1960s and ’ 70s , the distrust it engendered in the ’ 80s and ’ 90s , not to mention the credibility follies of George W. Bush , all paved the way for a president who would lie multiple times a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that protect ordinary Americans and the environment that sustains their lives .
Indeed , on May 19 , President Trump issued an executive order to “ combat the economic consequences of Covid-19 ” by insisting all agencies “ address this economic emergency by rescinding , modifying , waiving , or providing exemptions from regulations and other requirements that may inhibit economic recovery.
” Add this to the damage his administration has already done to regulations protecting our air , water , wetlands , and national monuments , and you ’ re way beyond @ @ @ @ @ @ @ war that generated it gave rise to another kind of division : “ the generation gap.
” Largely ( though not entirely ) a white middle-class phenomenon , the phrase stood for a deepening cultural rift between the generation that had constructed the post–World War II United States and the one conscripted to fight its then-latest war .
In the space of a few years , that gap , too , would quickly widen into a chasm .
On one side would stand the parents who had faced down fascism in Europe and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Rosie the Riveters and enduring shortages and rationing at home ; on the other stood their own children who , at least if they had white-collar or unionized parents , had been born into a life that promised unprecedented economic abundance .
Imagine the pain of those parents when their children , heading out onto the streets to protest Washington ’ s latest war , rejected that life of security and plenty for which they had sacrificed much and the values that went with it .
Imagine the pain of those privileged but @ @ @ @ @ @ @ shadow of the mushroom cloud , for whom a promised world of security , plenty , and freedom came to seem ever more like a cheat and a mirage .
Imagine their sense of betrayal when a growing civil rights movement revealed that plenty and freedom had always been grotesquely ill distributed in the Land of the Free .
Imagine their shock when they realized that the price of plenty was another kind of unfreedom—felt in uniform in distant Southeast Asia where American soldiers were committing murderous acts to support a standard of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ raw materials from impoverished developing nations .
Imagine how they felt when they discovered that their parents were prepared to send thousands of them to die in an immoral and pointless war .
The Canadian poet Leonard Cohen captured this horror in his song of that moment , “ The Story of Isaac and Abraham , ” a mournful rendering of the biblical tale of a father willing to obey a god even if it meant slaughtering his own child .
As Cohen ’ s Isaac said to the parents of the Vietnam @ @ @ @ @ @ @ spring , such sacrifices seemed plentiful enough .
The National Guard , called onto the campus of Kent State University in Ohio to suppress students protesting the invasion of Cambodia , shot and killed four of them .
Just weeks later , local police killed two protesting African American students and wounded 12 more at Jackson State University in Mississippi .
No wonder that when we looked at the hands of our parents ’ generation , they seemed to cradle what Cohen called “ their hatchets blunt and bloody.
” No wonder our @ @ @ @ @ @ @ trust anyone over 30.
” Today , however , boomers like me stand on the other side of a new generation gap .
We ’ re the ones younger people increasingly feel they shouldn ’ t trust .
And who can blame them ?
If we ever consent to get off stage along with Donald Trump , Joe Biden , and the rest of them , we ’ ll be leaving behind a shattered planet , including the most profound economic inequality in a century , mass extinctions of every sort , and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ humanity , starting with the poorest of us .
And then came the coronavirus .
Although Covid-19 kills people of all ages , it ’ s been deadliest among the old—especially old people living in “ congregate settings , ” also known as nursing homes .
( It seems , in fact , to rampage through just about anyplace—like prisons or meatpacking plants—where people are squashed together . )
If I were in my 20s or 30s today , maybe I ’ d be tempted to accept a mass culling of boomers as @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ( as the Trump campaign ’ s new slogan has it ) a new “ Transition to Greatness.
” In fact , however , it only seems to be members of my own generation , like Texas Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick , who are echoing Republican talking points by calling on “ lots of grandparents ” to risk their lives to get the economy going again .
Americans are suffering under lockdown .
Almost 40 million of us have filed for unemployment and a third of us show signs of clinical anxiety and/or @ @ @ @ @ @ @ boomers who are paying attention already know that the millennial generation—those born between 1981 and 1996—will not experience the economic bonanza that made life so relatively comfortable for our era ’ s white working and middle classes .
Those days are not coming back .
The coronavirus is the third major recession that has savaged their jobs and earnings .
The coronavirus has changed my university , too .
Halfway through the term , we moved online and the students I knew in person turned into little faces in boxes on my computer @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , however , I could feel how frightening the world looks to graduating seniors today .
It was bad enough a decade ago , when graduates were leaving school in the midst of the Great Recession of 2008 .
They knew that it might take decades to catch up economically with friends who ’ d finished just a couple of years earlier .
Now , this cohort is facing something far worse .
But the funny thing is , frightened as they are , they seem to be determined that the world on @ @ @ @ @ @ @ be different than the one they stood to inherit a few short months ago .
They don ’ t want things to get “ back to normal.
” Over and over this spring , they described the pandemic as an opportunity for a radical break with the way things were BC ( Before Covid-19 ) .
That determination is pretty inspiring to this weary old boomer .

EDITOR’S NOTE: This article originally appeared at TomDispatch.com. To stay on top of important articles like these, sign up to receive the latest updates from TomDispatch.
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These days, teaching graduating college seniors has me, as the Brits would say in the London Underground, “minding the gap.” In my case, however, it’s not the gap between the platform and the train I’m thinking of, but a couple of others: those between US citizens and our government, as well as between different generations of Americans. The Covid-19 crisis has made some of those gaps far more visible than usual, just as my students leave school with many of their personal expectations in tatters.
The chasms illuminated by the coronavirus are many: the gender pay gap; the wealth gap between African Americans and Latinos on one side and white Americans on the other, not to speak of the gap in their health care access and health outcomes; the gap in the amount of domestic work and child care done by women and men; and that’s just to start down a longer list. Covid-19 has exacerbated all of these gaps in very concrete ways. To take just one example, the children of families with the fewest resources will be the ones most affected by missing almost half a school year or more.
The generous resiliency of my racially diverse students continues to surprise me. They know it’s a bitter world out there, but many of them seem determined, gaps or not, to change it.
Unbelievable
Born in 1952, I was too young for the “missile gap,” which animated John F. Kennedy’s 1960 run for president. On the Senate floor, as early as 1958, he began claiming that the United States was falling behind the Soviet Union in the production and deployment of nuclear missiles. In reality, that gap was all in the other direction, but it did help get him elected and spurred a major escalation of US nuclear development and testing.
Eventually, a series of agreements would reduce Cold War nuclear tensions, although it now looks as if the Trump administration is going to withdraw from the last of those pacts early next year. It’s already pouring staggering amounts of money into further nuclear arms development, while contemplating the first US nuclear test since 1992. So prepare for a new “missile gap.” Popular "swipe left below to view more authors"Swipe → The Evisceration of a Public University The Evisceration of a Public University Lisa M. Corrigan The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks Chris Lehmann “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash Dave Zirin A Grim Chronicle of Trump’s Corrupt Public Life A Grim Chronicle of Trump’s Corrupt Public Life Chris Lehmann Popular "swipe left below to view more authors"Swipe → The Evisceration of a Public University The Evisceration of a Public University Lisa M. Corrigan The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks Chris Lehmann “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash Dave Zirin A Grim Chronicle of Trump’s Corrupt Public Life A Grim Chronicle of Trump’s Corrupt Public Life Chris Lehmann
The first national abyss I personally became aware of was the “credibility gap.” That phrase signified the distance between what the US government claimed was happening in Vietnam and the country’s doomed war effort there. As that conflict lumbered on, the gap only grew. Reporters in South Vietnam were, for instance, regularly treated to what came to be known as “the Five O’Clock Follies.” These were, as Susan Glasser recently wrote in The New Yorker, “nightly briefings at which American military leaders claimed, citing a variety of bogus statistics, half-truths, and misleading reports from the front, to be winning a war that they were, in fact, losing.” The Follies featured daily “body counts” of the dead presented like so many football scores, except that winner was the team with the fewest “points.”
