theintercept--2020-07-17--Half of Oklahoma Is “Indian Country.” What If All Native Treaties Were Upheld?

Court issued a decision last week that altered the map of Oklahoma .
The eastern half of the state , including much of Tulsa , is now , for legal purposes , Indian country .
The Supreme Court decision was uncommon — Indigenous people have seen few victories so sweeping in the high court — but treaty violations like those that occurred in Oklahoma are not .
“ The rule of thumb is every treaty ’ s been broken , ” said Matthew Fletcher , director of the Indigenous Law and Policy Center at Michigan State University .
Going back @ @ @ @ @ @ @ broad swaths of the nation Native territory .
That means Indigenous people would have a stronger voice on environmental enforcement , more of a say on fossil fuel infrastructure construction , be able to better control the fate of Native children removed from their parents ’ home , and less likely to be tried in local courts where district attorneys are elected using racist , tough-on-crime politics .
Beyond control over the land itself , the treaties lay the groundwork for obligations requiring the federal government to provide adequate resources to support health @ @ @ @ @ @ @ which have never been fulfilled .
Powerful Native movements in the U.S. — from the American Indian Movement in the 1970s to the Standing Rock movement in 2016 — have centered around fulfilling treaty obligations .
The McGirt v. Oklahoma decision last week provides a window into what treaty fulfillment would mean — and an invitation for action by Congress , courts , and the executive branch , especially if a Democratic president is elected in November .
“ As important and right on as this decision is , it does not give @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , a law professor at the University of Colorado , told The Intercept .
“ There are these treaty promises and treaty rights , but tribes have to litigate to make them real , especially in the modern era , because from the time the treaties were negotiated until now , federal Indian policies abandoned commitment to treaties.
” Rulings like the one in Oklahoma , she added , affirm a reality that has been routinely ignored : “ Treaties are the law of the land.
” McGirt v. Oklahoma centered on whether @ @ @ @ @ @ @ man convicted of sex offenses by an Oklahoma court , committed his crimes on reservation land .
When felonies like murder , kidnapping , burglary , and sexual abuse are carried out in “ Indian country , ” and involve defendants or victims who are Native American , they must be tried in federal court , rather than state court .
In order to get McGirt a new trial , his lawyers argued that the Creek Reservation , established by an 1833 treaty , never ceased to exist and their client was tried @ @ @ @ @ @ @ opinion , written by Justice Neil Gorsuch , who was appointed by President Donald Trump , lays out the sordid history of the United States ’ s repeated violations of its treaties with the Muscogee people , dubbed the Creek by settlers .
The U.S. government typically obtained treaties coercively , through threatening violence or starvation .
In the 1830s , the Muscogee , Cherokee , Seminole , Chickasaw , and Choctaw people were forcibly removed from their homelands in the Southeast to what is now eastern Oklahoma .
Among the Muscogee ( @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of 15,000 people died en route to their new territory , a journey known as the Trail of Tears .
As Gorsuch noted , “ On the far end of the Trail of Tears was a promise .
Forced to leave their ancestral lands in Georgia and Alabama , the Creek Nation received assurances that their new lands in the West would be secure forever.
” According to Gorsuch , treaties can be legally broken , as long as it ’ s Congress that does it .
Indeed , Congress has repeatedly voted @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s treaty .
But it ’ s not legal for the executive branch , the courts , or the state of Oklahoma to break a treaty .
“ Whatever the confluence of reasons , in all this history there simply arrived no moment when any Act of Congress dissolved the Creek Tribe or disestablished its reservation , ” says the opinion .
The decision ’ s most immediate impacts are that McGirt will get a new trial , future cases like his will be tried in federal court , and a number @ @ @ @ @ @ @ opportunity to have their case retried , if they want .
Fletcher , the Indigenous Law and Policy Center director , told The Intercept that having cases tried in a federal court doesn ’ t necessarily mean better justice than a local court .
But local district attorneys in majority-white areas are often elected through racist tough-on-crime politics , setting the stage for discrimination in the justice system .
There will be less opportunity for that in Oklahoma now .
Furthermore , it ’ s possible that , going forward , fewer Native @ @ @ @ @ @ @ federal court .
While Oklahoma is a death penalty state , Democrat Joe Biden pledged to end federal death sentences if elected president .
For instance , at least one Muscogee ( Creek ) man on death row in Oklahoma was sentenced to death by a state court ; thanks to the Supreme Court ruling , he will get a new , federal trial .
The decision has environmental implications too .
The Clean Water Act , the Clean Air Act , and the Safe Drinking Water Act say that in “ Indian @ @ @ @ @ @ @ rather than the state , implements the laws .
Infrastructure projects should now also be subject to federal permitting processes with input from the tribe .
Under Trump ’ s Environmental Protection Agency , which sparingly enforces environmental rules , that doesn ’ t matter much .
But Oklahoma is an oil and gas state , where industry heavily influences environmental enforcement .
If the next president is a Democrat , federal environmental regulation is likely to be stronger than Oklahoma ’ s .
The tribe could also apply to take over environmental @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
The Muscogee ( Creek ) will now , too , have more control over what happens to Native children removed from their parents ’ homes .
Historically , the U.S. government has used forced removals of Native children by child protection agencies , followed by adoptions into white families , as a means to systematically diminish Indigenous cultures .
To counter this , the Indian Child Welfare Act says that tribes have jurisdiction over child custody proceedings for any “ Indian child ” living on a reservation .
More reservation land means @ @ @ @ @ @ @ is placed within the tribe .
Fletcher said the decision will apply to the other four tribes forcibly removed to Oklahoma too .
If the state or federal government attempts to fight that , they will lose , he added .
As for the rest of the U.S. , the decision will serve as a legal precedent in some reservation boundary cases , but it also opens up a space to imagine a different kind of United States , where all treaties are upheld .
Courts have repeatedly responded to cases of illegally @ @ @ @ @ @ @ sums that often fell short of the land ’ s value .
Judges have ruled this way even when the Indigenous nations demanded the land back , rather than money .
If all treaties were enforced , those lands , already recognized as illegally taken , would go back to the tribes .
The most notorious example is that of the Great Sioux Reservation , signed into existence in 1868 with the Fort Laramie Treaty .
It said that the Black Hills , an area that includes what is now Mount Rushmore , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ absolute and undisturbed use and occupation ” of the Sioux Nation — the government ’ s name for the Lakota , Nakota , and Dakota , or Oceti Sakowin people — unless three-quarters of adult male tribal members agreed to withdraw from the treaty .
A 1980 Supreme Court decision describes what happened next .
When gold was discovered in the area , the U.S. military was obligated to defend the border of the reservation from prospectors .
But in 1875 , President Ulysses S. Grant quietly ordered the military to let the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ tribe to make the invasion legal , the U.S. military attacked tribal members hunting in an area approved for such purposes under the treaty .
A military conflict ensued , and , after notable wins but ultimately defeat , the Oceti Sakowin people were confined to the reservation , where they could no longer access important hunting grounds .
Faced with starvation when the U.S. government threatened to cut off all rations , 10 percent of adult male tribal members — not 75 percent — signed a new treaty relinquishing the Black Hills @ @ @ @ @ @ @ judge put it , “ A more ripe and rank case of dishonorable dealings will never , in all probability , be found in our history.
” The Supreme Court agreed and offered the Great Sioux Nation $ 106 million as compensation for land many consider sacred .
They turned it down ; they wanted , and still want , the land back .
There are many examples like this .
Krakoff , the University of Colorado law professor , pointed also to the Southern Paiute people , whose territory once included the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ The U.S. Court of Claims acknowledged that vast portions of the land had been taken illegally but approved a settlement that only included money damages .
Krakoff said that returning the Grand Canyon ’ s northern rim to Paiute control or Mount Rushmore to Oceti Sakowin control would require an act of Congress , especially since the courts already ruled .
But granting the Paiute more decision-making power over the land ’ s management is something the federal government could do relatively easily .
Other tribal nations ’ border disputes are more immediately @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a law professor at the University of Connecticut , the McGirt decision helps guarantee , for example , that an appeals court will affirm that the Oneida reservation in Wisconsin remains intact .
Non-Hispanic American Indian and Alaska Native people have the highest rates of Covid-19 hospitalization of any racial or ethnic group counted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention .
Indigenous people are five times more likely to be hospitalized for coronavirus-related illnesses than non-Hispanic white people in the U.S. Perhaps the most frequently cited reason for how hard the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ many Indigenous people who contract the virus have preexisting health conditions that make its impact more severe .
The Indian Health Service , the federal health care provider for tribal members , has always been underfunded , as multiple government reports have affirmed .
The service would need $ 32 billion to meet the needs of the people it serves — about six times the $ 5.4 billion the agency requested for 2019 funding — according to a 2018 report by the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights , a federal agency .
The @ @ @ @ @ @ @ percent , according to the Government Accountability Office .
The Civil Rights Commission report noted explicitly that the underfunding of IHS represents another broken treaty promise : A right to adequate health care comes from what is known as the government ’ s “ trust responsibility ” to the nations with which it signed treaties .
While numerous treaties promised the care of a doctor , said Krakoff , “ even if the word ‘ doctor ’ or ‘ school ’ aren ’ t entries in a treaty , they ’ re still @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the long history of tribes giving up land and resources in exchange for this trust relationship , this promise of protection and support.
” Treaties , she added , aren ’ t just about one-time promises : “ They establish a way for two sovereigns to relate from then on.
” The coronavirus pandemic among Indigenous people was exacerbated by lack of access to running water in some of the hardest-hit areas , such as the Navajo Nation , where at least 15 percent of homes lack running water , making basic preventative @ @ @ @ @ @ @ The Indian Health Service estimated in 2018 that it has a backlog of $ 450 million in unfunded requests for water and sanitation systems from the Navajo Nation .
The largest portion of the nation overlaps with Arizona , where the Navajo ’ s rights to water have never been recognized .
Although treaties don ’ t typically note a right to access to water explicitly , a Supreme Court decision in 1908 affirmed that the right is implied .
