Trumpocalypse Week One: Alternate Reality

Facts and the truth are not partisan. They are the bedrock of our democracy. And you are either with them, with us, with our Constitution, our history, and the future of our nation, or you are against it. 

-  Dan Rather, January 22, 2017

It's a beautiful thing, the destruction of words.

― George Orwell, 1984

If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. 

- Joseph Goebbels

It's been just one week since the inauguration of the man who, in the words of The Atlantic magazine,  "might be the most ostentatiously unqualified major-party candidate in the 227-year history of the American presidency."  His first week in office goes a long way towards proving that conjecture.  The ignorance and distorted sense of reality evidenced by Trump and his inner circle are stunning.

The most obvious demonstration of ignorance in Trumpocalypse Week One is the border wall "tariff".  After universal mockery, the 20% tariff was quickly disavowed by the administration as just one of the ideas to build the $15 billion Trump Wall without costing Americans anything.  You learn about how tariffs work in Economics 101: the tariff is passed on to the domestic consumer.  If a consumer buys the products, she pays the price.  Also, the administration seems to have missed the fact that rules that govern world trade prevent a country from unilaterally imposing such a tariff.

Note to the Trump Administration: you cannot make up your own rules...or, for that matter, your own reality.

Trump continues to claim he would have won the popular vote were it not for millions of illegal votes.  This totally unsubstantiated statement is being disavowed even by Republicans.

Trump says the Park Service understated attendance at his inauguration.  But photos and Metro fare figures don't lie.  You are starting your term with a 36% approval rating.  Get over it.

The "alternative facts" comment of senior Trump advisor Kellyanne Conway makes us wonder if we have fallen into a time warp and landed in George Orwell's 1984. (Not coincidentally, that book hit the number one spot at amazon.com this week.)

These comments may seem trivial but the "illegal voters" lie can have some serious consequences for American democracy - especially in this era of disenfranchisement and voter suppression. The comments come at a time when we will soon have an Attorney General who thinks the Voting Rights Act is intrusive and who prosecuted and lost a "voter fraud" case against African-American civil rights activists in 1985.

As if this weren't bad enough, the Washington Post reports today: "In a private meeting with congressional Republicans this week, Vice President Pence vowed that the Trump administration would pursue a wide-ranging probe of voting rolls in the United States to examine whether millions of people voted illegally in the 2016 election as President Trump has charged."

What nonsense.  Every study ever made on voter fraud in the United States has found it to be so rare as to be almost non-existent.  Now, the party that has disenfranchised and suppressed millions of voters is undertaking an investigation on voter fraud.  Perhaps they will find "alternative facts" that fit their bizarre take on democracy.

Climate change will, of course, also be "under review" in the administration of Donald "Climate change is a Chinese hoax" Trump.  As the Associated Press reported, the Trump administration is requiring that political appointees review all Environmental Protection Agency studies and data prior to public release,  I guess in search of some "alternative facts."

Rounding out the week:
- An entire level of  career senior officials that manage the State Department, its outposts and its people resigned
- Our new ambassador to the UN warned U.S. allies that if they do not support Washington, then she is "taking names" and will respond
- The administration ordered that "all contract and grant awards [at the EPA] be temporarily suspended, effective immediately" and imposed a blackout on communicating with the public about taxpayer-funded work at the Agricultural Research Service.

I can't wait 'til Trumpocalypse Week Two.

Trump's Attorney General and the Future of American Justice

It doesn’t matter whether Sen. Sessions may smile or how friendly he may be, whether he may speak to you. We need someone who will stand up and speak up and speak out for the people who need help, for people who are being discriminated against. And it doesn’t matter whether they are black or white, Latino, Asian or Native American, whether they are straight or gay, Muslim, Christian or Jews. We all live in the same house, the American house.

- Rep. John Lewis (D-GA)

Senator Sessions has not demonstrated a commitment to a central requisite of the job: to aggressively pursue the congressional mandate of civil rights, equal rights, and justice for all of our citizens.

- Sen. Corey Booker (D-NJ) testifying at Attorney General confirmation hearings

Alabama State Troopers Attacking
Civil Rights Activist John Lewis - Selma, AL 1965

Corey Booker's and John Lewis' moving testimony not withstanding, Jeff Sessions will be confirmed as the Attorney General of the United States. Thanks to a Democratic- supported change in Senate rules several years ago at the height of Republican obstructionism, Democrats cannot filibuster his confirmation.  That no Republican senator will "cross the aisle" to oppose his nomination is a given. The moderate Republican Senator Susan Collins of Maine is one of two senators introducing Sessions at the confirmation hearings. It is more likely that Democrats from some red states will break rank and vote to confirm Sessions.

Sessions is Trump's most controversial cabinet nominee, and he is nominated for what is arguably the most important domestic cabinet position.  The AG decides what laws the Federal government will enforce.  He can use that power to enforce voting and civil rights or he can use it to deport undocumented immigrants.  He can enforce environmental laws and labor protections or he can ignore them.  He can continue the criminal justice system reform started in the Obama Administration or he can let it wither.  He can expand the surveillance of the American people or he can dial it back.

So this anti-immigrant, climate change skeptic, defense hawk, right-wing Senator who opposes the Voting Rights Act, will soon be charged with protecting the rights of all of us.  He thinks the Voting Rights Act is "intrusive" but that voter ID laws (aka voter suppression laws) are not a problem. When Sessions was the United States attorney in West Alabama in 1985, he unsuccessfully prosecuted three African-American civil rights activists, accusing them of voter fraud.  This disgraceful episode, which he still defends as a necessary action, should have been more than enough to disqualify him for the post.  But politics and partisanship being what they are, Jeff Sessions will be confirmed.  

Southern Poverty Law Center's Heidi Beirich says that his mere presence in Trump's inner circle is “a tragedy for American politics.”   His attorney-generalship is more than that.  It is an affront to the most distinguishing right in a democracy - the right to vote.  

Our democracy and its freedoms are in danger - not from Russian hacks but from within.  Is this alarmist?  If you think so, take the example of North Carolina, a leader in the Republican gerrymandering and voter suppression efforts. A recent report from the Electoral Integrity Project, based at Harvard University and the University of Sydney, indicates that North Carolina can no longer be considered a functioning democracy.    In fact, the EIP ranked US elections last among all Western democracies.  The highly-acclaimed Varieties of Democracy Project (V-Dem) agrees.  The only democracy with the same general ranking for free and fair elections in V-Dem's study is Lithuania.

With the Federal government about to abrogate its duty to protect civil rights and voting rights and with xenophobia so richly rewarded in the last elections, we will once again, for the first time in many years, need to rely on private organizations such as the ACLU, the Southern Poverty Law Center, the NAACP, and the Immigrant Legal Resource Center.  Let's wish them success.