Somehow the visitors always won, and yet, after apparently taking every game, we lost the war. In 1975, the United States finally turned out the lights on the war effort, having lost more than 58,000 soldiers, while killing millions of Vietnamese, Laotians, and Cambodians—another less-noted gap. (In recent months, headlines like this one from Reuters became commonplace: “U.S. coronavirus deaths surpass Vietnam War toll”—quite true if you don’t count the dead from the countries where that war was fought.) Current Issue View our current issue
As others have pointed out, President Trump’s coronavirus press briefings were contemporary Five O’Clock Follies, complete with bogus victory statistics on how this country leads the world in Covid-19 testing. It’s worth remembering, however, that modern presidential dissembling hardly began with Donald Trump.
Sadly enough, the credibility gap is associated with Lyndon Johnson who, from 1963 to 1968, actually presided over the country’s greatest efforts to end poverty since Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s Great Depression–era New Deal. He also oversaw the first organized federal-level challenges to racial injustice since Reconstruction. If it weren’t for the Vietnam War, Johnson might be remembered today for another “war” entirely, his War on Poverty, which gave us Head Start, an academic and nutritional enrichment program for poor children, and Medicare, guaranteeing health care for people 65 and older. And it was Johnson who finagled—through a Congress that still contained a host of white supremacists—passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, the 1965 Voting Rights Act, and the 1968 Fair Housing Act. None of those laws dismantled institutional racism but each provided legal leverage for those seeking to ameliorate its worst effects.
A Harvest of Doubt
Still, Johnson’s tragedy (and our own) was that, in those years, his Vietnam-inspired credibility gap created fertile ground in which to plant the greatest gap of all: a robust distrust of government in general, a belief that collective action at the national level represented a dangerous and intractable obstacle to the common good. Partially thanks to that very credibility gap, he would be succeeded by Richard Nixon, who would continue the Vietnam War in an increasingly mendacious fashion, including the secret bombing of Cambodia. Nixon’s CIA would also give secret moral and logistical support to General Augusto Pinochet’s 1973 coup against Chile’s democratically elected socialist president Salvador Allende, plunging that country into decades of torture, murder, and dictatorship.
Nixon’s own presidency collapsed under the weight of the duplicity and corruption that came to be known as “Watergate.” So redolent of scandal did the name of that Washington office complex (where Nixon’s minions burgled Democratic National Committee headquarters) become that decades of scandals-to-come would regularly be labeled “gates” of various sorts. The latest is, of course, “Obamagate,” Donald Trump’s attempt to conjure up a scandal out of thin air about our last president. When The Washington Post’s Philip Rucker tried to winkle an actual definition of the supposed crime involved out of the president, he replied, “You know what the crime is. The crime is very obvious to everybody. All you have to do is read the newspapers, except yours.”
Ronald Reagan would go on to manipulate Johnson’s and Nixon’s inheritance of distrust over his eight years in office. In his January 1981 inaugural address, he proclaimed that “government is not the solution to our problem, government is the problem.” He then set out to dismantle Johnson’s War on Poverty programs, attacking the unions that underpinned white working-class prosperity, and generally starving the beast of government. We’re still living with the legacies of that credo.
The Reagan revolution, as it was called, actually continued in the years of Bill Clinton’s presidency. Republican Newt Gingrich, then the speaker of the House of Representatives, supposedly helped write what would be called the Contract with America. Originally conceived in the bowels of the conservative Heritage Foundation, that document contained language taken directly from Reagan’s 1985 State of the Union address. It enshrined his version of the credibility gap in 10 pieces of proposed legislation. Among them were mandatory sentencing laws that helped make the United States the world’s leader in mass incarceration. Keeping so many people in jail is a curious outcome for an initiative supposedly rooted in a commitment to getting government out of people’s lives.
Nor should we forget those lies about Saddam Hussein’s reputed weapons of mass destruction and his links to Al Qaeda. This doctored intelligence allowed President George W. Bush to launch his much-desired, and disastrous, invasion and occupation of Iraq—another credibility gap–based folly of the first order.
Now, after three and a half years of Donald Trump, many Americans and much of the world simply accept that the US has a credibility chasm of a previously unimaginable sort. Somehow, it’s become so much the norm that, even as The Washington Post has tallied up 18,000 of Trump’s “false and misleading statements,” few Americans expect to have a president who actually tells the truth anymore. The credibility gap of the 1960s and ’70s, the distrust it engendered in the ’80s and ’90s, not to mention the credibility follies of George W. Bush, all paved the way for a president who would lie multiple times a day while continuing to dismantle government policies that protect ordinary Americans and the environment that sustains their lives.
Indeed, on May 19, President Trump issued an executive order to “combat the economic consequences of Covid-19” by insisting all agencies “address this economic emergency by rescinding, modifying, waiving, or providing exemptions from regulations and other requirements that may inhibit economic recovery.” Add this to the damage his administration has already done to regulations protecting our air, water, wetlands, and national monuments, and you’re way beyond gaps.
OK, Boomer
The credibility gap and the war that generated it gave rise to another kind of division: “the generation gap.” Largely (though not entirely) a white middle-class phenomenon, the phrase stood for a deepening cultural rift between the generation that had constructed the post–World War II United States and the one conscripted to fight its then-latest war. In the space of a few years, that gap, too, would quickly widen into a chasm. On one side would stand the parents who had faced down fascism in Europe and Asia, while filling the factories with Rosie the Riveters and enduring shortages and rationing at home; on the other stood their own children who, at least if they had white-collar or unionized parents, had been born into a life that promised unprecedented economic abundance.
Imagine the pain of those parents when their children, heading out onto the streets to protest Washington’s latest war, rejected that life of security and plenty for which they had sacrificed much and the values that went with it. Imagine the pain of those privileged but anxious children, growing up in the shadow of the mushroom cloud, for whom a promised world of security, plenty, and freedom came to seem ever more like a cheat and a mirage. Imagine their sense of betrayal when a growing civil rights movement revealed that plenty and freedom had always been grotesquely ill distributed in the Land of the Free. Imagine their shock when they realized that the price of plenty was another kind of unfreedom—felt in uniform in distant Southeast Asia where American soldiers were committing murderous acts to support a standard of living dependent on the extraction of cheap raw materials from impoverished developing nations.
Imagine how they felt when they discovered that their parents were prepared to send thousands of them to die in an immoral and pointless war. The Canadian poet Leonard Cohen captured this horror in his song of that moment, “The Story of Isaac and Abraham,” a mournful rendering of the biblical tale of a father willing to obey a god even if it meant slaughtering his own child. As Cohen’s Isaac said to the parents of the Vietnam War era:
“You who build these altars now
To sacrifice these children,
You must not do it anymore…”
Fifty years ago this spring, such sacrifices seemed plentiful enough. The National Guard, called onto the campus of Kent State University in Ohio to suppress students protesting the invasion of Cambodia, shot and killed four of them. Just weeks later, local police killed two protesting African American students and wounded 12 more at Jackson State University in Mississippi. No wonder that when we looked at the hands of our parents’ generation, they seemed to cradle what Cohen called “their hatchets blunt and bloody.” No wonder our unofficial slogan then was: “Never trust anyone over 30.”