“ The court said no tribe would have negotiated in this arid landscape @ @ @ @ @ @ @ limit itself to this smaller land base , without understanding they would get enough water to support the livelihood of the reservation , ” Krakoff explained .
A legal doctrine doesn ’ t do much unless it ’ s enforced .
For water rights to translate into access to scarce water , Congress or a court needs to affirm a tribe ’ s right and quantify how much they should be allowed to access .
For numerous tribes , that has never happened .
The result is that people who already lack access @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to live with no running water .
A new presidential administration could urge Congress to pass laws recognizing tribes ’ water rights , Krakoff noted .
She had suggestions for what the executive could tell Congress : “ Come up with a list of tribes with water rights that are still up in the air .
Ask them , ‘ Tell us what you can about quantification and cost.
’ Go settle — go do it , ” she said .
“ That ’ s something that a strong executive branch , working @ @ @ @ @ @ @ do and make a lot of headway for Native nations.
” Of course , it would require support and collaboration from the nations themselves , which have rejected bad deals in the past .
The movement to halt construction of the Dakota Access oil pipeline near the Standing Rock Reservation centered on the fact that the project passes through territory granted to the Oceti Sakowin people through another broken treaty .
Last week , a judge unexpectedly ordered that project ’ s parent company , Energy Transfer , to cease pumping oil through @ @ @ @ @ @ @ never completed a full environmental impact study .
Such a report will , among other things , examine the threat of a pipeline spill to tribes ’ treaty-guaranteed hunting and fishing rights .
( The pipeline company is appealing and was granted a temporary stay on Tuesday allowing it to continue operating while both sides file new legal briefs . )
Although the legal efforts to stop the pipeline have certainly drawn on treaty rights , it was the protest movement on the ground that brought the United States ’ s pattern of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the heyday of the American Indian Movement in the 1970s , when the federal government was pressured into a new era of treaty enforcement .
A similar outcome is beginning to take shape today .
As a result of treaty-centered organizing at Standing Rock and beyond , Indigenous rights have become a centerpiece of climate policy on the left .
Last week a task force representing allies of both Biden and Sen. Bernie Sanders , I-Vt. , released a set of climate policy recommendations that included a section on treaty rights and Indigenous @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , to “ early and ongoing consultation with tribes to identify and work to appropriately mitigate or address concerns regarding major infrastructure projects.
” However , Biden ’ s official clean energy and infrastructure plan , released Tuesday , doesn ’ t include a comparable commitment .
And both sets of policy priorities fall short of New York Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez ’ s vision of a Green New Deal , which would require “ obtaining the free , prior , and informed consent of indigenous peoples for all decisions that affect indigenous @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , rather than consultation , goes beyond historic federal policy , to meet the standard of the United Nations ’ Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples .
Plenty of tribes support fossil fuel infrastructure development , but such a policy would effectively veto or reroute many projects .
Ocasio-Cortez has said she decided to enter politics after spending time at Standing Rock and entered office in the same year as the first two Native American women ever elected to Congress , Reps. Deb Haaland and Sharice Davids , Democrats from New Mexico @ @ @ @ @ @ @ McGirt decision would not have been possible in a world in which treaty rights were enforced , ” said Berger .
“ The court acknowledged that the treaty with the Creek nation had been broken in huge ways and that was legal.
” If elected officials can break treaties , however , they also hold the power to enshrine new ways for the U.S. to relate to the sovereign nations within its borders .

The U.S. Supreme Court issued a decision last week that altered the map of Oklahoma. The eastern half of the state, including much of Tulsa, is now, for legal purposes, Indian country. The Supreme Court decision was uncommon — Indigenous people have seen few victories so sweeping in the high court — but treaty violations like those that occurred in Oklahoma are not.
“The rule of thumb is every treaty’s been broken,” said Matthew Fletcher, director of the Indigenous Law and Policy Center at Michigan State University.
Going back to the original treaty texts would make broad swaths of the nation Native territory. That means Indigenous people would have a stronger voice on environmental enforcement, more of a say on fossil fuel infrastructure construction, be able to better control the fate of Native children removed from their parents’ home, and less likely to be tried in local courts where district attorneys are elected using racist, tough-on-crime politics. Beyond control over the land itself, the treaties lay the groundwork for obligations requiring the federal government to provide adequate resources to support health care, safety, and education — which have never been fulfilled.
“There are these treaty promises and treaty rights, but tribes have to litigate to make them real, especially in the modern era.”
Powerful Native movements in the U.S. — from the American Indian Movement in the 1970s to the Standing Rock movement in 2016 — have centered around fulfilling treaty obligations. The McGirt v. Oklahoma decision last week provides a window into what treaty fulfillment would mean — and an invitation for action by Congress, courts, and the executive branch, especially if a Democratic president is elected in November.
“As important and right on as this decision is, it does not give tribes anything new,” Sarah Krakoff, a law professor at the University of Colorado, told The Intercept. “There are these treaty promises and treaty rights, but tribes have to litigate to make them real, especially in the modern era, because from the time the treaties were negotiated until now, federal Indian policies abandoned commitment to treaties.”
Rulings like the one in Oklahoma, she added, affirm a reality that has been routinely ignored: “Treaties are the law of the land.”
The McGirt Effect in Oklahoma
McGirt v. Oklahoma centered on whether or not Jimcy McGirt, a Seminole man convicted of sex offenses by an Oklahoma court, committed his crimes on reservation land. When felonies like murder, kidnapping, burglary, and sexual abuse are carried out in “Indian country,” and involve defendants or victims who are Native American, they must be tried in federal court, rather than state court. In order to get McGirt a new trial, his lawyers argued that the Creek Reservation, established by an 1833 treaty, never ceased to exist and their client was tried in the wrong court.
The majority opinion, written by Justice Neil Gorsuch, who was appointed by President Donald Trump, lays out the sordid history of the United States’s repeated violations of its treaties with the Muscogee people, dubbed the Creek by settlers. The U.S. government typically obtained treaties coercively, through threatening violence or starvation. In the 1830s, the Muscogee, Cherokee, Seminole, Chickasaw, and Choctaw people were forcibly removed from their homelands in the Southeast to what is now eastern Oklahoma. Among the Muscogee (Creek) alone, an estimated 3,500 of 15,000 people died en route to their new territory, a journey known as the Trail of Tears. As Gorsuch noted, “On the far end of the Trail of Tears was a promise. Forced to leave their ancestral lands in Georgia and Alabama, the Creek Nation received assurances that their new lands in the West would be secure forever.”
According to Gorsuch, treaties can be legally broken, as long as it’s Congress that does it. Indeed, Congress has repeatedly voted to break the Muscogee (Creek)’s treaty. But it’s not legal for the executive branch, the courts, or the state of Oklahoma to break a treaty. “Whatever the confluence of reasons, in all this history there simply arrived no moment when any Act of Congress dissolved the Creek Tribe or disestablished its reservation,” says the opinion.
The decision’s most immediate impacts are that McGirt will get a new trial, future cases like his will be tried in federal court, and a number of people currently incarcerated will have an opportunity to have their case retried, if they want.
Fletcher, the Indigenous Law and Policy Center director, told The Intercept that having cases tried in a federal court doesn’t necessarily mean better justice than a local court. But local district attorneys in majority-white areas are often elected through racist tough-on-crime politics, setting the stage for discrimination in the justice system. There will be less opportunity for that in Oklahoma now. Furthermore, it’s possible that, going forward, fewer Native people would risk the death penalty in federal court. While Oklahoma is a death penalty state, Democrat Joe Biden pledged to end federal death sentences if elected president. For instance, at least one Muscogee (Creek) man on death row in Oklahoma was sentenced to death by a state court; thanks to the Supreme Court ruling, he will get a new, federal trial.
The decision has environmental implications too. The Clean Water Act, the Clean Air Act, and the Safe Drinking Water Act say that in “Indian country,” the federal government, rather than the state, implements the laws. Infrastructure projects should now also be subject to federal permitting processes with input from the tribe. Under Trump’s Environmental Protection Agency, which sparingly enforces environmental rules, that doesn’t matter much. But Oklahoma is an oil and gas state, where industry heavily influences environmental enforcement. If the next president is a Democrat, federal environmental regulation is likely to be stronger than Oklahoma’s. The tribe could also apply to take over environmental regulation for their newly affirmed reservation territory.
The Muscogee (Creek) will now, too, have more control over what happens to Native children removed from their parents’ homes. Historically, the U.S. government has used forced removals of Native children by child protection agencies, followed by adoptions into white families, as a means to systematically diminish Indigenous cultures. To counter this, the Indian Child Welfare Act says that tribes have jurisdiction over child custody proceedings for any “Indian child” living on a reservation. More reservation land means more control in assuring a Native child is placed within the tribe.
Fletcher said the decision will apply to the other four tribes forcibly removed to Oklahoma too. If the state or federal government attempts to fight that, they will lose, he added. As for the rest of the U.S., the decision will serve as a legal precedent in some reservation boundary cases, but it also opens up a space to imagine a different kind of United States, where all treaties are upheld.
Mount Rushmore and the Grand Canyon
Courts have repeatedly responded to cases of illegally broken treaties with offers of cash, sums that often fell short of the land’s value. Judges have ruled this way even when the Indigenous nations demanded the land back, rather than money. If all treaties were enforced, those lands, already recognized as illegally taken, would go back to the tribes.
The most notorious example is that of the Great Sioux Reservation, signed into existence in 1868 with the Fort Laramie Treaty. It said that the Black Hills, an area that includes what is now Mount Rushmore, would be “set apart for the absolute and undisturbed use and occupation” of the Sioux Nation — the government’s name for the Lakota, Nakota, and Dakota, or Oceti Sakowin people — unless three-quarters of adult male tribal members agreed to withdraw from the treaty.
