Warning Signs
- C J Waldron
- Jul 3, 2024
- 12 min read
Editor's Note: The following analysis by CJ Waldron is a summary of actions by Republicans and the Supreme Court that are designed to protect the convicted felon, Donald Trump, and send him back to the White House -- an action that would very likely lead to the demise of democracy as we know it in America. It is worth your time.
Fear and Loathing
When Democrats in Congress introduced legislation to protect In Vitro Fertilization, Republicans accused them of fear-mongering.
So, it should come as a shock when potential VP candidate Tim Scott was asked about the recent Supreme Court decision to overturn the ban on bump stocks and instead shifted to talk about the Southern border.
Scott claimed that the influx of illegal immigrants has people afraid to leave their homes. He stated that cities are becoming increasingly violent and hinted that it was the result of the border crisis -- except statistics show that violent crime has decreased across the nation. Yet, the one thing Republicans can do to reduce violent crimes, enforcing stricter gun regulations, is something they refuse to do even though it is supported by a majority of Americans.
While Republicans stoke false fears and accuse Dems of fear-mongering, there are many things about which we really need to be aware.
We need to be aware of traumatizing our children by forcing them to endure active shooter drills. Instead, we need to outlaw the very weapons used in most school shootings. Studies have shown that these drills, along with increased incidents of school shootings, have increased anxiety and depression among young people.
Don’t Know Much About History
We need to aware of the sanitation of history. Otherwise, we risk unscrupulous elements committing the very atrocities that are part of our past. We need to let schoolchildren know about The Holocaust, slavery, The Trail of Tears, Japanese Internment and many other dark periods in our history. This is not to make them hate America, as some on the right have suggested, but to understand and learn from these mistakes so they don’t happen again.
In addition to scrubbing history, Republicans are also trying to rewrite it. Texas attempted to adopt textbooks that contained the falsehood that some slaves were actually happy in bondage. Not to be outdone, Florida wanted their history books to claim that Blacks benefited from their enslavement because they were able to learn a valuable trade.
And speaking of rewriting history, even before the dust had settled, Republicans found ways to justify the January 6th insurrection. First, they tried calling it a normal tourist visit even after they were forced to flee the Capital due to the incoming mob. Then they tried to claim it was actually outside agitators from Antifa, Black Lives Matter and even the FBI that were the aggressors. They claimed it couldn’t be called an insurrection because no one was armed (They were) and no one had been charged with sedition (They were later charged and convicted). Finally, they settled on calling the uprising “Legitimate political discord”. That’s a funny way to say they tried to overthrow the government.
Now, these very same lawmakers are coalescing behind 34 times-convicted felon Donald Trump as he seeks to reclaim the White House. Despite declaring themselves the party of states’ rights, even using this assertion to support allowing the individual states the right to ban abortions, they are also attempting to subvert the justice system by trying to have criminal charges that are prosecuted on the state level to be transferred to federal jurisdiction.
The motive behind this rewriting of history is obvious. By denying certain events, such as the Holocaust, happened, it allows them to be repeated.
Donald Trump suggested that, if he is re-elected, he would build internment camps to round up illegal immigrants. That ignores the history of Nazi Germany where concentration camps were initially built to house Jews and other undesirables who were displaced due to the war. The extermination process, or Final Solution, was enacted to alleviate overcrowded camps and to lesson their expense so that funds could be used for the war effort.
Ban on the Run
We need to be aware of book bans. At no time in history were those who banned books the “good guys”. Yet, those on the right want specific titles removed from both school and public libraries. Their stated purpose is to prevent children from being exposed to alternative lifestyles, which they claim makes them susceptible to being sexually abused. They have gone as far as to label teachers groomers, or worse yet, sexual predators themselves.
But, like their rewrite of history, the assertion that they are shielding children is more smoke and mirrors. One of the groups spearheading the move to ban books, the poorly named “Moms for Liberty “ accidentally said the quiet part out loud. They quoted Hitler in one of their publications, repeating his statement “He alone, who owns the youth, gains the future.”
Hostile Takeover
The rewrite of history and book bans would not have been possible without the support of local school boards. When COVID restrictions were put into place, right-wing parents harassed, bullied, intimidated and threatened school board members, causing many of them to either resign or not seek re-election. This created multiple openings and the right was only too willing to install its own loyal minions to enact their biased agenda.
Along with book bans, they sought to rewrite curriculum to exclude courses in Black History, eliminate programs that promoted Diversity, Equity and Inclusion and punish educators who even mentioned homosexuality. While these newly adopted rules only applied to elementary-aged students, they were later expanded to include all grades and even state-sponsored colleges and universities.
Abusing Thy Religion
So, what do Republicans want to put in place of Black History? If recent moves are any hint, it would be to force Christian beliefs into the classroom. Louisiana passed legislation requiring The Ten Commandments to be posted in every classroom. Not to be outdone, the Oklahoma state superintendent issued an order requiring a Bible in every classroom and mandating it be taught as part of the curriculum.
While the superintendent ordered schools to incorporate the Bible in their teaching, he gave no instructions as to how. Do they start with The Book of Genesis in kindergarten and end with a senior thesis on the Book of Revelation?