Today, however, boomers like me stand on the other side of a new generation gap. We’re the ones younger people increasingly feel they shouldn’t trust. And who can blame them? If we ever consent to get off stage along with Donald Trump, Joe Biden, and the rest of them, we’ll be leaving behind a shattered planet, including the most profound economic inequality in a century, mass extinctions of every sort, and a climate crisis that threatens all of humanity, starting with the poorest of us.
Mending the Gaps
And then came the coronavirus. Although Covid-19 kills people of all ages, it’s been deadliest among the old—especially old people living in “congregate settings,” also known as nursing homes. (It seems, in fact, to rampage through just about anyplace—like prisons or meatpacking plants—where people are squashed together.) If I were in my 20s or 30s today, maybe I’d be tempted to accept a mass culling of boomers as the price of “reopening”—or (as the Trump campaign’s new slogan has it) a new “Transition to Greatness.” In fact, however, it only seems to be members of my own generation, like Texas Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick, who are echoing Republican talking points by calling on “lots of grandparents” to risk their lives to get the economy going again.
Americans are suffering under lockdown. Almost 40 million of us have filed for unemployment and a third of us show signs of clinical anxiety and/or depression. At the same time, boomers who are paying attention already know that the millennial generation—those born between 1981 and 1996—will not experience the economic bonanza that made life so relatively comfortable for our era’s white working and middle classes. Those days are not coming back. The coronavirus is the third major recession that has savaged their jobs and earnings.
The coronavirus has changed my university, too. Halfway through the term, we moved online and the students I knew in person turned into little faces in boxes on my computer screen. Even through that strange medium, however, I could feel how frightening the world looks to graduating seniors today. It was bad enough a decade ago, when graduates were leaving school in the midst of the Great Recession of 2008. They knew that it might take decades to catch up economically with friends who’d finished just a couple of years earlier.
Now, this cohort is facing something far worse. But the funny thing is, frightened as they are, they seem to be determined that the world on the other side of this pandemic must be different than the one they stood to inherit a few short months ago. They don’t want things to get “back to normal.” Over and over this spring, they described the pandemic as an opportunity for a radical break with the way things were BC (Before Covid-19). That determination is pretty inspiring to this weary old boomer.


thenation--2020-06-03--How White People Can Step Up—and Step Back—Right Now

As someone who wrote the book What ’ s The Matter With White People ?
, I am often asked to weigh in on vexing questions about my race .
Lately it ’ s the question of what they—we—should do in this crisis that goes by the shorthand of “ George Floyd ” but that extends back 400 years .
Having written about these issues for not quite that long , but literally for 40 years , I am unhappy that my answer right now is essentially : I don ’ t know .
In these pages on Sunday , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ At these often inspiring but sometimes wrenching protests , white people should step back .
We should look for and defer to black protest leadership .
We should certainly not be the people leading in smashing windows .
We should not be the people saying “ They ’ re going to kill you anyway ” when black women ask us to stop goading police into reaction and abuse .
Historian Rick Perlstein tweeted the words of the late Black Panther Fred Hampton , murdered in his bed by police when he was just @ @ @ @ @ @ @ white people in urban protest way back then : “ We do not support people who are anarchistic , opportunistic , adventuristic , and Custeristic.
” I don ’ t presume to speak for Fred Hampton ( nor , of course , did Perlstein ) ; if Hampton knew black people were being murdered in the streets , and in their beds , even now , he might say something different .
But still : It ’ s relatively easy to say what white people shouldn ’ t do , when very few @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in the first place .
What ’ s much harder is figuring out what we should do in this terrible moment .
My single most important insight into how white people should work on issues of racial justice , over the course of my long life , has been : Listen more than you talk .
And then : Go into majority-black spaces , and again , listen .
Take your cues from black leadership .
Still , I ’ m not sure what that means right now—not just because of this latest @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of the pandemic .
We ’ re not holding in-person community meetings to talk about either of these nightmares .
Candidates aren ’ t organizing rallies where we can find a way to work or volunteer or meet like-minded people .
Part of the problem may be generalizing about white people .
So let me try this : Don ’ t be Donald Trump .
Don ’ t be a racist , a coward , a bully , a liar , or a sadist .
Don ’ t try to make it hard @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Don ’ t undo the mild efforts of President Barack Obama to monitor and thwart police violence .
Don ’ t be those white people surrounding Trump outside a church on Monday night ( and they were all white ) .
Attorney General William Barr is reportedly a devout Catholic , who presumably believes in Hell .
As a rather lapsed Catholic , I don ’ t , but if he ’ s right… Don ’ t be the white military leaders who ’ ve resigned from the Trump administration , repulsed by @ @ @ @ @ @ @ have nonetheless stayed silent publicly , or only offered their true insights to people who pay dearly to hear them .
Thinking of you Jim Mattis , John Kelly , H.R .
McMaster .
Who am I missing ?
Don ’ t be like white GOP senators who ’ ve defended Trump ’ s basically attempting to declare martial law Monday night .
I don ’ t have time to list all their names ; it ’ s pretty much all of them .
If you ’ re a white Republican with a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ranks of GOP Never Trumpers , and speak out about this nightmare .
But also search your souls , and your pasts , for the way you or your colleagues pandered to racial fear and anxiety in the last 40 years .
For instance , I was happy to see former House speaker Paul Ryan ’ s ex–chief of staff , Brendan Buck , speak out against Trump ’ s excesses on Tuesday .
But his boss rode the “ makers vs. takers ” political narrative to the pinnacles of Republican power .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ perception that they ’ re the makers and people of color are the takers—pretty much what dying GOP strategist Lee Atwater said had replaced the use of the N-word for his party .
If you ’ re a white Democrat in a position of power , be like the mayor of Louisville , Ky. , Greg Fischer , and fire police chiefs who let their officers abuse their power .
And people .
The Question Isn ’ t Whether Trump Will Go Full Authoritarian—It ’ s How We ’ ll Respond Bill de @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Moment Be like the white governors—especially Illinois ’ s J.B. Pritzker , Michigan ’ s Gretchen Whitmer , and New York ’ s Andrew Cuomo—who quickly refused Trump ’ s offer/demand to federalize the law enforcement response to the unrest .
But also : See above .
Too many elected Democrats continue to do far too little about the underlying racial and socioeconomic inequities that led us here—although in the face of Covid-19 , many have begun to step up .
Biden took a big step visiting black protesters and leaders in the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a speech in the Philadelphia hall where Barack Obama , then an embattled candidate , made his landmark speech about race .
Biden did well enough , but did not completely rise to the occasion .
All he said about Trump ’ s mad power grab Monday night was this : “ We can be forgiven for believing the president is more interested in power than in principle.
” Speaking as a white person , I wanted so much more .
But I always have ; that ’ s why I didn ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ It ’ s also important to remember that he won because of his huge support from black voters .
I support him now , wholeheartedly .
It ’ s hard not to compare Biden to another former vice president who ran for president : Hubert Humphrey , who lost to Nixon in 1968 .
