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eugenedebs1920 · 9 days ago

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MAGA: Make America Great Again. America first. America for Americans. These are all renditions of a movement that occurred in the early 20th century. A movement coattailed on the temperance movement. An incognito chance to practice discrimination and racism, masked in the guise of nationalism.

Nationalism, or nativism, has long been steeped into American history, its roots going back to the founding colonies. Ironically, and with astounding hypocrisy, this ideology excluded the actual native inhabitants of North America, proclaiming that only those of Anglo Saxon European descent were truly entitled to this land.

The slogan was popularized generally in Woodrow Wilson’s attempts to justify the stance of neutrality during the First World War but was quickly adopted by the second iteration of Klu Klux Klan at the start of the 1920’s. The Klan used prohibition as a vehicle for anti-immigrant, xenophobic and antisemitism activity, targeting taverns which acted as places of refuge, serving the meals of, speaking the languages, and evoking nostalgia for the ethnic community it served.

Although not a campaign tool of the Nazi party in the late 1920’s and 30’s, references of “make Germany great again” are littered throughout speeches made by Adolf Hitler. The phrase, “everything for Germany”, once etched into the knives of SS officers, are echoed in the rising neofascist right wing AfD party in their current “Germany first” campaign that mega billionaire Elon Musk endorsed a few weeks ago.

The isolationist of the America first party believed in a culture of white supremacy, with a hardline stance on immigration and a tendency toward antisemitism. This group was the legitimate face of the KKK. In 1924 U.S. representative, and America first enthusiast, Albert Johnson would introduce the Immigration Act of 1924, a highly exclusionary and xenophobic policy restricting immigration from nearly all Asian countries, and basing naturalization primarily upon ethnicity in the context of “racial homogeny” due to concerns of rapidly changing demographics. This was supported by the KKK and would be the primary immigration law until the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952.

The embodiment of the maga perspective is held by Donald Trump. A man who’s documentation of bias and discrimination can be first seen on the public docket in 1973, and again in 1978, when he was found in violation of the Civil Rights Act on fair housing in a set of stings, offering better costs and incentives to white lease seekers than those of color seeking housing in his New York City properties.

The election of Americas First President of African descent brought forward certain aspects of American culture perceived to have been relinquished in the decades prior. Due to the strange and foreign sounding name, in tandem with the pigmentation of Barack Obama’s skin, a request was petitioned that no other president had been questioned about prior. The existence and legitimacy of his birth certificate, and in turn his citizenship all together. It would be known as birtherism.

As a white American, in 2008 it wasn’t a good look to directly express your disdain that a black man was the leader of the nation purely for the bigoted views one possessed, much like the America First movement was in the 1920’s, the TEA Party was spawned as the public face of white supremacy.

The pitch of the TEA party dog whistle wasn’t as incognito as they imagined it was. Racism was vehement in the signage, slogans and language expressed in their dislike, some read, ‘‘A Village in Kenya Is Missing Its Idiot: Deport Obama!’’ and, ‘‘Congress = Slave Owner; Taxpayer = N**gar,’’ also, ‘‘Imam Obama Wants to Ban Pork: Don’t Let Him Steal Your Meat,’’ this accompanied by endless accusations regarding whether or not he was Muslim despite his Christian upbringing and continued participation in the faith.

A big contributor to the race bating was a man who’s poor management skills and rampant corruption would cause six companies he owned to fail and file bankruptcy, staring in a role made for TV, cosplay successful businessman and known slumlord Donald Trump. It was on Good Morning America, in 2011, via telephone that Donald Trump would first question the origins and legitimacy of Obama’s citizenship, an inquiry he had not posed to any previous holder of the presidency in his lifetime.

Fast forward a bit, and that same reality tv personality would come down the guilded stairs in a building that bore his name yet he held no capital in, Trump would announce his bid for president.

Much like his future campaigns, the 2016 run was riddled with gaffs and buffoonery. The once revered GOP was shocked when he would win the primaries and lead the ticket. Tethered to Trump and the immature and unpresidential antics he routinely displayed, Republicans were at odds.