A 1980 Supreme Court decision describes what happened next. When gold was discovered in the area, the U.S. military was obligated to defend the border of the reservation from prospectors. But in 1875, President Ulysses S. Grant quietly ordered the military to let the miners invade. Amid negotiations with the tribe to make the invasion legal, the U.S. military attacked tribal members hunting in an area approved for such purposes under the treaty. A military conflict ensued, and, after notable wins but ultimately defeat, the Oceti Sakowin people were confined to the reservation, where they could no longer access important hunting grounds. Faced with starvation when the U.S. government threatened to cut off all rations, 10 percent of adult male tribal members — not 75 percent — signed a new treaty relinquishing the Black Hills.
“A more ripe and rank case of dishonorable dealings will never, in all probability, be found in our history.”
As a U.S. Court of Claims judge put it, “A more ripe and rank case of dishonorable dealings will never, in all probability, be found in our history.” The Supreme Court agreed and offered the Great Sioux Nation $106 million as compensation for land many consider sacred. They turned it down; they wanted, and still want, the land back.
There are many examples like this. Krakoff, the University of Colorado law professor, pointed also to the Southern Paiute people, whose territory once included the northern rim of the Grand Canyon. The U.S. Court of Claims acknowledged that vast portions of the land had been taken illegally but approved a settlement that only included money damages. Krakoff said that returning the Grand Canyon’s northern rim to Paiute control or Mount Rushmore to Oceti Sakowin control would require an act of Congress, especially since the courts already ruled. But granting the Paiute more decision-making power over the land’s management is something the federal government could do relatively easily.
Other tribal nations’ border disputes are more immediately winnable. According to Bethany Berger, a law professor at the University of Connecticut, the McGirt decision helps guarantee, for example, that an appeals court will affirm that the Oneida reservation in Wisconsin remains intact.
A nurse checks vitals from a Navajo woman complaining of virus symptoms at a COVID-19 testing center in the Navajo Nation town of Monument Valley in Arizona on May 21, 2020. Photo: Mark Ralston/AFP via Getty Images
Fewer Native Coronavirus Deaths
Non-Hispanic American Indian and Alaska Native people have the highest rates of Covid-19 hospitalization of any racial or ethnic group counted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Indigenous people are five times more likely to be hospitalized for coronavirus-related illnesses than non-Hispanic white people in the U.S.
Perhaps the most frequently cited reason for how hard the virus hit Indian country is that so many Indigenous people who contract the virus have preexisting health conditions that make its impact more severe. The Indian Health Service, the federal health care provider for tribal members, has always been underfunded, as multiple government reports have affirmed. The service would need $32 billion to meet the needs of the people it serves — about six times the $5.4 billion the agency requested for 2019 funding — according to a 2018 report by the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, a federal agency. The average IHS clinic is understaffed by 25 percent, according to the Government Accountability Office.
The Civil Rights Commission report noted explicitly that the underfunding of IHS represents another broken treaty promise: A right to adequate health care comes from what is known as the government’s “trust responsibility” to the nations with which it signed treaties. While numerous treaties promised the care of a doctor, said Krakoff, “even if the word ‘doctor’ or ‘school’ aren’t entries in a treaty, they’re still interpreted as a general obligation because of the long history of tribes giving up land and resources in exchange for this trust relationship, this promise of protection and support.” Treaties, she added, aren’t just about one-time promises: “They establish a way for two sovereigns to relate from then on.”
Running Water in the Southwest
The coronavirus pandemic among Indigenous people was exacerbated by lack of access to running water in some of the hardest-hit areas, such as the Navajo Nation, where at least 15 percent of homes lack running water, making basic preventative measures like frequent hand-washing exceedingly difficult. The Indian Health Service estimated in 2018 that it has a backlog of $450 million in unfunded requests for water and sanitation systems from the Navajo Nation.
“The court said no tribe would have negotiated in this arid landscape, no tribe would have agreed to limit itself to this smaller land base, without understanding they would get enough water to support the livelihood of the reservation.”
The largest portion of the nation overlaps with Arizona, where the Navajo’s rights to water have never been recognized. Although treaties don’t typically note a right to access to water explicitly, a Supreme Court decision in 1908 affirmed that the right is implied. “The court said no tribe would have negotiated in this arid landscape, no tribe would have agreed to limit itself to this smaller land base, without understanding they would get enough water to support the livelihood of the reservation,” Krakoff explained.
A legal doctrine doesn’t do much unless it’s enforced. For water rights to translate into access to scarce water, Congress or a court needs to affirm a tribe’s right and quantify how much they should be allowed to access. For numerous tribes, that has never happened. The result is that people who already lack access to adequate health care are also forced to live with no running water.
A new presidential administration could urge Congress to pass laws recognizing tribes’ water rights, Krakoff noted. She had suggestions for what the executive could tell Congress: “Come up with a list of tribes with water rights that are still up in the air. Ask them, ‘Tell us what you can about quantification and cost.’ Go settle — go do it,” she said. “That’s something that a strong executive branch, working together with a willing Congress, could do and make a lot of headway for Native nations.” Of course, it would require support and collaboration from the nations themselves, which have rejected bad deals in the past.
Oil and Gas Pipelines
The movement to halt construction of the Dakota Access oil pipeline near the Standing Rock Reservation centered on the fact that the project passes through territory granted to the Oceti Sakowin people through another broken treaty. Last week, a judge unexpectedly ordered that project’s parent company, Energy Transfer, to cease pumping oil through the pipeline, since the federal government never completed a full environmental impact study. Such a report will, among other things, examine the threat of a pipeline spill to tribes’ treaty-guaranteed hunting and fishing rights. (The pipeline company is appealing and was granted a temporary stay on Tuesday allowing it to continue operating while both sides file new legal briefs.)
Although the legal efforts to stop the pipeline have certainly drawn on treaty rights, it was the protest movement on the ground that brought the United States’s pattern of treaty-breaking into a spotlight not seen since the heyday of the American Indian Movement in the 1970s, when the federal government was pressured into a new era of treaty enforcement.
A similar outcome is beginning to take shape today. As a result of treaty-centered organizing at Standing Rock and beyond, Indigenous rights have become a centerpiece of climate policy on the left. Last week a task force representing allies of both Biden and Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., released a set of climate policy recommendations that included a section on treaty rights and Indigenous lands, committing, among other things, to “early and ongoing consultation with tribes to identify and work to appropriately mitigate or address concerns regarding major infrastructure projects.”
However, Biden’s official clean energy and infrastructure plan, released Tuesday, doesn’t include a comparable commitment. And both sets of policy priorities fall short of New York Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s vision of a Green New Deal, which would require “obtaining the free, prior, and informed consent of indigenous peoples for all decisions that affect indigenous peoples and their traditional territories.” Consent, rather than consultation, goes beyond historic federal policy, to meet the standard of the United Nations’ Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. Plenty of tribes support fossil fuel infrastructure development, but such a policy would effectively veto or reroute many projects.
Ocasio-Cortez has said she decided to enter politics after spending time at Standing Rock and entered office in the same year as the first two Native American women ever elected to Congress, Reps. Deb Haaland and Sharice Davids, Democrats from New Mexico and Kansas, respectively.
“The McGirt decision would not have been possible in a world in which treaty rights were enforced,” said Berger. “The court acknowledged that the treaty with the Creek nation had been broken in huge ways and that was legal.”
If elected officials can break treaties, however, they also hold the power to enshrine new ways for the U.S. to relate to the sovereign nations within its borders.


theintercept--2020-07-17--Trump Keeps Bragging About America's Covid-19 Death Rate. It's Among the World's Worst.

, as the number of Americans killed by Covid-19 has surged from 25,000 to over 138,000 , President Donald Trump has been trying to disguise his failure to save lives by telling the same lie : that the per capita death toll in the United States , known as the mortality rate , is among the lowest in the world .
“ We have one of the lowest mortality rates anywhere , ” Trump lied on Monday , at another White House event intended to change the subject from the pandemic , this one celebrating police officers .
“ We @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the lowest mortality in the world , ” he added .
“ We ’ re doing a great job.
” That was as blatantly untrue on Monday as it was in April , when Trump misled reporters by saying , “ the United States has achieved a significant [ sic ] lower mortality rate than almost all other countries.
” It was no more true in May , when the president said , “ if you look at the death , relatively speaking , we ’ re at the lowest level , along @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in June , when he claimed , “ we have a very low mortality rate , just about the best in the world.
” It was still false last week , when he insisted , “ we have perhaps the lowest — but among the lowest , but perhaps the lowest mortality rate , death rate , anywhere in the world , ” and it remained untrue on Tuesday , when he lied that , “ we have just about the lowest mortality rate.
” In fact , as data updated daily by @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , the United States , which has lost 420 citizens per million from the pandemic so far , currently has the seventh highest mortality rate in the world , excluding the microstates of San Marino and Andorra .
The U.S. ranking is unchanged since April , with just six European countries — Belgium , the United Kingdom , Spain , Italy , Sweden and France — having suffered more deaths per capita than the U.S .
Despite Trump ’ s repeated claims to the contrary , more than 120 countries have a lower @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of them dramatically lower — including Germany , South Korea , Japan , Denmark , Greece and Canada .
As the American death toll has climbed since April , and efforts to suppress transmission were all but abandoned in many parts of the country at Trump ’ s urging , the relative failure of his government compared to more competent ones overseas has only grown more stark .
In those three months , Trump has lied to the public about the U.S. mortality rate at least 17 times , according to transcripts of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
He has also repeatedly made the false claim that his government has been as successful at keeping its citizens alive as that of Angela Merkel , the German chancellor .
“ While we mourn the tragic loss of life — and you can ’ t mourn it any stronger than we ’ re mourning it , ” Trump said at the start of a coronavirus task force briefing on April 18 , “ the United States has produced dramatically better health outcomes than any other country , with the possible exception of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ re as good or better.
” Later in that briefing , Trump and his coronavirus task force coordinator , Dr. Deborah Birx , discussed a bar chart which showed that the Covid-19 mortality rate at that time was indeed worse in Western Europe , although not Germany .
As of mid-April , Birx ’ s chart showed , Americans were more than twice as likely as Germans to have died from Covid-19 .
While the U.S. had recorded 11.24 deaths per 100,000 people then , Germany , which had a high rate of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 5.25 per 100,000 .
