Dangerous trends in America

They have whitewashed the events of 6 January as a ‘peaceful protest’ when television coverage seen throughout the world, and the evidence of members of the Capitol Police, who risked their lives protecting them, showed the lethality of the violence of the 6 January insurrection/coup

By Vijaya Chandrasoma

The continuing saga of the 6 January insurrection/coup

“Former president Donald Trump has repeated his claims that the 2020 election was a fraud and was stolen…. Trump repeats these words now with the full knowledge that exactly this type of language provoked violence on January 6….and there is good reason to believe that Trump’s language can provoke violence again. 

“The Republican Party is at a turning point, and Republicans must decide whether we are going to choose truth and fidelity to the constitution….History is watching us.

“I love my party. I love its history, I love its principles. But I love my country more. I know this nation needs a Republican Party that is based on truth”.

These are extracts from a recent speech made by Representative from Wyoming, Liz Cheney. The former Republican third ranking congresswoman was removed from her position of leadership, because she was critical of Trump’s incendiary behaviour before and after the 6 January insurrection/coup attempt.

There is little doubt that Trump’s incendiary lies, with Republican actions described below, are designed to block Biden’s progressive agenda, to incite further violence, and to attempt an illegal and violent Republican takeover of the House and the Senate in the midterms in November 2022.

The US House convened a Select Committee to investigate into the 6 January attack on the US Capitol. Speaker Pelosi invited members of the Republican Party to participate in the Select Committee, to ensure that the investigation would be bipartisan. However, Republican House minority leader, Kevin McCarthy, ruled that no Republican representatives will serve on the Select Committee, after Speaker Pelosi rejected Representatives Jim Jordan and Jim Banks nominated by McCarthy. Jordan and Banks voted on 6 January, after the insurrection was brought under control, against Vice President Pence’s constitutional duty of certifying the results of the 3 November election. A patent evidence of bias at the least, complicity in the insurrection as more likely. 

Appointment of Jordan and Banks to the Select Committee would be analogous to appointing the best friends of a murderer, suspected of being accomplices in the crime, to the jury of his murder trial.

The Select Committee consists of seven Democrats, with Speaker Pelosi as Chairperson and two Republicans, including Liz Cheney as Vice-Chairperson. It is highly unlikely that the Select Committee will be able to achieve a conclusive inquiry, with the Republican Party, now known as the Party of Trump, blocking every aspect of the investigation. They have whitewashed the events of 6 January as a ‘peaceful protest’ when television coverage seen throughout the world, and the evidence of members of the Capitol Police, who risked their lives protecting them, showed the lethality of the violence of the 6 January insurrection/coup.

Subpoenas to 35 persons and for White House papers relevant to the insurrection have largely been ignored, even at the threat of criminal contempt. By the time all these criminal rejections of subpoenas are acted upon and challenged in the courts, the midterms will be due in November 2022, when the treason and violence of 6 January would have disappeared into clouds of Republican amnesia.

The reason given for the rejection of these subpoenas has been ‘Executive Privilege’ which Trump claims, although he is now a private citizen. Executive Privilege is designed to protect the Institution of the Presidency, which belongs only to the incumbent president. 

There is one silver lining. Federal Judge Tanya Chutkan, ruled on Tuesday, 9 November, that the Congressional Select Committee can access Trump’s White House papers, records likely to provide “insight into Trump’s months-long campaign to stoke disinformation of the 2020 election, as well as his effort to weaponize his administration….to overturn the results of the election”. We may see the Archives begin releasing these incriminating papers as early as Friday, November 12, although the appellate courts may rule to delay the process. 

“Presidents are not kings, and plaintiff is not President”, Judge Chutkan wrote in her ruling.

State laws in suppression of minority voters

The 2020 election saw the highest voter turnout in US history in over a century, breaking records despite the pandemic. There has been a backlash to this historic voter participation, which saw President Biden beat Trump by seven million votes. 40 mainly Republican-controlled states have already enacted over 400 laws which will make it more difficult for Americans, especially poorer voters and minorities, to exercise their fundamental democratic right to vote.