Everyone is comparing 2020 to 1968 , which is actually not helpful , since Nixon was running against a wounded vice president who didn ’ t have the support of his own party .
But that brought me to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ people should do , which is directed of course to my family : the white left .
( Our family always triggers our most primal anger . )
Don ’ t be like ( much of ) the white left of 1968 .
Few on the white left are smashing windows today , but too many helped bring about this nightmare when they refused to vote for Hillary Clinton four years ago .
If Biden is Humphrey , the white left needs to realize this time around that this version is better than @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Bernie Sanders realized this , early , and the vast majority of his supporters do too .
Finally , right here and now : Go join the thousands of white people marching peacefully .
There are many reasons for white people to be angry , politically , especially so-called blue-collar whites : the loss of jobs , the loss of homes during the financial crash ; for their kids , huge student loans if they even had the chance to go to college .
But too many white people , also back in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ work on behalf of economic justice for their own racial privilege .
Which it turns out doesn ’ t pay enough .
We can talk about that another time .
The George Floyd protests are not about your grievances .
Listen , learn , and do what you ’ re asked to do .

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As someone who wrote the book What’s The Matter With White People?, I am often asked to weigh in on vexing questions about my race. Lately it’s the question of what they—we—should do in this crisis that goes by the shorthand of “George Floyd” but that extends back 400 years.
Having written about these issues for not quite that long, but literally for 40 years, I am unhappy that my answer right now is essentially: I don’t know.
In these pages on Sunday, I wrote my one big idea: At these often inspiring but sometimes wrenching protests, white people should step back. We should look for and defer to black protest leadership. We should certainly not be the people leading in smashing windows. We should not be the people saying “They’re going to kill you anyway” when black women ask us to stop goading police into reaction and abuse.
Historian Rick Perlstein tweeted the words of the late Black Panther Fred Hampton, murdered in his bed by police when he was just 21, talking about the role of white people in urban protest way back then: “We do not support people who are anarchistic, opportunistic, adventuristic, and Custeristic.” I don’t presume to speak for Fred Hampton (nor, of course, did Perlstein); if Hampton knew black people were being murdered in the streets, and in their beds, even now, he might say something different.
But still: It’s relatively easy to say what white people shouldn’t do, when very few of us are inclined to do that in the first place. What’s much harder is figuring out what we should do in this terrible moment. My single most important insight into how white people should work on issues of racial justice, over the course of my long life, has been: Listen more than you talk. And then: Go into majority-black spaces, and again, listen. Take your cues from black leadership.
Still, I’m not sure what that means right now—not just because of this latest police violence crisis, but also because of the pandemic. We’re not holding in-person community meetings to talk about either of these nightmares. Candidates aren’t organizing rallies where we can find a way to work or volunteer or meet like-minded people.
Part of the problem may be generalizing about white people. So let me try this: Current Issue View our current issue
Don’t be Donald Trump. Don’t be a racist, a coward, a bully, a liar, or a sadist. Don’t try to make it hard for people of color to vote. Don’t undo the mild efforts of President Barack Obama to monitor and thwart police violence. Popular "swipe left below to view more authors"Swipe → The Evisceration of a Public University The Evisceration of a Public University Lisa M. Corrigan The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks Chris Lehmann “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash Dave Zirin A Grim Chronicle of Trump’s Corrupt Public Life A Grim Chronicle of Trump’s Corrupt Public Life Chris Lehmann Popular "swipe left below to view more authors"Swipe → The Evisceration of a Public University The Evisceration of a Public University Lisa M. Corrigan The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks Chris Lehmann “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash Dave Zirin A Grim Chronicle of Trump’s Corrupt Public Life A Grim Chronicle of Trump’s Corrupt Public Life Chris Lehmann
Whew. That was easy.
Also easy:
Don’t be those white people surrounding Trump outside a church on Monday night (and they were all white). Attorney General William Barr is reportedly a devout Catholic, who presumably believes in Hell. As a rather lapsed Catholic, I don’t, but if he’s right…
Don’t be the white military leaders who’ve resigned from the Trump administration, repulsed by his awful behavior and anti-democracy beliefs—but who have nonetheless stayed silent publicly, or only offered their true insights to people who pay dearly to hear them. Thinking of you Jim Mattis, John Kelly, H.R. McMaster. Who am I missing?
Don’t be like white GOP senators who’ve defended Trump’s basically attempting to declare martial law Monday night. I don’t have time to list all their names; it’s pretty much all of them.
If you’re a white Republican with a conscience, please be like the growing ranks of GOP Never Trumpers, and speak out about this nightmare.
But also search your souls, and your pasts, for the way you or your colleagues pandered to racial fear and anxiety in the last 40 years. For instance, I was happy to see former House speaker Paul Ryan’s ex–chief of staff Brendan Buck speak out against Trump’s excesses on Tuesday. But his boss rode the “makers vs. takers” political narrative to the pinnacles of Republican power. It played on white people’s perception that they’re the makers and people of color are the takers—pretty much what dying GOP strategist Lee Atwater said had replaced the use of the N-word for his party.
Moving on.
If you’re a white Democrat in a position of power, be like the mayor of Louisville, Ky., Greg Fischer, and fire police chiefs who let their officers abuse their power. And people. A Nation in Revolt The Question Isn’t Whether Trump Will Go Full Authoritarian—It’s How We’ll Respond Elie Mystal Bill de Blasio Has Failed the Test of This Moment Elie Mystal Trump’s Authoritarian Porn Has a Lot of Fans Joan Walsh
Be like the white governors—especially Illinois’s J.B. Pritzker, Michigan’s Gretchen Whitmer, and New York’s Andrew Cuomo—who quickly refused Trump’s offer/demand to federalize the law enforcement response to the unrest. But also: See above. Too many elected Democrats continue to do far too little about the underlying racial and socioeconomic inequities that led us here—although in the face of Covid-19, many have begun to step up.
Be like Joe Biden? Um, it’s complicated.
Biden took a big step visiting black protesters and leaders in the last couple of days, and making a speech in the Philadelphia hall where Barack Obama, then an embattled candidate, made his landmark speech about race. Biden did well enough, but did not completely rise to the occasion. All he said about Trump’s mad power grab Monday night was this: “We can be forgiven for believing the president is more interested in power than in principle.”
Speaking as a white person, I wanted so much more. But I always have; that’s why I didn’t support him in the primary. It’s also important to remember that he won because of his huge support from black voters. I support him now, wholeheartedly.
It’s hard not to compare Biden to another former vice president who ran for president: Hubert Humphrey, who lost to Nixon in 1968. Everyone is comparing 2020 to 1968, which is actually not helpful, since Nixon was running against a wounded vice president who didn’t have the support of his own party. But that brought me to my most visceral response to what white people should do, which is directed of course to my family: the white left. (Our family always triggers our most primal anger.)
Don’t be like (much of) the white left of 1968. Few on the white left are smashing windows today, but too many helped bring about this nightmare when they refused to vote for Hillary Clinton four years ago. If Biden is Humphrey, the white left needs to realize this time around that this version is better than a fascist sadist. Thankfully, Senator Bernie Sanders realized this, early, and the vast majority of his supporters do too.
Finally, right here and now: Go join the thousands of white people marching peacefully. There are many reasons for white people to be angry, politically, especially so-called blue-collar whites: the loss of jobs, the loss of homes during the financial crash; for their kids, huge student loans if they even had the chance to go to college. But too many white people, also back in the ’60s, traded their forebears’ work on behalf of economic justice for their own racial privilege. Which it turns out doesn’t pay enough.