Today , Americans are nearly four times as likely to have been killed by Covid-19 as Germans .
According to the updated mortality rates compiled by Johns Hopkins , on Thursday the U.S. had recorded 42 deaths per 100,000 , compared to 10.95 in Germany .
Expressed in deaths per million , for every 420 Americans lost to Covid-19 so far , just 110 Germans have perished .
What this means is that if the federal government in Washington had been as successful at keeping its citizens alive as @ @ @ @ @ @ @ toll in the U.S. would not be , as it is today , 138,255 but 36,045 .
In other words , more than 100,000 Americans who have died of Covid-19 this year would still be alive today had Trump managed the pandemic as well as Merkel , the former research scientist he reportedly derided as “ stupid ” during a phone call between the two leaders .
There seems to be little hope that Trump will stop making this false claim any time soon , since the White House press corps seems almost @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s wrong , even when that ’ s glaringly obvious .
On Monday , for instance , no one corrected the president when he said , for at least the 45th time this year , that the 1918 flu pandemic took place in 1917 .
Rather than correcting the president , Trump ’ s White House staff has started to manufacture evidence to make it look like his lie about the U.S. mortality rate is true .
Last week , Alyssa Farah , the White House director of strategic communications , tweeted that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ massive increase in confirmed Covid-19 cases in the U.S. was that “ our mortality rate is going down.
” But what Farah described as proof of a declining mortality rate was actually a graph showing something else — a drop in the case-fatality rate , which is a measure not of per capita deaths from the disease , but of the ratio between deaths and confirmed cases .
Even if , as seems likely , Farah failed to consult any of the doctors on the White House coronavirus task force before posting this @ @ @ @ @ @ @ should have known that the case-fatality rate for Covid-19 is different from the mortality rate .
That ’ s because the original version of the graph , on the University of Oxford ’ s Our World in Data website , included clear language warning that case-fatality and mortality are not the same .
Before Farah posted the White House version of the graph on Twitter she , or another Trump aide , deleted this sentence from its description : “ During an outbreak of a pandemic the CFR is a poor measure of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ To make matters worse , as the Oxford researchers explain in detail elsewhere on their site , because the actual numbers of Americans infected with Covid-19 remains unknown — with about 90 percent of the population untested — and because it can take up to 8 weeks for people who are infected with the virus to die from it , the current ratio between deaths and confirmed cases is not , as Farah seemed to suggest , an accurate measure of how deadly the disease is .
“ There is a straightforward question @ @ @ @ @ @ @ If someone is infected with Covid-19 , how likely is that person to die ?
” the Oxford researchers Hannah Ritchie and Max Roser wrote .
“ The key point is that the ‘ case fatality rate , ’ the most commonly discussed measure of the risk of dying , is not the answer to the question , for two reasons .
One , it relies on the number of confirmed cases , and many cases are not confirmed ; and two , it relies on the total number of deaths , and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ sick and will die soon have not yet died.
” As the Oxford researchers observe , a change in the case-fatality rate over time is not a measure of the disease getting more or less deadly .
To state the obvious , Covid-19 is not more deadly in the U.S. now than it was in early April , just because the national case-fatality rate has gone up from about 3 percent then to 4 percent now .
Similarly , the disease is not less deadly now than it was in mid-May , when @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Covid-19 is also not more deadly in Italy , where the transmission of the virus has been suppressed so much that the country is averaging fewer than 200 new cases and 12 deaths a day , just because the case-fatality rate there remains above 14 percent .
Yet , at a White House briefing last week , when Trump ’ s press secretary , Kayleigh McEnany , showed reporters the graph of the declining case-fatality rate in the United States Farah tweeted , she called it proof that America ’ s Covid-19 mortality @ @ @ @ @ @ @ were now more likely to survive the illness because of “ the great work of this administration with therapeutics.
” Asked on Monday about Dr. Anthony Fauci ’ s frank admission that , “ when you compare us to other countries , I don ’ t think you can say we ’ re doing great ; I mean , we ’ re just not , ” McEnany again misrepresented the declining case-fatality rate , speaking of it as a sign that the disease was getting less lethal in the U.S. “ When you @ @ @ @ @ @ @ rate , other industrialized nations , we ’ re very low and beating most countries , if not all , in Europe , ” she said .
To the uninformed , the misleading graph shared by Farah and McEnany might also look like proof of Trump ’ s claim that the United States was doing an even better job at keeping people alive than Germany , since the U.S. case-fatality rate had dipped below the German one that day .
But , in fact , had the White House dared to present the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the actual per capita mortality rate on that day would have showed that Americans are dying from Covid-19 at an ever increasing rate compared to Germans , and the U.S. is on track to soon surpass France as the nation with the sixth-worst mortality rate in the world .

For three months , as the number of Americans killed by Covid-19 has surged from 25,000 to over 138,000, President Donald Trump has been trying to disguise his failure to save lives by telling the same lie: that the per capita death toll in the United States, known as the mortality rate, is among the lowest in the world.
“We have one of the lowest mortality rates anywhere,” Trump lied on Monday, at another White House event intended to change the subject from the pandemic, this one celebrating police officers. “We have the lowest mortality or just about the lowest mortality in the world,” he added. “We’re doing a great job.”
Asked about the rise of COVID-19, Pres. Trump changes the subject to Pres. Obama's handling of H1N1 as well as the 1918 flu (which he seems to believe occurred in 1917). pic.twitter.com/fb6hMImNcH — NowThis (@nowthisnews) July 14, 2020
That was as blatantly untrue on Monday as it was in April, when Trump misled reporters by saying, “the United States has achieved a significant [sic] lower mortality rate than almost all other countries.” It was no more true in May, when the president said, “if you look at the death, relatively speaking, we’re at the lowest level, along with Germany.” It remained a lie in June, when he claimed, “we have a very low mortality rate, just about the best in the world.” It was still false last week, when he insisted, “we have perhaps the lowest — but among the lowest, but perhaps the lowest mortality rate, death rate, anywhere in the world,” and it remained untrue on Tuesday, when he lied that, “we have just about the lowest mortality rate.”
In fact, as data updated Friday by the Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center shows, the United States, which has lost 423 citizens per million from the pandemic so far, currently has the seventh highest mortality rate in the world, excluding countries with fewer than 100,000 citizens.
Photo: Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center
The U.S. ranking is unchanged since April, with just six European countries — Belgium, the United Kingdom, Spain, Italy, Sweden and France — having suffered more deaths per capita than the U.S. Despite Trump’s repeated claims to the contrary, more than 120 countries have a lower mortality rate than the U.S., many of them dramatically lower — including Germany, South Korea, Japan, Denmark, Greece and Canada.
As the American death toll has climbed since April, and efforts to suppress transmission were all but abandoned in many parts of the country at Trump’s urging, the relative failure of his government compared to more competent ones overseas has only grown more stark. In those three months, Trump has lied to the public about the U.S. mortality rate at least 17 times, according to transcripts of his remarks on the White House website. He has also repeatedly made the false claim that his government has been as successful at keeping its citizens alive as that of Angela Merkel, the German chancellor.
“While we mourn the tragic loss of life — and you can’t mourn it any stronger than we’re mourning it,” Trump said at the start of a coronavirus task force briefing on April 18, “the United States has produced dramatically better health outcomes than any other country, with the possible exception of Germany — and I think we’re as good or better.” Later in that briefing, Trump and his coronavirus task force coordinator, Dr. Deborah Birx, discussed a bar chart which showed that the Covid-19 mortality rate at that time was indeed worse in Western Europe, although not Germany.
While Birx jumbled two terms while presenting the chart — mistakenly referring to the U.S. mortality rate shown on her table as the case-fatality rate, which is the percentage of confirmed cases that end in death — the data clearly undercut Trump’s claim to have matched Germany’s relative success.
Photo: CSPAN, via YouTube
As of mid-April, Birx’s chart showed, Americans were more than twice as likely as Germans to have died from Covid-19. While the U.S. had recorded 11.24 deaths per 100,000 people then, Germany, which had a high rate of infection, had kept deaths down to 5.25 per 100,000.
Today, Americans are nearly four times as likely to have been killed by Covid-19 as Germans. According to the updated mortality rates compiled by Johns Hopkins, on Thursday the U.S. had recorded 42.29 deaths per 100,000, compared to 10.95 in Germany.
Expressed in deaths per million, for every 423 Americans lost to Covid-19 so far, just 110 Germans have perished. What this means is that if the federal government in Washington had been as successful at keeping its citizens alive as the one in Berlin, the death toll in the U.S. would not be, as it is today, 138,753 but 35,959.
In other words, more than 100,000 Americans who have died of Covid-19 this year would still be alive today had Trump managed the pandemic as well as Merkel, the former research scientist he reportedly derided as “stupid” during a phone call between the two leaders.
There seems to be little hope that Trump will stop making this false claim any time soon, since the White House press corps seems almost allergic to telling Trump that he’s wrong, even when that’s glaringly obvious. On Monday, for instance, no one corrected the president when he said, for at least the 45th time this year, that the 1918 flu pandemic took place in 1917.
Rather than correcting the president, Trump’s White House staff has started to manufacture evidence to make it look like his lie about the U.S. mortality rate is true. Last week, Alyssa Farah, the White House director of strategic communications, tweeted that “the good news” about a massive increase in confirmed Covid-19 cases in the U.S. was that “our mortality rate is going down.” But what Farah described as proof of a declining mortality rate was actually a graph showing something else — a drop in the case-fatality rate, which is a measure not of per capita deaths from the disease, but of the ratio between deaths and confirmed cases.
The U.S. is testing at a higher rate than ever before. We've completed more than 40 Million COVID tests. We are catching more asymptomatics than ever before. As cases increase, the good news, is our mortality rate is going down. pic.twitter.com/euGs0ftBsm — Alyssa Farah Griffin (@Alyssafarah) July 6, 2020
Even if, as seems likely, Farah failed to consult any of the doctors on the White House coronavirus task force before posting this graph, it is clear that she should have known that the case-fatality rate for Covid-19 is different from the mortality rate. That’s because the original version of the graph, on the University of Oxford’s Our World in Data website, included clear language warning that case-fatality and mortality are not the same.
