Movement Towards Fascism

At stake is American democracy. Either we stand up in great numbers and in every way that we can or the likelihood of losing the heritage of democratic values is frighteningly real!

Demagogue: Does this sound like Trump? I think so.

A demagogic leader arises during some period of perceived “crisis” and gains substantial populist support by appealing to emotional passion by exploiting prejudice and ignorance   and not by offering rational deliberation. Closed rallies of supporters are typical, avoiding broader public participation. Demagogues typically claim a popular mandate in face of clear contradictory evidence.

Demagogic leaders often repeat lies/falsehoods until they are accepted as true by their audiences. They also may claim credit for things that they did not do. Free speech, generally, and free press norms, in particular, are not upheld. Demagogues typically attack critics or media that do not agree with them. With State power, they often punish critics with varying degrees of severity.

Demagogues in a democratic society may discredit many or all aspects of the democratic process and structure. They may may politicize or delegitimize an independent judicial system. Political opposition may be punished formally or informally.

Demagogic leaders in power may align with other authoritarian regimes.

Another Reason Trump Loves Putin

They swim together in the white nationalist fever swamps.
(by Jamelle Boule, Sept. 9, 2016, Slate)

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump was booed by a crowd full of Baltimore Ravens fans after mentioning Tom Brady at his campaign rally in Maryland. Here are some other instances of Trump's awkward pandering. (Monica Akhtar/The Washington Post)

"Like others I’ve discussed in “Demagogue: The Fight to Save Democracy from Its Worst Enemies,” Trump’s rise has been one of sheer hubris, overblown promises and an almost effortless seduction that can sweep up even the toughest critics. Consider the normally hard-nosed Republican pollster Frank Luntz, who reported “my legs are shaking” after talking Trump with focus group participants last August." (From  Here’s what demagogues like Trump do to their countries when they take power  by Michael Signer, February 29, 2016, The Washington Post)

At stake is American democracy. Either we stand up in great numbers and in every way that we can or the likelihood of losing the heritage of democratic values is frighteningly real!

#TheResistance

Biased Media: Resistance to an Illiberal, Anti-Democratic America

calling out the media

Resistance to an Illiberal, Anti-Democratic America=

Resistance to an MSM PROPAGANDA MACHINE!

NBC Is Building A Trump Normalization Machine

"After running a proto-fascist campaign, President-elect Donald Trump will bring his hate, misogyny, and bigotry to the White House at the end of the month. And when he does, NBC will have a machine ready to normalize him." (by John Whitehouse, Media Matters, January 4, 2017)

A uniquely powerful key to Trump's elevation to the Presidency and the damage he will do is the ability of the media to avoid the enabling role it played during the primaries and the campaign. The media has to give the public informed, critical substance on policy, not highlight every twitter remark as if the media were reduced to tabloids. So long as the news organizations act primarily as entertainment (to compete for viewer or reader ratings), the public will not get the appropriate crucial coverage of, for example, global warming, nor the appropriate analytical coverage of why the 99.99% have been losing ground (including the implications of changes in the personal income laws favoring the wealthy or changes in overall economy to a service economy or changes in technology requiring fewer industrial production jobs).

"What it really shows is just how craven,
self-serving and self-involved our media are."
by Neal Gabler, March 25, 2016, Moyers and Company

No question that consolidation in media ownership and sensitivity to advertiser influence are part of the long term decline of a substantive, critical journalism and a commitment to investigative journalism (meaning more than “fact checking”). However, Trump has used his celebrity status and media tabloid-like coverage to his advantage ($1.9 billion free media coverage) and, even more significantly, he has used the uncritical reportage to NORMALIZE HIS ILLIBERAL BEHAVIOR AND POLICY PROPOSALS.

"But when Trump lies, the Wall Street Journal—the second largest paper by circulation in the country—will not call it a lie, according to the its editor-in-chief Gerard Baker."

"Each time, by the time the truth came out, the news cycle had moved on — letting the lie stand in millions of people’s minds." (by Laurel Raymond, Think Progress, January 2, 2017)

Outside of the tabloids and highly partisan media, e.g. Hearst or Murdoch, journalists have generally regarded their work as in the Jeffersonian public interest. JOURNALISTS IN THAT TRADITION MUST STAND AGAINST uncritical reportage –  they should be extremely wary of equal time on two sides, (e.g. climate change), and they must debunk and contextualize fake news, call out lies/false claims in the strongest possible terms! 

Leonard Pitts, Jr.

"Baker’s is a mindset that has become all too common. With the obvious exception of certain partisan news outlets, some reporters, fearful of being tagged for “bias” on contentious issues, seek to safeguard themselves by ritually quoting a source from Side A and another from Side B while avoiding even painfully obvious conclusions. They call this “fair and balanced.” It’s actually gutless and dumb." Media Must Take A Moral Stand, by Leonard Pitts, Jr., Miami Herald, January 4, 2017

Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/opinion/opn-columns-blogs/leonard-pitts-jr/article124444124.html#storylink=cpy

Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/opinion/opn-columns-blogs/leonard-pitts-jr/article124444124.html#storylink=cpy

We are learning unwittingly how 
MEDIA CAN DESCEND INTO PROPAGANDA.