The right is so concerned about exposing children to pornography, but there is plenty of begatting in the Bible. Abraham had a son, Ishmael, with his servant Hagar while still married to Sarah. Isn’t adultery one of the commandments thou shall not do?
David had Uriah sent off to die in battle so that he could have Bathsheba. That sounds a lot like coveting thy neighbor’s wife, doesn’t it? And let's not get started with Mary Magdelene and the world’s oldest profession.
They plan to get around the First Amendment separation of church and state clause of the Constitution by declaring both to be important historical documents that the Founding Fathers used as a basis for our current form of government. (Wouldn’t a copy of the Constitution, The Federalist Papers or Thomas Paine’s Common Sense be more appropriate?)
At the same time, they are both denying these moves are part of a religious agenda while simultaneously declaring that America is a Christian nation.
Evangelicals strongly support Donald Trump. They see his xenophobic, homophobic, White Nationalist points of view as aligning with theirs. They envision a second Trump term as one that will usher in an era where America becomes a Christian theology and Muslims are banned from entering the country.
As a result, they are willing to overlook his many lies. They view his multiple felony charges and convictions as equal to the persecution Jesus endured. They buy into his vision of America as a crime-ridden, disease-infested (I.e. illegal immigrants), godless nation that only he can fix. It’s a far cry from the Biblical comparison made by so many politicians, including Ronald Reagan, of America as a “shining city on a hill”.
Like “Moms for Liberty”, Evangelicals want to own the youth to fill their minds with religious propaganda much like Nazi Germany did with the Hitler Youth.
Women’s Rights?
Today’s women have fewer rights than their mothers or even their grandmothers. When the ultra-conservative Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, it took away a woman’s right to control their own bodies. They determined that the decision to allow a woman to terminate a pregnancy should be decided by lawmakers in the individual states, opening a Pandora’s Box of challenges as to what Federal laws a state must follow and which ones they can ignore. This has resulted in states issuing a wide variety of restrictions with some of them refusing to allow an abortion even in cases of rape or incest.
Following the ruling, Texas and other states witnessed an increase in infant mortality rates as those with fetal abnormalities failed to survive their first year. Those pregnancies that would have been terminated resulted in needless suffering for both the parents and children.
Republicans want you to believe that being pro-choice means you are for abortions no matter when. During the recent presidential debate, Donald Trump continued to push the lie that abortions could be carried out even after a baby is born. And his followers believe it!
Pro-choice means that you believe the decision is one to be made by the woman, not something to be arbitrarily pre-determined by lawmakers who are predominantly old White men. It’s not a decision they take lightly. It is an intensely personal and emotional choice that the MAGA world has reduced to make women ashamed of their actions.
When it comes to women’s rights, the MAGA crowd isn’t even afraid to say what was once referred to as the “quiet part” out loud. One such example was when Kansas City Chiefs kicker Harrison Butker made a commencement speech where he told female graduates that they should be more excited about getting married and having children than receiving their degrees. It’s a phrase straight out of the 1950s!
A Supreme Disaster
When Mitch McConnell refused to even give President Obama’s Supreme Court nominee, Merrick Garland, even a hearing, he set into motion a series of events that would profoundly impact America’s political landscape. It would allow Donald Trump to appoint three justices who took it upon themselves to undo decades of established law.
In a series of unprecedented legal decisions the court overturned Roe v. Wade, took a wrecking ball to Affirmative Action, made it harder for minorities to vote, made it easier for gun owners to convert firearms to automatic weapons, limited the ability of government agencies to punish those who violated federal regulations and punted on the issue of presidential immunity.
All of this was made possible by McConnell’s inaction. When parties saw the court’s shift to a Conservative majority, they began to challenge long-established legal precedents. Their efforts paid off as, case after case, the court reversed years of settled laws.
In ruling to overturn Roe, the Conservative majority ruled that the previous court had overstepped its bounds in making a woman’s right to choose a federal law instead of allowing the individual states to determine its legality. This is despite the fact those nominated by Trump swore to protect this right during their Congressional hearings. This promise swayed the vote of those who were on the bubble of supporting their appointments.
Following the mass casualty shooting in Las Vegas, Donald Trump did the bare minimum by banning bump stocks that converted a firearm into a machine gun. Even this minor regulation was too much for the gun-happy right. Of course, Conservatives declared this was a violation of their Second Amendment rights.
For years White supremacists have been trying to overturn Affirmative Action. They claimed it to be a case of reverse discrimination despite it being a compromise to the demand for slavery reparations. They found a friendly reception in this Supreme Court as they ruled in their favor.
In other cases, the Conservative majority ruled against federal regulations to combat fraud as well as weakening the ability of government agencies to issue fines to companies that violate environmental regulations. This was seen as a major victory for companies facing financial penalties under the “Good Neighbor” policy where an industry in a neighboring state could be fined for letting pollutants drift into a neighboring state.