Before Farah posted the White House version of the graph on Twitter she, or another Trump aide, deleted this sentence from its description: “During an outbreak of a pandemic the CFR is a poor measure of the mortality risk of the disease.”
Photo: Our World in Data
To make matters worse, as the Oxford researchers explain in detail elsewhere on their site, because the actual numbers of Americans infected with Covid-19 remains unknown — with about 90 percent of the population untested — and because it can take up to 8 weeks for people who are infected with the virus to die from it, the current ratio between deaths and confirmed cases is not, as Farah seemed to suggest, an accurate measure of how deadly the disease is.
“There is a straightforward question that most people would like answered. If someone is infected with Covid-19, how likely is that person to die?” the Oxford researchers Hannah Ritchie and Max Roser wrote. “The key point is that the ‘case fatality rate,’ the most commonly discussed measure of the risk of dying, is not the answer to the question, for two reasons. One, it relies on the number of confirmed cases, and many cases are not confirmed; and two, it relies on the total number of deaths, and with Covid-19, some people who are sick and will die soon have not yet died.”
As the Oxford researchers observe, a change in the case-fatality rate over time is not a measure of the disease getting more or less deadly. To state the obvious, Covid-19 is not more deadly in the U.S. now than it was in early April, just because the national case-fatality rate has gone up from about 3 percent then to 4 percent now. Similarly, the disease is not less deadly now than it was in mid-May, when the case-fatality rate was 6 percent. Covid-19 is also not more deadly in Italy, where the transmission of the virus has been suppressed so much that the country is averaging fewer than 200 new cases and 12 deaths a day, just because the case-fatality rate there remains above 14 percent.
Yet, at a White House briefing last week, when Trump’s press secretary, Kayleigh McEnany, showed reporters the graph of the declining case-fatality rate in the United States Farah tweeted, she called it proof that America’s Covid-19 mortality rate had gone down and that Americans were now more likely to survive the illness because of “the great work of this administration with therapeutics.”
Photo: Jim Watson/AFP via Getty Images
Asked on Monday about Dr. Anthony Fauci’s frank admission that, “when you compare us to other countries, I don’t think you can say we’re doing great; I mean, we’re just not,” McEnany again misrepresented the declining case-fatality rate, speaking of it as a sign that the disease was getting less lethal in the U.S. “When you compare us to other countries on case-fatality rate, other industrialized nations, we’re very low and beating most countries, if not all, in Europe,” she said.
To the uninformed, the misleading graph shared by Farah and McEnany might also look like proof of Trump’s claim that the United States was doing an even better job at keeping people alive than Germany, since the U.S. case-fatality rate had dipped below the German one that day. But, in fact, had the White House dared to present the truth to reporters, a graph of the actual per capita mortality rate on that day would have showed that Americans are dying from Covid-19 at an ever increasing rate compared to Germans, and the U.S. is on track to soon surpass France as the nation with the sixth-worst mortality rate in the world.
Photo: Our World in Data
Updated: Friday, July 17, 2:56 p.m. PDT
This article was updated with the latest Covid-19 death toll and mortality rate data from Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center.


theintercept--2020-07-18--Where Did a U.S. General Put the Ceremonial Gifts He Got From Foreign Leaders? In the Trash.

It was the first time a high-ranking U.S. military official had visited Libya in three years .
“ Today ’ s meeting was another positive step in the continued process of restoring security here in Tripoli and across Libya , ” said then-chief of U.S. Africa Command , Gen. Thomas Waldhauser .
“ We commend Prime Minister al-Serraj for taking important steps in the process of restoring unified governance to Libya.
” To mark the occasion , on May 23 , 2017 , Fayez al-Serraj presented Waldhauser with a commemorative plaque .
It was tossed in the trash .
The @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of staff of Mali ’ s army ?
The Tunisian “ peace tree ” ?
A ceremonial sword from Djibouti ’ s defense chief ?
A plaque from the Tunisian army ’ s chief of staff ?
They all ended up in the rubbish heap .
Military records obtained by The Intercept through the Freedom of Information Act show that while AFRICOM ’ s legal review deemed it perfectly permissible for Waldhauser to accept these gifts — from plaques and coins to clothing and trophies — he regularly put them in what the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” The files show that Waldhauser did retain a fair number of items for himself , including a keychain presented to him in 2017 by Mauritania ’ s deputy chief of defense , as well as champagne given to him last May by the superintendent of France ’ s Oise-Aisne American Cemetery and Memorial , the final resting place of 6,012 Americans who died in World War I .
Other gifts became the property of AFRICOM and found a place in its Stuttgart , Germany , headquarters , including a bronze statue of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Biya , president of Cameroon , and a medallion from Mali ’ s chief of defense .
But Waldhauser trashed many other items , such as cufflinks given to him by Arikana Chihombori-Quao , the African Union ’ s ambassador to the United States ; a wooden statue from the Malian army ’ s chief of staff ; as well as commemorative plaques given to him by officials from Algeria , Benin , Burundi , Djibouti , Ethiopia , France , Ghana , Italy , Kenya , Libya , Mali , Mauritius , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Sudan , Tunisia , and Uganda , even though he was authorized to keep them .
Publicly , Waldhauser , who headed AFRICOM from July 2016 to July 2019 , long emphasized the importance of close relationships with African allies .
“ As a partner-based command , U.S. Africa Command assists African nations in building capable and professional militaries , ” he told the Senate Armed Services Committee last year in a statement that contained the word “ partner ” or derivations thereof , more than 110 times .
“ In 2018 , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ its components conducted numerous key leader engagements , including visits to Cabo Verde , Djibouti , Ethiopia , Ghana , Kenya , Liberia , Libya , Malawi , Mali , Niger , Senegal , Somalia , and Uganda.
” Waldhauser took part in a great number of these events himself — and while meeting with top allied commanders and heads of state , he was often presented with commemorative keepsakes .
The command complies with Defense Department guidelines concerning gifts , spokesperson John Manley told The Intercept , noting that the fate of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ discretion of the recipient.
” He said that going forward , terms like “ trash ” and “ destroy ” would be dropped from the records .
While most of the souvenirs were gifted by foreign allies — the great majority of them the “ African partners ” that Waldhauser frequently lauded in public — the AFRICOM chief also spurned some gifts presented by Americans .
While AFRICOM kept an engraved pewter plate presented to Waldhauser by Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi , when it came to a six-inch “ badge trophy @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Unit and a coin and box from the deputy commandant of the U.S. Army War College , both were sent to the scrap heap .
And what about the American flag that then-Rep. Pete Sessions , R-Texas , presented to Waldhauser during a 2017 photo-op ?
The documents indicate that Sessions ’ s gifted Old Glory , which once flew over the U.S. Capitol , was destroyed .
However , when The Intercept inquired about it , AFRICOM claimed that its updated records show the flag had been retained .
The command could @ @ @ @ @ @ @ database was changed , by whom , or for what reason , and admitted that the ultimate fate of the flag was unclear .
The AFRICOM documents are devoid of details about just how this star-spangled banner met its end , describing the “ gift location ” in just one word : “ trash .
”

It was the first time a high-ranking U.S. military official had visited Libya in three years.
“Today’s meeting was another positive step in the continued process of restoring security here in Tripoli and across Libya,” said then-chief of U.S. Africa Command, Gen. Thomas Waldhauser. “We commend Prime Minister al-Serraj for taking important steps in the process of restoring unified governance to Libya.” To mark the occasion, on May 23, 2017, Fayez al-Serraj presented Waldhauser with a commemorative plaque.
It was tossed in the trash.
The statue given to Waldhauser by the chief of staff of Mali’s army?
The garbage can.
The Tunisian “peace tree”? A ceremonial sword from Djibouti’s defense chief? A plaque from the Tunisian army’s chief of staff?
They all ended up in the rubbish heap.
Military records obtained by The Intercept through the Freedom of Information Act show that while AFRICOM’s legal review deemed it perfectly permissible for Waldhauser to accept these gifts — from plaques and coins to clothing and trophies — he regularly put them in what the records refer to as the “trash.”
(After publication of this story, AFRICOM contacted The Intercept to say the file was a working document and was inaccurate. AFRICOM stated that almost all of the gifts were retained in some fashion but failed to provide The Intercept with any evidence that the gifts were actually retained. AFRICOM also failed to make available any officials who were involved in the alleged retention of the gifts.)
The files show that Waldhauser did retain a fair number of items for himself, including a keychain presented to him in 2017 by Mauritania’s deputy chief of defense, as well as champagne given to him last May by the superintendent of France’s Oise-Aisne American Cemetery and Memorial, the final resting place of 6,012 Americans who died in World War I.
Other gifts became the property of AFRICOM and found a place in its Stuttgart, Germany, headquarters, including a bronze statue of a drummer given to Waldhauser by Paul Biya, president of Cameroon, and a medallion from Mali’s chief of defense. But Waldhauser trashed many other items, such as cufflinks given to him by Arikana Chihombori-Quao, the African Union’s ambassador to the United States; a wooden statue from the Malian army’s chief of staff; as well as commemorative plaques given to him by officials from Algeria, Benin, Burundi, Djibouti, Ethiopia, France, Ghana, Italy, Kenya, Libya, Mali, Mauritius, Morocco, Niger, Nigeria, South Sudan, Tunisia, and Uganda, even though he was authorized to keep them.
Publicly, Waldhauser, who headed AFRICOM from July 2016 to July 2019, long emphasized the importance of close relationships with African allies. “As a partner-based command, U.S. Africa Command assists African nations in building capable and professional militaries,” he told the Senate Armed Services Committee last year in a statement that contained the word “partner” or derivations thereof, more than 110 times. “In 2018, senior leaders from U.S. Africa Command and its components conducted numerous key leader engagements, including visits to Cabo Verde, Djibouti, Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Liberia, Libya, Malawi, Mali, Niger, Senegal, Somalia, and Uganda.”