We can talk about that another time. The George Floyd protests are not about your grievances. Listen, learn, and do what you’re asked to do.


thenation--2020-06-03--Olympian Gwen Berry to the USOC: ‘Where’s My Apology?’

The US Olympic and Paralympic Committee had something to say about the importance of fighting racism amid this national uprising against racist police violence , but Gwen Berry was absolutely not having it .
Berry , a 2016 Olympian in the hammer throw , raised a clenched fist on the medal stand to protest racial injustice after earning the gold medal at the 2018 Pan Am Games .
This was when sports protests had actually hit a lull and the gesture stood out , just as Berry wanted .
In response , the USOPC gave her a reprimand and put @ @ @ @ @ @ @ months , with a warning that there would be more punishment if there were any more protests to come .
Now Gwen Berry wants the USOPC to put its newfound racial consciousness into practice and say “ I ’ m sorry.
” She tweeted the USOPC statement and on top of it wrote , “ I want an apology letter .. mailed .. just like you and the IOC MAILED ME WHEN YOU PUT ME ON PROBATION.. stop playing with me.
” I reached out to Gwen Berry for her thoughts about the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ apology .
She said : “ I felt like the [ USOPC ] comments were about hypocritical as they could be .
It ’ s really a smack in the face , because I ’ ve lost so much because of how they did not support me ; of how they made it seem that I basically did something that was bad , even though it was peaceful .
I didn ’ t cause any altercations .
There was nothing that I did wrong .
All I did was speak out about who @ @ @ @ @ @ @ for , and how I felt .
Therefore my family has lost so much because of the reprimands that I got , and yet here they are , basically , saying the very thing that was the total opposite of what they did to me !
It ’ s just hypocrisy.… But I feel like that is America .
America says a thousand things , but they do the opposite .
That ’ s the country we live in and that ’ s why so many people are upset right now.
” I @ @ @ @ @ @ @ current national wave of demonstrations prove in practice that she was correct to take the stance that she did .
“ I definitely think the demonstrations vindicate me , ” she said .
“ I feel like for once in my life , I ’ m finally being understood , as far as my feelings pertaining to the injustice that ’ s going on in the world .
I know I spoke out last year , around August , and let ’ s be honest , I got more hate than love .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ lot , and therefore my family lost a lot .
At that time , I felt misunderstood .
I felt that people were scared to come out and stand with me because athletes lose so much , and they have families to feed .
So right now , I definitely feel vindicated .
It helped me to go out there and support my people , and march with my people , and protest .
I ’ m pretty ecstatic right now.… I just hope that everyone keeps momentum going .
We have to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to strategize , we have to plan , and we have to keep the momentum going.
” If that apology comes , and it absolutely should , then Gwen Berry will have accomplished something that breaks legitimately new ground .
So many people in sports are falling over themselves to praise the demonstrations , say that black lives do in fact matter .
Yet what they aren ’ t doing is accounting for their past .
The NFL isn ’ t coming close to admitting that it was wrong to collude against Colin @ @ @ @ @ @ @ crafting PR statements that manage to take a great deal of space in order to say nothing .
The USOPC is issuing empty statements of solidarity when what it needs to do is come clean , admit that it has been wrong to penalize athletes for using the platform they earned to oppose racism .
And they need to write Gwen Berry a damn apology .

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The US Olympic and Paralympic Committee had something to say about the importance of fighting racism amid this national uprising against racist police violence, but Gwen Berry was absolutely not having it. Berry, a 2016 Olympian in the hammer throw, raised a clenched fist on the medal stand to protest racial injustice after earning the gold medal at the 2018 Pan Am Games. This was when sports protests had actually hit a lull and the gesture stood out, just as Berry wanted.
In response, the USOPC gave her a reprimand and put her on “probation” for 12 months, with a warning that there would be more punishment if there were any more protests to come. Now Gwen Berry wants the USOPC to put its newfound racial consciousness into practice and say “I’m sorry.” She tweeted the USOPC statement and on top of it wrote, “I want an apology letter .. mailed .. just like you and the IOC MAILED ME WHEN YOU PUT ME ON PROBATION.. stop playing with me.”
I reached out to Gwen Berry for her thoughts about the Olympic statement and her call for an apology. She said:
“I felt like the [USOPC] comments were about hypocritical as they could be. It’s really a smack in the face, because I’ve lost so much because of how they did not support me; of how they made it seem that I basically did something that was bad, even though it was peaceful. I didn’t cause any altercations. There was nothing that I did wrong. All I did was speak out about who I stand with, what I stand for, and how I felt. Therefore my family has lost so much because of the reprimands that I got, and yet here they are, basically, saying the very thing that was the total opposite of what they did to me! It’s just hypocrisy.… But I feel like that is America. America says a thousand things, but they do the opposite. That’s the country we live in and that’s why so many people are upset right now.”
I asked Berry if she felt like the current national wave of demonstrations prove in practice that she was correct to take the stance that she did. “I definitely think the demonstrations vindicate me,” she said.
“I feel like for once in my life, I’m finally being understood, as far as my feelings pertaining to the injustice that’s going on in the world. I know I spoke out last year, around August, and let’s be honest, I got more hate than love. Like I said, I lost a lot, and therefore my family lost a lot. At that time, I felt misunderstood. I felt that people were scared to come out and stand with me because athletes lose so much, and they have families to feed. So right now, I definitely feel vindicated. It helped me to go out there and support my people, and march with my people, and protest. I’m pretty ecstatic right now.… I just hope that everyone keeps momentum going. We have to come up with ideas, we have to strategize, we have to plan, and we have to keep the momentum going.”
If that apology comes, and it absolutely should, then Gwen Berry will have accomplished something that breaks legitimately new ground. So many people in sports are falling over themselves to praise the demonstrations, say that black lives do in fact matter. Yet what they aren’t doing is accounting for their past. The NFL isn’t coming close to admitting that it was wrong to collude against Colin Kaepernick and deny him work, while crafting PR statements that manage to take a great deal of space in order to say nothing. The USOPC is issuing empty statements of solidarity when what it needs to do is come clean, admit that it has been wrong to penalize athletes for using the platform they earned to oppose racism. And they need to write Gwen Berry a damn apology.


thenation--2020-06-03--Trump Is Using the Military to Hide His Weakness

In trying to use the military to quell nationwide protests , Trump has given the most ominous example yet of his authoritarianism .
On Monday night , the world witnessed the disturbing scene of Gen. Mark Milley , chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff , decked out in uniform , accompanying Trump to a photo op at St. John ’ s Episcopal Church , which had been cleared of protesters by the National Guard and law enforcement agents .
Earlier that day , Defense Secretary Mark Esper made a troubling comment describing the American cities experiencing protests as a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to “ dominate.
” On Tuesday , there were the unsettling images of the military convoys filling the streets of Washington and a phalanx of uniformed soldiers standing guard outside the Lincoln Memorial .
These are appalling scenes and deserve to be remembered as among the most disgraceful events of Trump ’ s presidency .
But they are also evidence of how feeble Trump ’ s authority is .
Trump confirms the rule that macho bluster is usually a compensation for weakness .
The very decision to make the trip to St. John @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to counteract stories that Trump was taking refuge in the White House bunker , which conjured up images of a cowardly president .
According to CNN , “ Trump himself was angered by coverage depicting him holed up in an underground bunker .