After a bizarre, divisive, controversial and particularly hostile campaign Trump would go on to defeat Hillary Clinton, although losing the popular vote by over 3 million votes.

Trumps quasi overt racist and sexist rhetoric would lead to a nearly 20% increase in hate crimes from the start of his term in 2016, according to a report from November 2020 by the FBI. The report goes on to show that racially motivated homicide reached it highest levels in three decades by the end of 2019.

The amount of hate murders committed by white supremacists ticked ever larger throughout the duration of Trumps term from just 3 in 2016, to 12 in 2017, then 17 in 2018, followed by a staggering 51 in 2019.

To protest the removal of statues dedicated to confederate military figures who fought against their own countrymen as to keep Africans stolen from their country of origin and forced to work as slaves for wealthy plantation owners in the south, Charlottesville Virginia would host the “Unite the Right” gathering on August 11-12 of 2017.

This march would showcase hundreds of white supremest , neo-Nazis, neo-confederates, far right militias, klansmen and the alt-right, walking through the streets of Charlottesville brandishing swastica flags, valknut, and confederate flags, carrying torches and chanting “You will not replace us. Jews will not replace us. You will not replace us.”.

The next day a counter protest of significant proportion halted this display of jubilant hatred. The Virginia governor would declare a state of emergency as the protesters and counter protestors clashed. At roughly 1:45 pm on Aug 12th, self proclaimed white supremest Alex Fields Jr. would intentionally ram his vehicle into a crowd of counter protestors injuring 35 and killing a young woman named Heather Heyer.

When pressed for comment Trump would respond by condemning the "display of hatred, bigotry, and violence on many sides". When the death of Heather Heyer again was asked about and what Trump thought of the murder Trump would respond “There were very fine people on both sides”. (As MTG would screech, say her name!)

In the 2020 presidential debates this event would come up. As Chris Wallace attempted to coax a condemnation out of Trump the best he could get was trump saying to the proud boys (a white supremest group) “proud boys, stand back and stand by”. Never condemning the ideology or violence perpetrated that day or generally.

Trump lost the 2020 election. After the loss his rampant malignant narcissism prevented the acceptance of this loss. For months he lied to the American people, claiming that the election had been rigged or stolen. Scheming and creating slates of fake electors to cheat and in turn subvert the American democratic process. When this didn’t work he gathered his supporters to Washington DC.

January 6th, 2021 was a dark day for America. A mob, incited by the lies and propaganda Trump had been spewing, attacked the capital. It would lead to hundreds of injured police officers, with 2 police casualties and one civilian.

Of the groups that defiled our capital that day were none other than the proud boys, and the oath keepers.

Over 1,500 people would be charged for their actions that day. Of those people the man who instigated the entire thing, Donald Trump, would not be one of them.

Four years later, with the help of a compromised Supreme Court, Trump installed judges, a traditionalist attorney general, an influx of money from billionaires and corporations thanks to the Citizens United decision, Joe Biden, and the willful ignorance of the American people, this disgraced, twice impeached, adjudicated rapist, felon, convicted fraudster, seditionist, and insurrectionist, with no shame for his transgressions, would weasel his way back in office.

In his first day as president the second time around he would pardon ALL the criminals that had been charged for their role in the Jan 6th attack. Sending a clear message.

This message is, and will be heard loud and clear by these hate groups. That Trump’s America condones racism. That the white race is the superior race. That if you commit crimes in favor of Donald Trump you will be let off for your actions.

All this occurred after his primary campaign donor, who spent $240 million getting him elected, would end a speech by giving not one, but two separate Nazi solutes, then joke about it on the platform he repurchased, X, on the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz.

Donald Trump , on day one of term two would end all federal DEI programs. He would nullify LBJ’s Equal Opportunity Act. He would make a dictatorial decree that trans people are not seen by the government. He would begin an operation of terror for all migrants looking for a better life in America and initiate a campaign of mass deportations.

More and more neo-Nazis and white supremest groups become ever emboldened by the stance their great leader takes. More and more they peer their ugliness from the shadows and into the public sphere.