Waldhauser took part in a great number of these events himself — and while meeting with top allied commanders and heads of state, he was often presented with commemorative keepsakes.
The command complies with Defense Department guidelines concerning gifts, spokesperson John Manley told The Intercept, noting that the fate of such keepsakes “is left to the discretion of the recipient.” He said that going forward, terms like “trash” and “destroy” would be dropped from the records.
While most of the souvenirs were gifted by foreign allies — the great majority of them the “African partners” that Waldhauser frequently lauded in public — the AFRICOM chief also spurned some gifts presented by Americans. While AFRICOM kept an engraved pewter plate presented to Waldhauser by Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, when it came to a six-inch “badge trophy” from the FBI’s Africa Unit and a coin and box from the deputy commandant of the U.S. Army War College, both were sent to the scrap heap.
And what about the American flag that then-Rep. Pete Sessions, R-Texas, presented to Waldhauser during a 2017 photo-op? The documents indicate that Sessions’s gifted Old Glory, which once flew over the U.S. Capitol, was destroyed.
However, when The Intercept inquired about it, AFRICOM claimed that its updated records show the flag had been retained. The command could not, however, explain when its database was changed, by whom, or for what reason, and admitted that the ultimate fate of the flag was unclear. The AFRICOM documents are devoid of details about just how this star-spangled banner met its end, describing the “gift location” in just one word: “trash.”
Update: August 7, 2020
This story has been updated to include comment from AFRICOM that was provided after the story was published.


theintercept--2020-07-18--Political Correctness Is Destroying America! (Just Not How You Think.)

faces a terrifying danger : political correctness .
It is an existential threat not just to the United States , but all of human civilization .
faces a terrifying danger : political correctness .
It is an existential threat not just to the United States , but all of human civilization .
By this , obviously , I mean right-wing political correctness .
Maybe you ’ re surprised to hear this .
In the U.S. media , there ’ s no shortage of lamentations about political correctness and how it chills debate — but they ’ re almost always about @ @ @ @ @ @ @ reality , political correctness , or cancel culture , or whatever it ’ s called , is not a phenomenon of the left , right , or center .
It ’ s a phenomenon of human nature .
All humanity ’ s infinite tribes are prone to groupthink and punishing heretics .
That ’ s why the principle of free thought has to be defended : It is , unfortunately , a weird and unnatural fit for humans .
There absolutely are examples of ugly political correctness from the U.S. “ left , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that , by historical standards , doesn ’ t have a left .
But the vast , vast majority of political correctness in America is conservative .
Conservative PC is so powerful in the U.S. that much of it is adopted by both political parties and all of the corporate media .
Indeed , right-wing political correctness is so dominant that it ’ s politically incorrect to refer to it as political correctness .
Instead , we call it things like “ patriotism , ” or simply don ’ t notice its existence @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s conservative PC culture would take the rest of your life to read .
So let ’ s limit this to four areas where the right ’ s PC causes some of the most harm : religion , foreign policy , the Republican Party , and police .
It probably doesn ’ t surprise you that exactly zero U.S. presidents have been open atheists .
But since Congress first convened in 1789 , it ’ s only had one openly atheist member : Pete Stark of California .
Stark retired in 2013 , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to a 2019 Pew Research Center survey , 23 percent of Americans identify as atheist , agnostic , or “ nothing in particular.
” This means , Pew says , that “ by far the largest difference between the U.S. public and Congress is in the share who are unaffiliated with a religious group.
” So there are likely many members of Congress right now who are “ in the closet ” when it comes to not believing in God .
The only explanation ?
They ’ re all too cowed by PC @ @ @ @ @ @ @ t surprising , since the U.S. still demonstrates informal and formal discrimination against atheists .
A recent poll found that 96 percent of Americans said they ’ d vote for a Black candidate for president ; 95 percent for a Catholic ; and 66 percent for a Muslim .
Only 60 percent said they ’ d vote for an atheist .
While it ’ s unenforceable , the constitutions of eight states actually prohibit atheists from holding office .
This includes Maryland , one of the most liberal states , whose constitution also @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of every man to worship God.
” ( Maryland women are seemingly free to putter around ignoring the Almighty . )
Pro-religion PC is practiced on both sides of the aisle .
In one of the hacked Democratic National Committee emails published by WikiLeaks in 2016 , the DNC chief financial officer suggested forcing Bernie Sanders to go on the record about whether he believes in God .
“ He had skated on saying he has a Jewish heritage , ” the CFO argued .
“ My Southern Baptist peeps would draw a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ atheist.
” Even if , someday , a few national politicians screw up enough courage to admit that they ’ re atheists , it ’ s impossible to imagine any announcing that they ’ re actively anti-theistic .
No member of the House is going to go on the CBS morning show and say , “ I think all religion is pernicious , it ’ s a gross form of brainwashing children , and every religious leader is a con artist , including the Pope.
” No one on this plane of existence @ @ @ @ @ @ @ correct .
What we can be sure of is right-wing PC has sharply limited free political speech in this area , and that ’ s made us less skeptical and more prone to authoritarianism .
America ’ s ironclad political correctness on religion plays into another aspect of our PC : The ferocious conservative restrictions on discussions of U.S. foreign policy .
Since 9/11 , many powerful Americans have demonstrated openness , perhaps even eagerness , for war between Christianity and Islam .
Before the invasion of Iraq , then-President George W. Bush @ @ @ @ @ @ @ saw “ Gog and Magog at work ” in the Middle East .
President Donald Trump ’ s former adviser Steve Bannon has spoken about “ the long history of the Judeo-Christian West struggle against Islam.
” When the Christian Broadcasting Network asked Secretary of State Mike Pompeo whether God sent Trump “ just like Queen Esther to help save the Jewish people from the Iranian menace , ” Pompeo responded , “ I certainly believe that ’ s possible.
” The right ’ s yearning to mix religion and violence is incredibly @ @ @ @ @ @ @ our daily political diet .
Few politicians or powerful figures notice , much less attack this .
But our conservative PC on foreign policy goes much further .
Everyone in the foreign policy establishment is aware that 9/11 and almost all Islamist terrorism is direct blowback from U.S. actions overseas .
As a Defense Department report explained , “ Muslims do not ‘ hate our freedom ’ ” — i.e.
, what Bush claimed in front of Congress on September 20 , 2001 — “ but rather , they hate our policies.
” @ @ @ @ @ @ @ perspective is that they like those policies , and don ’ t want to change them just because they get Americans killed .
Top members of the military apparently say in private that our deaths are “ a small price to pay for being a superpower.
” Yet perhaps the only national-level politician who ’ s spoken clearly and openly about this is former Rep. Ron Paul of Texas .
In 2004 , a senior Bush administration official was willing to say that without U.S. actions in the Middle East , “ bin @ @ @ @ @ @ @ boring friends with stories of his mujahideen days in the Khyber Pass ” — but without his or her name attached .
The 9/11 Commission ’ s report makes glancing reference to reality , but as one member later wrote , “ The commissioners believed that American foreign policy was too controversial to be discussed except in recommendations written in the future tense .
Here we compromised our commitment to set forth the full story.
” As with the conservative PC about God , Democrats also obey the conservative political correctness about foreign @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Barack Obama ’ s famous 2009 speech in Cairo , he was too PC to tell the truth .
Instead , he mumbled that “ tension has been fed by colonialism that denied rights and opportunities to many Muslims , ” whatever that means exactly .
In 2010 , when Obama ’ s then-counterterrorism adviser John Brennan was asked why Al Qaeda was so determined to attack the U.S. , he responded , “ I think this is a , uh , long issue.
” He did not elaborate .
The PC line @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Israel is one of the most powerful examples .
Every American politician who cares to know is aware that of Israel ’ s dozen or so wars , it was clearly the aggressor in all but two — the 1948 War of Independence and the 1973 Yom Kippur War — and even those are arguable .
They also understand that Israel has rejected numerous offers to create a just , two-state solution with the Palestinians .
In private , U.S. officials say that Israel has constructed “ apartheid ” in the West @ @ @ @ @ @ @ this subject is currently in progress , this clear reality remains inexpressible by U.S. politicians .
And what about the media , that hotbed of freethinking radicalism ?
Even rich , famous TV hosts who deviate from the right ’ s PC line must issue groveling apologies or get canceled , literally .
Sometimes they issue groveling apologies and get canceled .
After Bush called the 9/11 hijackers “ cowards , ” Bill Maher took issue on his old ABC show “ Politically Incorrect.
” “ We have been the cowards , ” @ @ @ @ @ @ @ from 2,000 miles away.
” Maher immediately said he was sorry , but it was too late : His show lost big advertisers and was taken off the air the next year .
In other words , the moment “ Politically Incorrect ” was genuinely politically incorrect , Maher was yanked off-stage .
Next , in February 2003 just before the invasion of Iraq , Phil Donohue ’ s MSNBC show got the ax .
It had the highest ratings on the network , but as executives fretted in an internal memo , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the liberal antiwar agenda at the same time that our competitors are waving the flag at every opportunity.
” In other words , since all of the rest of American TV was ultra-PC , and they had to be too .
The same channel soon signed Jesse Ventura to a three-year contract for a new show but then found out he was anti-war and so paid him to do nothing .
Other TV figures made sure not to suffer similar fates .
“ I remember , ” Katie Couric later said , “ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of feeling like , ‘ Will anybody put the brakes on this ?
And is this really being properly challenged by the right people ?
… Anyone who questioned the administration was considered unpatriotic and it was a very difficult position to be in.
” At the time , when it actually mattered , Couric chirped on “ The Today Show ” that “ Navy SEALs rock !
” Then there ’ s Chris Hayes , another MSNBC host .
In a broadcast just before Memorial Day 2012 , Hayes expressed exactly the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to hear in an honest debate on war : “ It is , I think , very difficult to talk about the war dead and the fallen without invoking valor .
… I feel uncomfortable about the word ‘ hero ’ because it seems to me that it is so rhetorically proximate to justifications for more war .
And I obviously don ’ t want to desecrate or disrespect the memory of anyone that ’ s fallen .