He told aides on Monday he wanted to be seen outside the White House gates , according to a person familiar with the matter , which is part of what drove the decision to stage the photo-op at St. John ’ s Church.
” Trump was surely mindful of the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Fox News for having a weak response to the protests .
On Monday Night , Tucker Carlson lambasted him for a supposed failure to protect Americans from protesters .
“ How are you going to protect the country ?
” Carlson asked .
The Fox News host continued to needle Trump by observing , “ The president reassured America that he and his family were just fine .
The federally funded bodyguards had kept them safe .
He did not mention protecting the rest of the nation , much of which was then @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of himself.
” How the CIA Learned to Rock Mitch McConnell Is Even Worse Than Trump Carlson and other hard-right ideologues have been calling for a harsh crackdown on protesters .
Given their prior bigoted rhetoric , it seems like they want to turn the current crisis into a race war .
Trump ’ s push for a military solution to the uprising seems designed to placate these critics .
But he is meeting resistance from the military .
Both Esper and Milley are getting pushback from the Pentagon for complying with the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
In response , the defense secretary and the military leader have been quietly distancing themselves from the St. John ’ s photo op .
According to NBC News , Esper now denies that he knew he was going to a photo op .
The network reports , “ Esper said he believed they were going to observe the vandalized bathroom in Lafayette Square , which is near the church.
” The New York Times provides a parallel account : Military Leaders Have an Extraordinary Choice to Make as the Nation Protests Neither @ @ @ @ @ @ @ they went to the Oval Office on Monday that they would be taking part in the president ’ s photo op , Pentagon officials said .
Nor did they know , officials said , that law enforcement personnel would be firing chemical spray and rubber bullets on protesters in Lafayette Square before they crossed that park with Mr. Trump .
During the meeting in the Oval Office , which officials said became heated , General Milley and Attorney General William P. Barr argued against invoking the Insurrection Act to override governors and send @ @ @ @ @ @ @ protests .
They were able to get Mr. Trump to hold off for now , but the president nonetheless ordered active-duty troops deployed to the one place where he did not have to go through governors : the District of Columbia .
The message of these reports is clear : Esper and Milley are signaling that they didn ’ t approve of the St. John ’ s photo op and in fact tried to blunt Trump ’ s push for using the military all over America and not just in D.C .
Nor @ @ @ @ @ @ @ keep Trump at arm ’ s length .
The FBI has leaked information undermining Trump ’ s preferred narrative of antifa terrorism .
Strikingly , some Republicans are also trying to distance themselves from the St. John ’ s fiasco .
As usual in the Trump era , these criticisms are extremely muted .
But they are being made .
Maine Senator Susan Collins said , “ It was painful to watch peaceful protesters be subjected to tear gas in order for the president to go across the street to a church that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ once.
” She added , “ I thought that the president came across as unsympathetic and as insensitive to the rights of people to peaceful protest.
” Oklahoma Senator James Lankford and Nebraska Senator Ben Sasse made similar comments .
Also notable was the fact that few Republicans , other than extreme ideologues like Texas Senator Ted Cruz , rose to Trump ’ s defense .
Trump was bothered enough by these remarks to tweet out a peevish response .
“ You got it wrong !
” Trump tweeted .
“ If the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ they light the Church on fire the night before ?
People liked my walk to this historic place of worship !
Sen. Susan Collins , Sen. James Lankford , Sen. Ben Sasse .
Please read @ MZHemingway below.
” Accompanying the tweet was a link to an article by Mollie Hemingway defending Trump ’ s photo op .
Trump wants to project strength .
He told the governors they need to display “ dominance ” over the protesters .
That is the role Trump is trying to perform , of the masterful and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ an aspiration , not a reality .
In truth , Trump is clearly trapped : The hard-right base of the GOP may be goading him to use the military , but the military itself is resisting .
Meanwhile , more moderate Republicans are getting skittish .
Trump ’ s coalition is fraying , which is a big problem for his reelection chances .
He won in 2016 only through the fluke of his minority of the vote being dominant in the right places by a thin margin .
If he wants to win @ @ @ @ @ @ @ for his coalition to shrink even a little bit .
Trump is weak , but he ’ s still very dangerous .
A wounded animal is often fiercer than a healthy one .
The weaker Trump is , the more likely it will be that he ’ ll use what power he has in a reckless manner .
The Washington deployment is an attempt to use the military as a political shield .
Even if he can ’ t send troops elsewhere in the United States , there ’ s still plenty of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ he has as commander in chief .

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In trying to use the military to quell nationwide protests, Trump has given the most ominous example yet of his authoritarianism. On Monday night, the world witnessed the disturbing scene of Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, decked out in uniform, accompanying Trump to a photo op at St. John’s Episcopal Church, which had been cleared of protesters by the National Guard and law enforcement agents. Earlier that day, Defense Secretary Mark Esper made a troubling comment describing the American cities experiencing protests as a “battlespace” that the military needed to “dominate.” On Tuesday, there were the unsettling images of the military convoys filling the streets of Washington and a phalanx of uniformed soldiers standing guard outside the Lincoln Memorial.
These are appalling scenes and deserve to be remembered as among the most disgraceful events of Trump’s presidency. But they are also evidence of how feeble Trump’s authority is. Trump confirms the rule that macho bluster is usually a compensation for weakness.
The very decision to make the trip to St. John’s was motivated by a desire to counteract stories that Trump was taking refuge in the White House bunker, which conjured up images of a cowardly president. According to CNN, “Trump himself was angered by coverage depicting him holed up in an underground bunker. He told aides on Monday he wanted to be seen outside the White House gates, according to a person familiar with the matter, which is part of what drove the decision to stage the photo-op at St. John’s Church.”
Trump was surely mindful of the fact that he was being attacked on Fox News for having a weak response to the protests. On Monday Night, Tucker Carlson lambasted him for a supposed failure to protect Americans from protesters. “How are you going to protect the country?” Carlson asked. The Fox News host continued to needle Trump by observing, “The president reassured America that he and his family were just fine. The federally funded bodyguards had kept them safe. He did not mention protecting the rest of the nation, much of which was then on fire. He seemed aware only of himself.” More From Jeet Heer The Indigenous Roots of Robbie Robertson’s Rock and Roll Revolution August 14, 2023 Why Does This Racist Keep Getting Silicon Valley Money? August 11, 2023 When Phallocrats Go Limp August 4, 2023
Carlson and other hard-right ideologues have been calling for a harsh crackdown on protesters. Given their prior bigoted rhetoric, it seems like they want to turn the current crisis into a race war.
Trump’s push for a military solution to the uprising seems designed to placate these critics. But he is meeting resistance from the military. Both Esper and Milley are getting pushback from the Pentagon for complying with the president’s wishes on Monday night. In response, the defense secretary and the military leader have been quietly distancing themselves from the St. John’s photo op.