This is America. This is the country I love. Every day I am ashamed. I didn’t, never have and never would, support that failure of a human. Yet every day I am represented through his deeds. It pains me to the core. I hope it gets better but the first week hasn’t even lapsed yet.

For the sake of Americas future, for our children and their children, in the name of decency and democracy, Never obey in advance. Never surrender your sense of honor or your stance on equality. And resist!

I’m going to end this with some words from scholar, historian and author Timothy Snyder:

Don’t obey in advance. Anticipatory obedience is one of the greatest constraints on the degrees of freedoms.

Much of the power of authoritarianism is freely given. In times like these, individuals think ahead about what a more repressive government will want and then offer themselves without being asked. A citizen who adapts in this way is teaching power what it can do. – Timothy Snyder

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the-most-humble-blog · 4 days ago

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The Avengreros

"Saving tacos, their abuelas, and their immigration status—until DJT clapped back and sent them packing faster than a plate of free churros."

El Capitán Carnitas

Powers: Built like a barrel of tamales, he smashes enemies with his panza while yelling, “¡Yo soy el capitán, cabrón!” Fueled by beer, greasy meat, and an unshakable sense of denial.

Weakness: Will openly scream, “I no Black… I no Black!” when someone compares him to foundational Black Americans. After deportation, though? He’s been seen crying, “I Black, I Black, plz no take my nana!” Spoiler: didn’t work.

Señor Quesadilla

Powers: Can turn a cheese pull into a lasso of death and smother his enemies in melted queso. Deadly in the kitchen, but not in a fight.

Weakness: Can’t look at I.C.E. agents without sweating profusely. He begged, “I Black, I Black, don’t take my tías!” They ignored him while packing his bags.

Guac Guerrero

Powers: His green fists of avocado justice pack a punch, but his real skill is charging “extra” for everything—including sympathy. Can summon a taco truck with a wave of his hand.

Weakness: Before the Great Deportation, he was all, “I no Black!” with pride. Post-DJT? Now he’s in line trying to learn jazz and recite Malcolm X speeches. Still got deported.

Doña Tamal

Powers: Wraps enemies in masa-based justice while shouting, “¡Calla, cabrón!” The only team member who might actually win a fight—her chancla skills are undefeated.

Weakness: When I.C.E. showed up at her tamale stand, she broke down, yelling, “I Black! I Black, too!” The Black agents laughed before sending her ass back to Michoacán.

El Chapulín del Comal

Powers: Super speed, fueled by churros and gossip. His frying pan sprays boiling hot oil on enemies while he yells, “¡Puro pedo, cabrones!”

Weakness: Would loudly deny any connection to Black Americans pre-deportation (“I no Black, guey!”). Now, after losing his nana and taco truck, he’s screaming, “I Black, I Black, help me!” Nobody’s buying it.

The Great Immigration and Deportation Storyline

It was all good just a few years ago. The Avengreros proudly proclaimed their Latinidad while trying desperately to distance themselves from foundational Black Americans. “I no Black, I no Black!” they'd shout in broken English, despite their features and skin tone suggesting otherwise.

Then came the reign of DJT (Donald Juan Trumpington), their arch-nemesis, who, with Palpatine-like manipulation, orchestrated the Great Deportation. Families got sent back en masse, from abuelas to the drunk uncles who never left their garage chairs. Even the tamales didn’t survive.

Suddenly, the Avengreros found themselves groveling: “I Black, I Black, plz no deport!” But the twist? Many of the I.C.E. agents were Black Americans, unimpressed by the last-minute change of heart. After years of denial, sucker shit like this wasn’t cutting it. Deuces, cabrones.

Arch-Nemesis: DJT (Donald Juan Trumpington)

Powers: Builds walls faster than they can climb, uses Twitter rants as sonic attacks, and deploys I.C.E. squads like stormtroopers.

Weakness: Absolutely none when it comes to deportation. This man’s a deportation machine, leaving the Avengreros with no tacos, no nanas, and no hope.

Team Motto:

“¡Para los tacos, pero sin papeles!” (For tacos, but without papers!)

**WARNING PLEASE SEE BELOW**

Weaknesses:

I.C.E.—Because nothing kills superpowers faster than paperwork.