… But it seems to me that we marshal this word in a way that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ right was so intense that Hayes immediately said he was “ deeply sorry ” because “ it ’ s very easy for me , a TV host , to opine about people who fight our wars , having never dodged a bullet or guarded a post or walked a mile in their boots.
” Even opinions on events from a lifetime ago must be politically correct .
After Jon Stewart said on “ The Daily Show ” that he believed Harry Truman was a “ war criminal ” for using atomic weapons on @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , and quickly came crawling for forgiveness .
“ I walk that back because it was in my estimation a stupid thing to say , ” Stewart pleaded in a tone recognizable from any of history ’ s struggle sessions .
“ You ever do that , where you ’ re saying something , and as it ’ s coming out you ’ re like , ‘ What the fuck ?
’ And it just sat in there for a couple of days , just sitting going , ‘ No , no , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and you should really say that out loud on the show.
’ ” With no critiques about specifics permissible , a broad discussion about U.S. foreign policy is light years away .
There won ’ t be any politicians or TV hosts anytime soon who ’ ll consistently emphasize Martin Luther King Jr. ’ s position that America is “ the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today.
” No one knows what foreign policy Americans would choose after an open debate .
But it ’ s manifestly true that the current @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , has caused gigantic damage to the U.S. and the world .
Today ’ s GOP often enforces internal ideological purity more strictly than the Chinese Communist Party .
This matters because the U.S. political system is so sclerotic it requires some buy-in from the opposition party for almost anything to change .
So as long as Republicans stay in lockstep with each other , nothing will happen .
The GOP ’ s PC has been particularly disastrous with the climate crisis .
The Republican president of the United States constantly calls it @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , GOP politicians and the party ’ s apparat have almost all refused to acknowledge that it even exists .
Newt Gingrich said in 2008 that “ our country must take action to address climate change ” — but when GOP PC changed , so did he .
When Gingrich ran for president in 2012 , Rush Limbaugh horrified listeners by telling them of a rumored chapter in a forthcoming Gingrich book that addressed global warming honestly .
Gingrich obediently cut it .
Then he began posting pictures on Instagram with captions like @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the Potomac iced over last night.
” Things are slowly shifting now as younger Republicans begin to understand the frightening future staring them in the face .
Currently the party ’ s split between a faction that wants to continue denying reality , and one which wants to stop denying reality while doing nothing effective about it .
The GOP ’ s political correctness on climate change flows from a broader rejection of Enlightenment methods of figuring out reality .
Limbaugh , whom Trump recently awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom , has @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the “ corners of deceit ” used by liberals to create “ The Universe of Lies.
” No prominent Republican politician has ever disavowed Limbaugh ’ s view .
Beyond this is further rigid GOP political correctness on almost all issues .
A Republican politician must publicly profess belief in American exceptionalism .
Cutting taxes causes government revenue to go up .
Any increase in taxes on the rich and corporations will cause economic devastation .
Evolution is a lie .
Abortion is a titanic moral evil .
Trump is a super-duper president @ @ @ @ @ @ @ bringing low-cost , high-quality health care to every citizen but don ’ t want to mention it right now and ruin the secret .
But facts don ’ t care about conservatives ’ feelings .
Our Republican-led coronavirus carnage is a preview of what ’ s coming with the climate crisis .
With millions of people turning out in demonstrations against police brutality , there are some obvious questions we should be asking ourselves : Why are cops acting this way ?
Why are the so-called bad apples never removed ?
No politicians @ @ @ @ @ @ @ answer : political correctness .
Police officers will almost never report another officer mistreating a civilian .
This is understandable , since the best case for these “ snitches ” is usually having their careers destroyed .
Some , such as the NYPD ’ s Adrian Schoolcraft , fare even worse .
In 2009 , after Schoolcraft found that his supervisors were manipulating crime statistics , his fellow cops broke into his apartment , abducted him , and committed him to a psychiatric hospital .
Whatever you want to say about Oberlin ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ not doing that .
Police department PC has been enabled by another layer of conservative political correctness on top of it .
Until recently , the idea that police routinely engage in unjustifiable violence , and then lie about it , was generally unutterable for an American politician .
Then there was even higher-level layer of PC on top of that in U.S. culture : Reality shows have continually glorified cops engaging in barbarity , and in scripted shows , there ’ s no greater cliché than hero cops .
For 100 years @ @ @ @ @ @ @ have come and gone .
Most often any gains are minor and prone to backsliding .
The only way to change reality is to face reality , not live in a comfortable fantasy concocted by right-wing PC .
And So Much More All of that is just a few waves in America ’ s never-ending flood of right-wing political correctness .
Can the surgeon general suggest that drug legalization should be studied , and perhaps children should be taught about masturbation ?
Nope .
Can you work for the Department of Agriculture and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ without the right misrepresenting it and getting you fired ?
No .
Can CBS broadcast a miniseries about Ronald Reagan that lightly fictionalizes the grotesque response of his administration to AIDS ?
Sorry ; that has to be moved to a much smaller audience on Showtime .
Can you tell the truth as you see it ?
No .
No .
No .
No .
No .
No .
No .
No .
But even the endless concrete examples of conservative PC are not the end of the problem .
Right-wing political correctness @ @ @ @ @ @ @ don ’ t even dream of having debates on the deepest , most important problems of our lives .
Imagine politicians or New York Times op-ed columnists or corporate TV hosts asking simple questions like : • If we followed the law , would the most powerful people in America , including Bill Clinton , George W. Bush , Barack Obama , Donald Trump , and most Wall Street CEOs be in jail ?
• Is advertising all lies that are warping our humanity ?
If so , should we get rid of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to heal the wounds of 500 years of European colonialism ?
• Can we wind down the American empire without destroying the whole world in the process ?
• Even if we slow down the effects of the climate crisis , will capitalism still destroy the biosphere on which all human civilization depends ?
There aren ’ t any easy answers here , but let ’ s at least be honest about the problem .
If we ’ re going to talk about political correctness , let ’ s start with the truth @ @ @ @ @ @ @ most : the political correctness that is literally killing us .

Illustration: Rob Dobi for The Intercept
America today
faces a terrifying danger: political correctness. It is an existential threat not just to the United States, but all of human civilization.
By this, obviously, I mean right-wing political correctness.
Maybe you’re surprised to hear this. In the U.S. media, there’s no shortage of lamentations about political correctness and how it chills debate — but they’re almost always about the threat of left-wing PC.
In reality, political correctness, or cancel culture, or whatever it’s called, is not a phenomenon of the left, right, or center. It’s a phenomenon of human nature. All humanity’s infinite tribes are prone to groupthink and punishing heretics. That’s why the principle of free thought has to be defended: It is, unfortunately, a weird and unnatural fit for humans.
There absolutely are examples of ugly political correctness from the U.S. “left,” whatever that means in a country that, by historical standards, doesn’t have a left. But the vast, vast majority of political correctness in America is conservative. Conservative PC is so powerful in the U.S. that much of it is adopted by both political parties and all of the corporate media. Indeed, right-wing political correctness is so dominant that it’s politically incorrect to refer to it as political correctness. Instead, we call it things like “patriotism,” or simply don’t notice its existence.
A full examination of America’s conservative PC culture would take the rest of your life to read. So let’s limit this to four areas where the right’s PC causes some of the most harm: religion, foreign policy, the Republican Party, and police.
Religion
It probably doesn’t surprise you that exactly zero U.S. presidents have been open atheists. But since Congress first convened in 1789, it’s only had one openly atheist member: Pete Stark of California. Stark retired in 2013, so there are currently none.
According to a 2019 Pew Research Center survey, 23 percent of Americans identify as atheist, agnostic, or “nothing in particular.” This means, Pew says, that “by far the largest difference between the U.S. public and Congress is in the share who are unaffiliated with a religious group.”
So there are likely many members of Congress right now who are “in the closet” when it comes to not believing in God. The only explanation? They’re all too cowed by PC to come out.
This isn’t surprising, since the U.S. still demonstrates informal and formal discrimination against atheists. A recent poll found that 96 percent of Americans said they’d vote for a Black candidate for president; 95 percent for a Catholic; and 66 percent for a Muslim. Only 60 percent said they’d vote for an atheist. While it’s unenforceable, the constitutions of eight states actually prohibit atheists from holding office. This includes Maryland, one of the most liberal states, whose constitution also declares that “it is the duty of every man to worship God.” (Maryland women are seemingly free to putter around ignoring the Almighty.)
Pro-religion PC is practiced on both sides of the aisle. In one of the hacked Democratic National Committee emails published by WikiLeaks in 2016, the DNC chief financial officer suggested forcing Bernie Sanders to go on the record about whether he believes in God. “He had skated on saying he has a Jewish heritage,” the CFO argued. “My Southern Baptist peeps would draw a big difference between a Jew and an atheist.”
Even if, someday, a few national politicians screw up enough courage to admit that they’re atheists, it’s impossible to imagine any announcing that they’re actively anti-theistic. No member of the House is going to go on the CBS morning show and say, “I think all religion is pernicious, it’s a gross form of brainwashing children, and every religious leader is a con artist, including the Pope.”
No one on this plane of existence can say whether or not atheism is correct. What we can be sure of is right-wing PC has sharply limited free political speech in this area, and that’s made us less skeptical and more prone to authoritarianism.
Foreign Policy
America’s ironclad political correctness on religion plays into another aspect of our PC: The ferocious conservative restrictions on discussions of U.S. foreign policy. Since 9/11, many powerful Americans have demonstrated openness, perhaps even eagerness, for war between Christianity and Islam. Before the invasion of Iraq, then-President George W. Bush told French President Jacques Chirac that he saw “Gog and Magog at work” in the Middle East. President Donald Trump’s former adviser Steve Bannon has spoken about “the long history of the Judeo-Christian West struggle against Islam.” When the Christian Broadcasting Network asked Secretary of State Mike Pompeo whether God sent Trump “just like Queen Esther to help save the Jewish people from the Iranian menace,” Pompeo responded, “I certainly believe that’s possible.” The right’s yearning to mix religion and violence is incredibly dangerous, yet is a staple of our daily political diet. Few politicians or powerful figures notice, much less attack this.