According to NBC News, Esper now denies that he knew he was going to a photo op. The network reports, “Esper said he believed they were going to observe the vandalized bathroom in Lafayette Square, which is near the church.” Popular "swipe left below to view more authors"Swipe → The Evisceration of a Public University The Evisceration of a Public University Lisa M. Corrigan The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks Chris Lehmann “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash Dave Zirin A Grim Chronicle of Trump’s Corrupt Public Life A Grim Chronicle of Trump’s Corrupt Public Life Chris Lehmann Popular "swipe left below to view more authors"Swipe → The Evisceration of a Public University The Evisceration of a Public University Lisa M. Corrigan The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks Chris Lehmann “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash Dave Zirin A Grim Chronicle of Trump’s Corrupt Public Life A Grim Chronicle of Trump’s Corrupt Public Life Chris Lehmann
The New York Times provides a parallel account: Related Article Military Leaders Have an Extraordinary Choice to Make as the Nation Protests Andrew McCormick
Neither Mr. Esper nor General Milley knew when they went to the Oval Office on Monday that they would be taking part in the president’s photo op, Pentagon officials said. Nor did they know, officials said, that law enforcement personnel would be firing chemical spray and rubber bullets on protesters in Lafayette Square before they crossed that park with Mr. Trump. During the meeting in the Oval Office, which officials said became heated, General Milley and Attorney General William P. Barr argued against invoking the Insurrection Act to override governors and send active-duty troops to states where there are protests. They were able to get Mr. Trump to hold off for now, but the president nonetheless ordered active-duty troops deployed to the one place where he did not have to go through governors: the District of Columbia.
The message of these reports is clear: Esper and Milley are signaling that they didn’t approve of the St. John’s photo op and in fact tried to blunt Trump’s push for using the military all over America and not just in D.C. Nor is the Pentagon alone in wanting to keep Trump at arm’s length. The FBI has leaked information undermining Trump’s preferred narrative of antifa terrorism.
Strikingly, some Republicans are also trying to distance themselves from the St. John’s fiasco. As usual in the Trump era, these criticisms are extremely muted. But they are being made. Maine Senator Susan Collins said, “It was painful to watch peaceful protesters be subjected to tear gas in order for the president to go across the street to a church that I believe he’s attended only once.” She added, “I thought that the president came across as unsympathetic and as insensitive to the rights of people to peaceful protest.”
Oklahoma Senator James Lankford and Nebraska Senator Ben Sasse made similar comments. Also notable was the fact that few Republicans, other than extreme ideologues like Texas Senator Ted Cruz, rose to Trump’s defense. Related Article The FBI Finds ‘No Intel Indicating Antifa Involvement’ in Sunday’s Violence Ken Klippenstein
Trump was bothered enough by these remarks to tweet out a peevish response. “You got it wrong!” Trump tweeted. “If the protesters were so peaceful, why did they light the Church on fire the night before? People liked my walk to this historic place of worship! Sen. Susan Collins, Sen. James Lankford, Sen. Ben Sasse. Please read @MZHemingway below.” Accompanying the tweet was a link to an article by Mollie Hemingway defending Trump’s photo op.
Trump wants to project strength. He told the governors they need to display “dominance” over the protesters. That is the role Trump is trying to perform, of the masterful and overpowering ruler. But such dominance is an aspiration, not a reality.
In truth, Trump is clearly trapped: The hard-right base of the GOP may be goading him to use the military, but the military itself is resisting. Meanwhile, more moderate Republicans are getting skittish. Trump’s coalition is fraying, which is a big problem for his reelection chances. He won in 2016 only through the fluke of his minority of the vote being dominant in the right places by a thin margin. If he wants to win again, he can’t afford for his coalition to shrink even a little bit.
Trump is weak, but he’s still very dangerous. A wounded animal is often fiercer than a healthy one. The weaker Trump is, the more likely it will be that he’ll use what power he has in a reckless manner. The Washington deployment is an attempt to use the military as a political shield. Even if he can’t send troops elsewhere in the United States, there’s still plenty of damage Trump can do with the powers he has as commander in chief.


thenation--2020-06-03--To the White People Who Keep Asking How to ‘Help’

Like nearly every black person in America , I ’ ve fielded a lot of messages from white friends and acquaintances over the past week .
Well wishes , I guess .
Hallmark should make some kind of card : “ Hoping Your Windpipe Hasn ’ t Been Crushed by Racism Today.
” I perceive that white liberals who are reaching out to the black people they know are well-meaning and honestly confused about what to do .
They want to help and have no idea how to , because “ fighting systemic racism ” is not part of their @ @ @ @ @ @ @ most this country has ever asked of white people is that they not be individually racist , and most people struggle even with that .
Tearing down the structures of institutionalized white supremacy , like the police , is just not something many white people have spent a great deal of time thinking about .
In this moment , as they Columbus the deep pain and anger that black people live with every day , they really don ’ t know what to do .
Normally , well-meaning whites might look to community @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to express condolences over racial oppression before going back to business as usual .
And sometimes , the president attempts to provide some of that leadership : He tries to tell white people where to send the “ sorry about racism ” care packages , while assuring them that only one or two white people are still bigots and we ’ ve almost got this race problem licked .
White people are lost right now because this president tells them black lives are worthless , and we should save the Sunglass Hut .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ the majority of white people .
Trump won the white vote in 2016 and he certainly will again in 2020 .
But that message is deeply unsatisfying to a minority of white people .
They want to help and , absent any official guidance , they ’ re reaching out to whoever they know , or know of , to see what they might be able to do .
I don ’ t really know what to tell them .
I ’ m not the one with the racism problem .
I think @ @ @ @ @ @ @ about your biased police forces before they kill me .
I think that every day .
James Baldwin said : “ To be a Negro in this country and to be relatively conscious is to be in a rage almost all the time.
” I am in a rage almost all the time .
My real-life white friends will back me up on this : If you see me , then I am pissed off about something , usually racism .
My life does not get better or worse depending on whether white @ @ @ @ @ @ @ My life is a war that I ’ ve already lost .
If white people want to help , they can do what I do , and go fight the racists .
Fight them in public , where everybody can see you .
Fight them in private , where nobody can see you .
Fight them at parties where I ain ’ t invited .
Fight them every day , at all times , everywhere .
White people know who the racists are .
They ’ re in their freaking families .
They @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ re in their networks and clubs and social media feeds .
I don ’ t need to hear that you really understand how police brutality is a systemic threat to my health and well-being—your racist uncle does .
Your boss does .
Your “ let ’ s not put politics above friendship ” sorority sister does .
Go make some racists know that their opinions are frowned on in this society .
Go make them know that you hate them as much as I do .
That makes less work for me @ @ @ @ @ @ @ who has really helped me personally over the past week : Seth Rogen .
I ’ m serious .
Seth Rogen found time this week to spend hours on Instagram simply telling white people who didn ’ t agree with the statement “ black lives matter ” to “ fuck off.
” He told them to stop watching his movies .
He told them , and their parents , to go jump in a lake .
Seth Rogen is the first white person my wife and I have talked positively about in days @ @ @ @ @ @ @ his responses and laughing , and a good laugh has been hard for us to come by recently .
Telling racist white people to go F themselves might not seem like serious social justice work , but , for what it ’ s worth , it ’ s some of the most time-consuming and emotionally labor-intensive work that I do .
If I ’ m playing a video game , I have to spend time telling racist white people to go F themselves in chat .
If I take my kids to the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ on the lookout for white parents who need to be told to keep their racist ideas the F away from my kids .
My Twitter life is pretty much a rolling documentation of white people who need to go get F ’ d .
Most of my posts are long essays trying to explain why specific politicians or judges desperately need to F off .
It ’ s hard .
It ’ s draining .
It ’ s not the most important work , but it is useful .
One of the reasons @ @ @ @ @ @ @ bigoted president who advocates police brutality and violence is because that bigotry and brutality has been entirely normalized in American life .
The racists are comfortable .
They think most white people agree with them and are just too afraid or “ politically correct ” to say it .