DJT Tweets—One "bad hombres" speech, and they’re out faster than a fresh batch of churros.

Foundational Black Americans: Their moms are gone, and so is their last shred of pride.

🔥 REBLOG If you want more!🔥

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dreaminginthedeepsouth · 5 months ago

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* * * * *

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

September 13, 2024

Heather Cox Richardson

Sep 14, 2024

After bomb threats today, officials had to evacuate two elementary schools in Springfield, Ohio, and move the students to a different location. They had to close a middle school altogether. This is the second day bomb threats have closed schools and public buildings after MAGA Republicans have spread the lie that Haitian immigrants there have been eating white people's pets. Haitian immigrants, who were welcomed to Springfield by officials eager to revitalize the city and who are there legally, say they are afraid.

Hunter Walker and Josh Kovensky of Talking Points Memo today explained where the lie had come from and how it had spread. More than two months ago, they wrote, Ohio senator J.D. Vance, who is Trump’s vice presidential running mate, began to speak about Springfield at a Senate Banking Committee hearing, trying to tie rising housing prices to immigrants. The next day, at the National Conservatism conference, Vance accused “illegals” of overwhelming the city.

On August 10, about a dozen neo-Nazis of the “Blood Tribe” organization showed up in Springfield, where one of their leaders said the city had been taken over by “degenerate third worlders” and blamed the Jews for the influx of migrants. The neo-Nazis stayed and, on August 27, showed up at a meeting of the city council, where their leader threatened council members. On September 1, another white supremacist group, Patriot Front, held its own “protest to the mass influx of unassimilable Haitian migrants” in the city. Right-wing social media posters pushed the story, usually with “witnesses” to events in the city coming from elsewhere.

In late August, posting in a private Facebook group, a resident said they had heard that Haitian immigrants had butchered a neighbor’s cat for food. Vance reposted that rumor to attack Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris, on whom he is trying to hang undocumented immigration although it was Trump who convinced Republicans to kill a strong bipartisan border bill this spring. Springfield police and the city manager told news outlets there was no truth to the rumors.

Nonetheless, on September 10, Vance told his people to “keep the cat memes flowing,” even though—or perhaps because—the rumors were putting people in his own state in danger.

Trump repeated the lie at the presidential debate that night, claiming, “In Springfield, they’re eating the dogs, the people that came in, they’re eating the cats. They’re eating, they’re eating the pets of the people that live there.” Today, President Joe Biden demanded Trump stop his attacks on Haitian-Americans, but Trump doubled down, promising to deport the Haitian immigrants in Springfield if he is elected, although they are here legally.

The widespread ridicule of Trump’s statement has obscured that this attack on Ohio’s immigrants is part of an attempt to regain control of the Senate. Convincing Ohio voters that the immigrants in their midst are subhuman could help Republicans defeat popular Democratic incumbent senator Sherrod Brown, who has held his seat since 2007. Brown and Montana’s Jon Tester, both Democrats in states that supported Trump in 2020, are key to controlling the Senate.

Two Republican super PACs, one of which is linked to Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), have booked more than $82 million of ad space in Ohio between Labor Day and the election and are focusing on immigration.

Taking control of the Senate would enable Republicans not only to block all popular Democratic legislation, as they did with gun reform after the 2012 Sandy Hook massacre, but to continue to establish control of America’s judicial system. So long as their judges are in place to make law from the bench, what the majority of Americans want doesn’t matter.

In 1986, when it was clear that most Americans did not support the policies put in place by the Reagan Republicans, the Reagan appointees at the Justice Department broke tradition to ensure that candidates for judgeships shared their partisanship. Their goal, said the president’s attorney general, Ed Meese, was to “institutionalize the Reagan revolution so it can’t be set aside no matter what happens in future presidential elections.”

That principle held going forward. Federal judgeships depend on Senate confirmation, and when McConnell became Senate minority leader in 2007, he worked to make sure Democrats could not put their own appointees onto the bench. He held up so many of President Barack Obama’s nominees for federal judgeships that in 2013 Senate majority leader Harry Reid (D-NV) prohibited filibusters on certain judicial nominees.