But our conservative PC on foreign policy goes much further. Everyone in the foreign policy establishment is aware that 9/11 and almost all Islamist terrorism is direct blowback from U.S. actions overseas. As a Defense Department report explained, “Muslims do not ‘hate our freedom’” — i.e., what Bush claimed in front of Congress on September 20, 2001 — “but rather, they hate our policies.” The problem from the establishment’s perspective is that they like those policies, and don’t want to change them just because they get Americans killed. Top members of the military apparently say in private that our deaths are “a small price to pay for being a superpower.”
Yet perhaps the only national-level politician who’s spoken clearly and openly about this is former Rep. Ron Paul of Texas. In 2004, a senior Bush administration official was willing to say that without U.S. actions in the Middle East, “bin Laden might still be redecorating mosques and boring friends with stories of his mujahideen days in the Khyber Pass” — but without his or her name attached. The 9/11 Commission’s report makes glancing reference to reality, but as one member later wrote, “The commissioners believed that American foreign policy was too controversial to be discussed except in recommendations written in the future tense. Here we compromised our commitment to set forth the full story.”
As with the conservative PC about God, Democrats also obey the conservative political correctness about foreign policy. For instance, in then-President Barack Obama’s famous 2009 speech in Cairo, he was too PC to tell the truth. Instead, he mumbled that “tension has been fed by colonialism that denied rights and opportunities to many Muslims,” whatever that means exactly. In 2010, when Obama’s then-counterterrorism adviser John Brennan was asked why Al Qaeda was so determined to attack the U.S., he responded, “I think this is a, uh, long issue.” He did not elaborate.
The PC line on foreign policy extends far beyond terrorism. Israel is one of the most powerful examples. Every American politician who cares to know is aware that of Israel’s dozen or so wars, it was clearly the aggressor in all but two — the 1948 War of Independence and the 1973 Yom Kippur War — and even those are arguable. They also understand that Israel has rejected numerous offers to create a just, two-state solution with the Palestinians. In private, U.S. officials say that Israel has constructed “apartheid” in the West Bank. While a minor glasnost on this subject is currently in progress, this clear reality remains inexpressible by U.S. politicians.
And what about the media, that hotbed of freethinking radicalism? Even rich, famous TV hosts who deviate from the right’s PC line must issue groveling apologies or get canceled, literally. Sometimes they issue groveling apologies and get canceled. After Bush called the 9/11 hijackers “cowards,” Bill Maher took issue on his old ABC show “Politically Incorrect.” “We have been the cowards,” Maher said, “lobbing cruise missiles from 2,000 miles away.” Maher immediately said he was sorry, but it was too late: His show lost big advertisers and was taken off the air the next year. In other words, the moment “Politically Incorrect” was genuinely politically incorrect, Maher was yanked off-stage.
Next, in February 2003 just before the invasion of Iraq, Phil Donohue’s MSNBC show got the ax. It had the highest ratings on the network, but as executives fretted in an internal memo, it could become “a home for the liberal antiwar agenda at the same time that our competitors are waving the flag at every opportunity.” In other words, since all of the rest of American TV was ultra-PC, and they had to be too. The same channel soon signed Jesse Ventura to a three-year contract for a new show but then found out he was anti-war and so paid him to do nothing.
Other TV figures made sure not to suffer similar fates. “I remember,” Katie Couric later said, “this inevitable march towards war and kind of feeling like, ‘Will anybody put the brakes on this? And is this really being properly challenged by the right people? … Anyone who questioned the administration was considered unpatriotic and it was a very difficult position to be in.” At the time, when it actually mattered, Couric chirped on “The Today Show” that “Navy SEALs rock!”
Then there’s Chris Hayes, another MSNBC host. In a broadcast just before Memorial Day 2012, Hayes expressed exactly the kind of sentiment you’d expect to hear in an honest debate on war: “It is, I think, very difficult to talk about the war dead and the fallen without invoking valor. … I feel uncomfortable about the word ‘hero’ because it seems to me that it is so rhetorically proximate to justifications for more war. And I obviously don’t want to desecrate or disrespect the memory of anyone that’s fallen. … But it seems to me that we marshal this word in a way that is problematic.” The freakout from the right was so intense that Hayes immediately said he was “deeply sorry” because “it’s very easy for me, a TV host, to opine about people who fight our wars, having never dodged a bullet or guarded a post or walked a mile in their boots.”
Even opinions on events from a lifetime ago must be politically correct. After Jon Stewart said on “The Daily Show” that he believed Harry Truman was a “war criminal” for using atomic weapons on Japan, he came under immediate attack, and quickly came crawling for forgiveness. “I walk that back because it was in my estimation a stupid thing to say,” Stewart pleaded in a tone recognizable from any of history’s struggle sessions. “You ever do that, where you’re saying something, and as it’s coming out you’re like, ‘What the fuck?’ And it just sat in there for a couple of days, just sitting going, ‘No, no, [Truman] wasn’t, and you should really say that out loud on the show.’”
With no critiques about specifics permissible, a broad discussion about U.S. foreign policy is light years away. There won’t be any politicians or TV hosts anytime soon who’ll consistently emphasize Martin Luther King Jr.’s position that America is “the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today.”
No one knows what foreign policy Americans would choose after an open debate. But it’s manifestly true that the current one, shaped overwhelmingly by right-wing PC, has caused gigantic damage to the U.S. and the world.
Illustration: Rob Dobi for The Intercept
The Republican Party
Today’s GOP often enforces internal ideological purity more strictly than the Chinese Communist Party. This matters because the U.S. political system is so sclerotic it requires some buy-in from the opposition party for almost anything to change. So as long as Republicans stay in lockstep with each other, nothing will happen.
The GOP’s PC has been particularly disastrous with the climate crisis. The Republican president of the United States constantly calls it a “hoax.” For a decade, GOP politicians and the party’s apparat have almost all refused to acknowledge that it even exists. Newt Gingrich said in 2008 that “our country must take action to address climate change” — but when GOP PC changed, so did he. When Gingrich ran for president in 2012, Rush Limbaugh horrified listeners by telling them of a rumored chapter in a forthcoming Gingrich book that addressed global warming honestly. Gingrich obediently cut it. Then he began posting pictures on Instagram with captions like “More evidence of global warming, the Potomac iced over last night.”
Things are slowly shifting now as younger Republicans begin to understand the frightening future staring them in the face. Currently the party’s split between a faction that wants to continue denying reality, and one which wants to stop denying reality while doing nothing effective about it.
The GOP’s political correctness on climate change flows from a broader rejection of Enlightenment methods of figuring out reality. Limbaugh, whom Trump recently awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, has famously proclaimed that science is one of the “corners of deceit” used by liberals to create “The Universe of Lies.” No prominent Republican politician has ever disavowed Limbaugh’s view.
Beyond this is further rigid GOP political correctness on almost all issues. A Republican politician must publicly profess belief in American exceptionalism. Cutting taxes causes government revenue to go up. Any increase in taxes on the rich and corporations will cause economic devastation. Evolution is a lie. Abortion is a titanic moral evil. Trump is a super-duper president. They have a great idea for bringing low-cost, high-quality health care to every citizen but don’t want to mention it right now and ruin the secret.
But facts don’t care about conservatives’ feelings. Our Republican-led coronavirus carnage is a preview of what’s coming with the climate crisis.
Police
With millions of people turning out in demonstrations against police brutality, there are some obvious questions we should be asking ourselves: Why are cops acting this way? Why are the so-called bad apples never removed? No politicians or TV hosts are providing the simple answer: political correctness.
Police officers will almost never report another officer mistreating a civilian. This is understandable, since the best case for these “snitches” is usually having their careers destroyed. Some, such as the NYPD’s Adrian Schoolcraft, fare even worse. In 2009, after Schoolcraft found that his supervisors were manipulating crime statistics, his fellow cops broke into his apartment, abducted him, and committed him to a psychiatric hospital. Whatever you want to say about Oberlin’s student council, they’re not doing that.
Police department PC has been enabled by another layer of conservative political correctness on top of it. Until recently, the idea that police routinely engage in unjustifiable violence, and then lie about it, was generally unutterable for an American politician. Then there was even higher-level layer of PC on top of that in U.S. culture: Reality shows have continually glorified cops engaging in barbarity, and in scripted shows, there’s no greater cliché than hero cops.
For 100 years, various commissions charged with police reform have come and gone. Most often any gains are minor and prone to backsliding. The only way to change reality is to face reality, not live in a comfortable fantasy concocted by right-wing PC.
And So Much More
All of that is just a few waves in America’s never-ending flood of right-wing political correctness. Can the surgeon general suggest that drug legalization should be studied, and perhaps children should be taught about masturbation? Nope. Can you work for the Department of Agriculture and deliver an honest speech about your life without the right misrepresenting it and getting you fired? No. Can CBS broadcast a miniseries about Ronald Reagan that lightly fictionalizes the grotesque response of his administration to AIDS? Sorry; that has to be moved to a much smaller audience on Showtime. Can you tell the truth as you see it? No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No.
But even the endless concrete examples of conservative PC are not the end of the problem. Right-wing political correctness so hobbles our political imagination that we don’t even dream of having debates on the deepest, most important problems of our lives. Imagine politicians or New York Times op-ed columnists or corporate TV hosts asking simple questions like:
If we followed the law, would the most powerful people in America, including Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, Barack Obama, Donald Trump, and most Wall Street CEOs be in jail?
Is advertising all lies that are warping our humanity? If so, should we get rid of it?
Is there any way to heal the wounds of 500 years of European colonialism?
Can we wind down the American empire without destroying the whole world in the process?
Even if we slow down the effects of the climate crisis, will capitalism still destroy the biosphere on which all human civilization depends?
There aren’t any easy answers here, but let’s at least be honest about the problem. If we’re going to talk about political correctness, let’s start with the truth about the kind of PC that matters most: the political correctness that is literally killing us.