It is important that they know that any time they spout their filth outside one of their neo-Klan Trump rallies , they ’ re going to be challenged .
It is important that they know that they can ’ t walk around with MAGA @ @ @ @ @ @ @ have a nice quiet dinner around fellow white folks .
People Can Only Bear So Much Injustice Before Lashing Out There ’ s Only One Possible Conclusion : White America Likes Its Killer Cops I ’ m sick to death of white people showing more civility to racist people than those racist people show me , and then acting like that civility is part of some grand strategy to convince these deplorable racist , violent white people to change their ways .
Because those white people , the ones who counsel civility and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of kumbaya , are never there when the cops come .
They ’ re never there when the officer has a knee in my back and a gun pointed at my head .
Asking me later , if I survive , “ Oh , are you OK ?
” does nothing for me .
I am not OK .
I haven ’ t been OK since the first cop called me the N-word when I was 15 .
I wonder why that cop was on the force .
I wonder how many people @ @ @ @ @ @ @ said and did nothing .
I wonder why I have to take the pain because somebody ’ s parents , teachers , and friends did such a bad job .
If you want to help me , be on my side .
Not just during “ protest week ” but also during restaurant week and beach week and finals week and “ I know a guy who has a yacht ” week and all the weeks in between .
Be one-tenth as pissed off about racism two weeks from now as I am @ @ @ @ @ @ @ white friends know about it .
I do not need white validation of my rage .
But I wouldn ’ t object if more white people shared it .
Go be angry at other white people for me , because some days I ’ d like to stay under the covers and hide from all your cops and crap .

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Like nearly every black person in America, I’ve fielded a lot of messages from white friends and acquaintances over the past week. Well wishes, I guess. Hallmark should make some kind of card: “Hoping Your Windpipe Hasn’t Been Crushed by Racism Today.”
I perceive that white liberals who are reaching out to the black people they know are well-meaning and honestly confused about what to do. They want to help and have no idea how to, because “fighting systemic racism” is not part of their daily lives or professional competencies. The most this country has ever asked of white people is that they not be individually racist, and most people struggle even with that. Tearing down the structures of institutionalized white supremacy, like the police, is just not something many white people have spent a great deal of time thinking about. In this moment, as they Columbus the deep pain and anger that black people live with every day, they really don’t know what to do.
Normally, well-meaning whites might look to community leaders to give them cues about how to express condolences over racial oppression before going back to business as usual. And sometimes, the president attempts to provide some of that leadership: He tries to tell white people where to send the “sorry about racism” care packages, while assuring them that only one or two white people are still bigots and we’ve almost got this race problem licked.
White people are lost right now because this president tells them black lives are worthless, and we should save the Sunglass Hut. That’s a fine message for the majority of white people. Trump won the white vote in 2016 and he certainly will again in 2020. But that message is deeply unsatisfying to a minority of white people. They want to help and, absent any official guidance, they’re reaching out to whoever they know, or know of, to see what they might be able to do.
I don’t really know what to tell them. I’m not the one with the racism problem. I think y’all should probably do something about your biased police forces before they kill me. I think that every day. James Baldwin said: “To be a Negro in this country and to be relatively conscious is to be in a rage almost all the time.” I am in a rage almost all the time. My real-life white friends will back me up on this: If you see me, then I am pissed off about something, usually racism. My life does not get better or worse depending on whether white people feel like acknowledging that rage. My life is a war that I’ve already lost. Current Issue View our current issue
If white people want to help, they can do what I do, and go fight the racists. Fight them in public, where everybody can see you. Fight them in private, where nobody can see you. Fight them at parties where I ain’t invited. Fight them every day, at all times, everywhere. Popular "swipe left below to view more authors"Swipe → The Evisceration of a Public University The Evisceration of a Public University Lisa M. Corrigan The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks Chris Lehmann “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash Dave Zirin A Grim Chronicle of Trump’s Corrupt Public Life A Grim Chronicle of Trump’s Corrupt Public Life Chris Lehmann Popular "swipe left below to view more authors"Swipe → The Evisceration of a Public University The Evisceration of a Public University Lisa M. Corrigan The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks Chris Lehmann “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash Dave Zirin A Grim Chronicle of Trump’s Corrupt Public Life A Grim Chronicle of Trump’s Corrupt Public Life Chris Lehmann
White people know who the racists are. They’re in their freaking families. They’re in their companies. They’re in their networks and clubs and social media feeds. I don’t need to hear that you really understand how police brutality is a systemic threat to my health and well-being—your racist uncle does. Your boss does. Your “let’s not put politics above friendship” sorority sister does. Go make some racists know that their opinions are frowned on in this society. Go make them know that you hate them as much as I do. That makes less work for me.
Here’s a white person who has really helped me personally over the past week: Seth Rogen. I’m serious. Seth Rogen found time this week to spend hours on Instagram simply telling white people who didn’t agree with the statement “black lives matter” to “fuck off.” He told them to stop watching his movies. He told them, and their parents, to go jump in a lake. Seth Rogen is the first white person my wife and I have talked positively about in days. We just sat together, reading his responses and laughing, and a good laugh has been hard for us to come by recently.
Telling racist white people to go F themselves might not seem like serious social justice work, but, for what it’s worth, it’s some of the most time-consuming and emotionally labor-intensive work that I do. If I’m playing a video game, I have to spend time telling racist white people to go F themselves in chat. If I take my kids to the park, I constantly have to be on the lookout for white parents who need to be told to keep their racist ideas the F away from my kids. My Twitter life is pretty much a rolling documentation of white people who need to go get F’d. Most of my posts are long essays trying to explain why specific politicians or judges desperately need to F off.
It’s hard. It’s draining. It’s not the most important work, but it is useful. One of the reasons we find ourselves being led by a bigoted president who advocates police brutality and violence is because that bigotry and brutality has been entirely normalized in American life. The racists are comfortable. They think most white people agree with them and are just too afraid or “politically correct” to say it. It is important that they know that any time they spout their filth outside one of their neo-Klan Trump rallies, they’re going to be challenged. It is important that they know that they can’t walk around with MAGA hats that symbolize racism, and then have a nice quiet dinner around fellow white folks. More from Mystal People Can Only Bear So Much Injustice Before Lashing Out Elie Mystal There’s Only One Possible Conclusion: White America Likes Its Killer Cops Elie Mystal
I’m sick to death of white people showing more civility to racist people than those racist people show me, and then acting like that civility is part of some grand strategy to convince these deplorable racist, violent white people to change their ways. Because those white people, the ones who counsel civility and courtesy and building bridges to the land of kumbaya, are never there when the cops come. They’re never there when the officer has a knee in my back and a gun pointed at my head. Asking me later, if I survive, “Oh, are you OK?” does nothing for me. I am not OK. I haven’t been OK since the first cop called me the N-word when I was 15. I wonder why that cop was on the force. I wonder how many people heard that cop use that word and said and did nothing. I wonder why I have to take the pain because somebody’s parents, teachers, and friends did such a bad job.
If you want to help me, be on my side. Not just during “protest week” but also during restaurant week and beach week and finals week and “I know a guy who has a yacht” week and all the weeks in between. Be one-tenth as pissed off about racism two weeks from now as I am every day, and let all your white friends know about it.
I do not need white validation of my rage. But I wouldn’t object if more white people shared it. Go be angry at other white people for me, because some days I’d like to stay under the covers and hide from all your cops and crap.