The court waited for the day AFTER the last day of its current session to rule on the issue of presidential immunity. In addressing Donald Trump’s actions related to his attempts to overturn the results of the 2020 election, the Conservative majority ruled that a president has SOME immunity for OFFICIAL acts, but is not immune from prosecution for unofficial acts. The ruling failed to define which acts were official or unofficial, sending it back to the lower court to rule, leaving open the inevitable appeal which would further delay holding Trump accountable for January 6th and other related offenses.
The case was on hold while the court, which refused to fast-track the case, was decided. Now, there will be further delays as the lower court decides which actions would be determined to be outside the duties of the office of the president. And then it will go back to the Supreme Court, which will not be convening again until October, meaning there will be no trial prior to Election Day.
The ruling obliterates centuries of precedence that held that no one was above the law. Trump has declared that he will be a dictator on Day One, should he win re-election. Knowing he will not face consequences for his actions means he won’t need to stop there.
But why wait? Almost immediately, Trump’s attorneys motioned that his conviction on hush money charges be overturned based upon the Supreme Court’s ruling. The prosecutor in the case, Alvin Bragg, has indicated he would not oppose delaying Trump’s sentencing date, July 11th, until the motion was heard, letting Trump get away from facing consequences even after being convicted.
Prior to the ruling, Vice Presidential hopeful J.D. Vance declared that all presidents should be immune from prosecution. He then went further to say that Joe Biden should face consequences for his actions while in office, so no double standard is there?
Project 2025 and the Unitary Executive Theory
Proposals from Project 2025, the manifesto created by the ultra-right, establishes a roadmap for a new Trump presidency. It proposes actions they claim could be implemented through executive branch action alone — so without new legislation — including:
Cut overtime protections for 4.3 million workers
Stop efforts to lower prescription drug prices
Limit access to food assistance, which an average of more than 40 million people in 21.6 million households rely on monthly
Eliminate the Head Start early education program, which serves over 1 million children annually
Cut American Rescue Plan (ARP) programs that have created or saved 220,000 jobs
Restrict access to medication abortion
Push more of the 33 million people enrolled in Medicare towards Medicare Advantage and other worse, private options
Expose the 368,000 children in foster care to risk of increased discrimination
Deny students in 25 states and Washington, D.C. access to student loans because their state provides in-state tuition to undocumented immigrants
Roll back civil rights protections across multiple fronts, including cutting diversity, equity, and inclusion-related (DEI) programs and LGBTQ+ rights in health care, education, and workplaces.
This theory holds that Congress cannot limit the president’s control of the executive branch because the Constitution sets up a hierarchical system whereby the president has the most power. Supporters argue that Congress can’t set up independent executive agencies and counsels that aren’t controlled by the president. Moreover, different parts of the executive branch can’t sue each other because it would be a violation of separation of powers for the courts to intervene in such disputes.
The theory creates a president who is accountable to no one. Once in office, they are free from Congressional oversight and, based upon the latest Supreme Court ruling, immune from prosecution for any acts related to the functions of the office and a presumption of innocence for pretty much anything else.
Having that much power is typically reserved for authoritarian regimes, yet Republicans feel comfortable suggesting Trump be given that authority. Except it would also apply to any future president, even Democrats, which could give them pause in allowing this to happen.
Radical v. Reactionary
Over the past decade or so Democrats have been called many things: Liberals (as if that’s an insult), Woke, Marxist, Socialists, do-nothings. But the one label MAGA Republicans like the most is "Radical." They see Democratic ideals like protecting the environment as being radical because their own ideas are so far to the right that being a moderate is viewed as radical.
For Republicans, the best description of them would be reactionary. They want to live in a world of the past, despite it being one that no longer exists. Yet they are slowly making it a reality. By overturning Roe, they have turned back the clock to a time when women were unable to decide what to do with their own bodies.
Upending Affirmative Action meant race no longer had to be taken into account for hiring or enrollment purposes. That meant employers were free to discriminate without fear of retaliation or legal consequences.
Demonizing the LBGTQ+ population is a concerted effort to force them to hide their sexual preferences. They want to revert to a time when being gay meant you could be blackmailed if your sexual identity was revealed. You would be forced back into the closet.
School choice, vouchers and charter schools are just another way of re-instituting school segregation. Affluent parents could send their children to these schools while also stripping much-needed funds from already struggling public schools.
The so-called Deep State is just a repackaging of the Red Scare of the 1950s. The shadowy figures purported to be the actual rulers are akin to the Communist Menace pushed by Joe McCarthy.
In Republican circles, it is radical to want children to have access to healthy food over the summer months. It's radical to want the wealthy to pay their fair share in taxes. It's radical to want to protect the environment. It’s radical to want to hold our leaders accountable for their actions (unless you’re a Democrat). It’s radical to say that America isn’t a Christian nation.
Essentially, it's radical to want common decency.
Warning Signs
All these things should set off a huge flashing warning sign for all to see. If we are going to criticize Biden for his horrific debate performance, we should also be willing to call out Trump for his incoherent ramblings about electric boats and sharks.
While many would agree that neither of these men should be running, especially after the debate debacle, only one is a convicted felon. Only one lies with such rapidity that he defies fact-checking on the spot.
And only one will honor their oath to defend the Constitution.
VOTE BLUE!
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