McConnell also made it clear that he would do everything he could to make sure that Democrats could not pass laws, weaponizing the filibuster so that nothing could become law without 60 votes in the Senate.

McConnell became Senate majority leader in 2015 when voters gave Republicans control of the Senate, and when Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia died in February 2016, McConnell refused even to hold hearings for President Obama’s nominee for the Supreme Court, Merrick Garland. McConnell’s justification for this unprecedented obstruction was that Obama’s March nomination was too close to an election, but the underlying reason for the 2016 delay was at least in part his recognition that hopes of pushing the Supreme Court to the right, especially on the issue of abortion, were likely to get evangelical voters to the polls.

Trump won in 2016, and Republicans got control of the Senate. In 2017, when Democrats tried to filibuster Trump’s nomination of Neil Gorsuch to fill Scalia’s long-empty seat, then–majority leader McConnell killed the filibuster for Supreme Court nominees. The end of the filibuster for Supreme Court nominees meant that McConnell could push through Trump’s nominees Brett Kavanaugh, with just 50 votes, and Amy Coney Barrett, with just 52 (in late October 2020, with voting for the next president already underway).

Throughout his tenure as Senate majority leader, McConnell made judicial confirmations a top priority, churning through nominations even when the coronavirus pandemic shut everything else down. Right-wing plaintiffs are now seeking out those judges, like Matthew Kacsmaryk of Texas, to decide in their favor. Kacsmaryk challenged the FDA’s approval of the drug mifepristone, which can be used in abortions, thus threatening to ban it nationwide.

Meanwhile, at the Supreme Court, Trump appointees are joining with right-wing justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito to overturn precedents established long ago, including the right to abortion.

Controlling the country through the courts was the plan behind stacking the courts with Republican nominees and weaponizing the filibuster to stop Democrats from passing legislation. In March 2024, in Slate, legal analyst Mark Joseph Stern noted that McConnell “realized you don’t need to win elections to enact Republican policy. You don’t need to change hearts and minds. You don’t need to push ballot initiatives or win over the views of the people. All you have to do is stack the courts. You only need 51 votes in the Senate to stack the courts with far-right partisan activists…[a]nd they will enact Republican policies under the guise of judicial review, policies that could never pass through the democratic process. And those policies will be bulletproof, because they will be called ‘law.’”

When he took office, President Joe Biden went to work putting his own mark on the federal judiciary. Almost two thirds of his appointees are women, and 62% are people of color. He appointed the first Black female justice, Ketanji Brown Jackson, to the Supreme Court. But now, Republicans are hoping to retake the Senate to make sure that those appointments will stop, along with any more legislation. Their right-wing appointees to the courts will take the business of lawmaking out of the hands of American majorities.

Republican leaders are throwing everything they’ve got at the Senate races in Montana and Ohio, where they hope they can pick up the seat they need to take control of the Senate.

Attacks on immigrants in Ohio might move that needle.

In 1890, Republicans faced a similar problem. They had lost the popular vote in 1888, although they installed Republican president Benjamin Harrison in office through the Electoral College, and knew the Democrats would soon far outnumber their own voters. So they set out to guarantee that they could never lose the Senate, which should enable them to kill popular Democratic legislation.

But they misjudged the electorate, and in the 1890 midterm election, voters gave control of the House to the Democrats by a margin of two to one, and control of the Senate came down to a single seat, that of a senator from South Dakota. In those days, state legislatures chose their state’s senators, and shortly after it became clear that control of the Senate was going to depend on that South Dakota seat, U.S. Army troops went to South Dakota to rally voters by putting down an “Indian uprising” in which no people had died and no property had been damaged.

Fueled on false stories of “savages” who were attacking white settlers, the inexperienced soldiers were the ones who pulled the triggers to kill more than 250 Lakotas on December 29, but the Wounded Knee Massacre started in Washington, D.C.

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

#political #Springfield Ohio #immigration #Ohio #election 2024 #misinformation #Heather Cox Richardson #Letters From An American #history #American History #SCOTUS #judges #right wing shenanigans

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