In Texas, election officials could face criminal prosecution if they encourage voters to request mail-in ballots or to regulate poll watchers’ conduct. Four states, Georgia, Iowa, Kansas and Texas have imposed criminal penalties on election officials and other individuals involved in the electoral process. These new Draconian laws and penalties, one of which unbelievably makes it a criminal offence to hand over snacks and water to voters in line, may deter election officials from participating in the electoral process, the cornerstone of Democracy in America. 

Ongoing death threats against election officials by criminals of Trump’s cult 

There has been a marked increase in death threats against hundreds of American election officials, Republican and Democrat, who have publicly questioned Trump’s Big Lie of a stolen election. And more recently, death threats against the 13 Republican Representatives who voted to pass Biden’s historic $ 1.2 trillion Infrastructure Bill, which is inspiring growing confidence in the Biden administration. 

Trump sycophant Rep. Paul Gosar’s cartoon tweet

Rep. Paul Gosar (R- Arizona), a far-right Trump supporter, released a 92-second-long animated video that showed him striking Democratic Representative, Alexandra Ocasio Cortez in the neck with a sword. He is also seen brandishing swords at President Biden. Ocasio Cortez was certain that Gosar “would face no consequences (from the Republican Party), as “House Minority Leader, Kevin Mc Carthy cheers him on with excuses”.

This is the same Gosar who claimed that the January 6 rioters were peaceful patriots who were really the victims of the violence, and was concerned that the Department of Justice was “harassing” them. The same Gosar who is under investigation as one of the Republican congressmen complicit in the insurrection.

The Democrat-controlled House has announced that it plans a resolution of censure against Gosar for the release of this violent video. The Republican Party has remained predictably silent about what, in reality, are death threats against anyone who opposes Trump. The current GOP exhibits no moral obligation to take any action against members of its Party inciting violence against political colleagues in the House, even against the President of the United States. 

Teaching of Critical Race Theory (CRT)

Exposing students to the Critical Race Theory has become a sensitive political issue in the US in recent months, just as the teaching of socialism and Marxism was discouraged in the early to mid-20th century.

Critics of teaching CRT charge that the theory leads to “negative dynamics” focusing on group identity over universal, shared traits, and divides people into “oppressed” and “oppressor” groups, leading to racial intolerance.

CRT, the teaching of which is banned in a growing number of schools, “can help students understand the roles race and racism have played in the context of various academic subjects”, according to Vida Robertson, director of the Center for Critical Race Studies, University of Houston, Texas. The Theory acknowledges America’s history of genocide, slavery and Jim Crow segregation laws, the understanding of which is meant to ensure that history doesn’t repeat itself.

Glenn Youngkin, the new Governor of Virginia, who defeated Democratic candidate Terry McAuliffe last week, made Critical Race Theory the closing argument to his election campaign. Virginia is a state that Biden carried by 10 points over Trump in the presidential election, so McAuliffe’s defeat was a major blow to the Democrats. Exit polls showed that the banning of the teaching of CRT played a major role, at least 25% of the voters citing CRT as “the single most important factor” in determining their votes. 

The Build Back Better Infrastructure package

However, the main reason for the poor performance of Democrats in these recent elections was the diminishing approval ratings of the president, caused by increasing gas prices, inflation and lack of Democratic unity in passing Biden’s signature Build Back Better Infrastructure bills. 

Phase 1 of the package, the $ 1.2 trillion Physical Infrastructure bill, to repair crumbling roads and bridges and to modernise transportation, has now been passed by Congress on a bipartisan vote. This long-overdue bill is a precursor to Biden’s ambitious $ 1.75 trillion Social Infrastructure bill, which will bring to citizens of the richest country in the world social benefits enjoyed by all citizens in every developed nation.

In summary, the post-Trump politics has brought to the surface dangerous trends in US politics, a social and political environment that has not existed in its history since the Civil War. These trends include:

(a) Treasonous insurrections/coups are acceptable to a large percentage of the US white population, a section which will ensure that the next insurrection will not fail, given the noisome political environment of the Trump-controlled Republican Party, 

(b) Threatening violence and death to anyone, president, politician, government official or private citizen who doesn’t sing to the Republican tune is acceptable to, indeed encouraged by, the Trump cult.

(c) Rewriting history to conceal or whitewash genocidal savagery and the cruelty of slavery against coloured people in the past is necessary, and will ensure that threatening and inflicting savagery and cruelty against minorities of colour will be a viable, even legal, option to White Supremacists in the future.