Tom Rinaldo
Tom Rinaldo's JournalMemo to queasy Congressional Republicans. Subject: Opposing Trump
Learn and apply the central lesson from the 2016 Republican Presidential primaries. Do not wait for Trump to either self destruct or to be taken down by others before taking him on yourself. If you are not firmly in Trump's camp and personally loyal to him, he will come after you. Even if you are in Trump's camp and personally loyal to him, he may well come after you anyway, at any time, if he thinks it serves his interests to do so. And he will. Who do you think Trump would rather blame for his lack of significant accomplishments in office, himself or you?
If Donald Trump is a President you want to be closely associated with come the 2018 mid term elections, by all means stand by your man - and bet your seat on it. When 2018 rolls around any Republican not having previously firmly rejected Trump's presidency will be seen as a defender of it. Or at the very least as his enabler. There will be no middle ground left.There is barely any now.
If you wait for Trump to become unpopular enough with "his base" for it to be safe enough for you to come out strongly against him, you will have sealed your fate, just like Trump's 2016 Republican Presidential primary challengers did. Trump must be confronted early, and that means NOW, so that criticism of him has time to sink in before the 2018 races begin in earnest. He (or in a few cases she) who hesitates will be lost. If you wait for Trump to simply collapse you will only be pulled down with him when it inevitably happens. If you cast a spotlight on Trump's deformities yourself now, maybe your own constituents too will come to see them in time, and credit you for your leadership when they next go to the polls.
If you don't want to stand for Trump in 2018, stand out against him now. Do so openly, do so clearly. Yes you will take hits from hard core Trump loyalists for doing so, but you can not split this baby in half. They will hate you as much for trying to hedge your bets as they would if you flat out denounce him. And there is an added bonus if you tell the public openly what you now dare only say in private to friends about this President's unfitness for office. You will be serving your nation honorably in a time of crisis. And in the long run that will look a whole lot better on your resume than will jettisoning your integrity in a desperate attempt to hold onto your seat, regardless of the final election results.
I offer this advice to Republicans with some degree of reluctance. When viewed through a partisan prism I, as a committed Democrat, believe the Republican Party will suffer essentially irreparable damage if it continues on it's current course by temporarily propping up Donald Trump. If those of you in Congress who know better than to let Trump's rule go unchecked act with that certainty now, the Republican Party will retain the capacity to rise again. Remember that after enough principled Republicans in Congress made certain that Nixon resigned in disgrace, Carter became a one term President and Republicans then took control of the White House for three consecutive terms.
Democrats will do best in 2018 if Republicans stand by Trump now. But America will suffer if the damage Trump is doing isn't forcefully countered well before the a new Congress is seated in January of 2019. Country ahead of Party. We should all be able to agree on that.
"Our great country has been divided for decades." DECADES????
No, it's been centuries. Literally. Centuries. Decades is the word you use to describe events of the last twenty, thirty, forty, or maybe even fifty years. 1960 was 57 years ago. MLK Jr. was assassinated roughly 50 years ago.
So when exactly does Trump think America was united? Before the Civil Rights movement? When Blacks still "knew their place"? When America was called White by those in control, and the phrase Affirmative Action had not yet even been uttered?
Trump says he wants to make America Great Again. Well he sure as hell can't mean before racism was a plague on our Nation's soul, because it always has been. Americans of all races have slowly, painstakingly been struggling to make America greater. Much of that work has been done over decades. Those very same decades that Trump believes have left Americans divided. Perhaps he never noticed that America has always been divided, except some of us were always supposed to act invisible, living quietly in actual of de facto segregated communities. Seperate and unequal, and left out of the great American picture show.
America actually has slowly been healing the wounds of our deep division, over decades. Our President obviously views those decades differently.
So Mr. Netanyahu, how's that alliance with Trump working for you now?
Things could start to get interesting in Israel where Netanyahu is already dealing with a corruption scandal. Much like Trump, Netanyaho has never been reticent about going off publicly against real or imagined terrorist threats posed by Muslims. Now his very good friend and ally Donald Trump is getting blasted around the world for acting as a literal Nazi apologist (at best). To date the response from Netanyahu has been noticeably slow and rather muted for him.
And what about Sheldon Adelson, mega American billionaire and Right Wing donor to Republicans who owns the Israeli daily newspaper Israel Hayom?
Trump refuses to speak ill of either Putin or Nazis
Kind of reminds me of "the good old days" when the The Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact was making the world great for totalitarians. That lasted for two years which I suspect is longer than the Trump presidency will last. A lot of irreparable damage can be done in two years. Trump must be made so toxic that even the G.O.P. won't put up with him that long.
The difference between prejudice and racism.
Both are blights on our souls, and both must constantly be fought. Prejudice is like contaminated ground water that seeps into our wells, whether we want it in us or not. We must be vigilant against it, and active measures are continually needed, on both a personal and societal level, to filter it out before it seriously poisons us. Racism is like cheap rot gut liquor that some people willfully purchase and then gladly revel in, poisoning themselves while trashing the world around them.
We can both be prejudiced and opposed to prejudice at the same time. We can fight to rid ourselves of our own prejudices. We can expose ourselves to diversity, we can open our hearts to cultural differences. We can listen, we can learn. But racists wear their affliction with pride. I have some empathy for those with untreated prejudices. Some can be worked with, some can be reached. Racists however are my enemy, and our President is one of them.
This is what the Supreme Court said in 2013 when it invalidated the heart of the Voting Rights Act
From the New York Times of that time:
"The chief justice recalled the Freedom Summer of 1964, when the civil rights workers James Chaney, Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner were murdered near Philadelphia, Miss., while seeking to register black voters. He mentioned Bloody Sunday in 1965, when police officers beat marchers in Selma, Ala.
“Today,” Chief Justice Roberts wrote, “both of those towns are governed by African-American mayors. Problems remain in these states and others, but there is no denying that, due to the Voting Rights Act, our nation has made great strides.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/26/us/supreme-court-ruling.html
Great strides? Voter suppression is newly rampant again. Our President is a white nationalist racist, and civil rights activists are being run down and killed in Charlottesville.
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