One key to resistance is

• for the majority public to become actively engaged in criticizing when media journalism fails its promise
• for the majority public to SUPPORT MEDIA JOURNALISM THAT RECLAIMS A STANDARD THAT CAN NOT NORMALIZE THE ILLIBERAL, ANTI-DEMOCRATIC, PROTO-FASCIST ELEMENTS OF THE NEW PRESIDENCY AND CONGRESS

The Republican Road to Fascism in America

WE ARE CONFRONTED WITH POSSIBLE AMERICAN FASCISM. WE MUST RESIST. 

ANY WHO WANT A DEMOCRATIC SOCIETY 
MUST RESIST. 

ANY WHO WANT A LIBERAL CULTURE OF BROAD TOLERANCE AND RESPECT FOR ALL 

MUST RESIST!

Salon article: Nixon was more like a proto-Trump

Backstory: Ever since Nixon's appeal to the backlash against greater racial equality, the Republican Party, the party of the wealthy/powerful elite, has increasingly appealed to hatred and anger against racial minorities, women, and now more than any time since the early 20^th century, immigrants – and thereby has divided America more and more, demolishing a center (e.g., Independents, ticket-splitting). 

Starting with Reagan, the Republican agenda to protect billionaires and the profit of powerful corporations has become more obvious – for example, by reforming the tax code thereby putting more burden on the bottom 99.99%, and attacking regulations (put in place to protect the lower 99.99%) by using the wealthy propaganda myth of the “free market”.          

To begin with, the Republicans captured the religious fundamentalist vote by flipping on cultural issues starting with a woman's right to an abortion (Reagan). But the fundamentalist vote and the economically Conservative vote was not enough in 2008.

As a result, the wealthy elite created the “virtual” Tea Party to build a larger angry white constituency – angry about a feeling of economic precariousness. And Americans should feel greater economic vulnerability – before the G.W. Bush “Great Recession” starting in 2008, median family income had been stagnant for more than three decades (even with more family members working more jobs) and job and retirement pension security was being progressively diminished for the almost all workers.

The Here & Now: Trump is not only illiberal but anti-democratic, questioning and challenging Constitutional constraints on the Executive and chilling any criticism by individuals or by the media (i.e. the 1^st Amendment right to free speech) by veiled and not so veiled threats of violence by his supporters or retaliation by himself (e.g. restricting the libel law). Twentieth century Americans do know something about how speech was chilled during the McCarthy era – Trump's threats during the primary campaign are consistent with his on-going twitters etc. and threaten to chill speech in a much more profound way - indeed, more similar to fascist regimes.

"In the interim, there are a slate of policies on his docket that would entrench not only his kleptocratic interests, but also allow him, together with the GOP, to create an internal empire less responsive to the plurality of voters and more responsive to wealthy and regressive special interests. "(From The warning signs of fascism that Americans should be watching for under president Donald Trump, by Casey Michel)

No surprise then that a lightning-rod-of-hate-and-anger demagogue like Trump could divide America as much as it was in the Civil War era. Trump's "MO" is:

• spouting a message that he could bring all the (better paying?) jobs back
• saying only he could fix things & “make America great again”
• bring back traditional values
• modeling illiberal behavior
• unapologetically demeaning women
• unapologetically demeaning ethnic, and national minorities
• unapologetically demeaning any critics 

But Trump is not only illiberal but anti-democratic, questioning/challenging Constitutional constraints on the Executive and chilling any criticism by individuals or by the media (i.e. the 1^st Amendment right to free speech). His challenges are by veiled and not so veiled threats of violence by his supporters or retaliation by himself (e.g. restricting the libel law). 

Twentieth century Americans do know something about how speech was chilled during the McCarthy era.Trump's threats during the primary campaign are consistent with his on-going, headline making tweets, etc., and threaten to chill speech in a much more profound way - indeed, more similar to fascist regimes.

The Republican Party and its elite economic backbone have paved the way for Trump's demagogic appeal to angry, hateful emotions (rejecting rational analysis entirely) and for his illiberalism and anti-democratic inclinations. 

WE ARE CONFRONTED WITH POSSIBLE AMERICAN FASCISM. WE MUST RESIST. 

ANY WHO WANT A DEMOCRATIC SOCIETY MUST RESIST. 

ANY WHO WANT A LIBERAL CULTURE OF BROAD TOLERANCE AND RESPECT FOR ALL 

MUST RESIST!

#TheResistance

Entirely NEW LEVEL OF ACTIVISIM NEEDED!

CRISIS ISSUE:
GLOBAL WARMING IS INCREASING!

           

WHAT CAN WE DO?

ONLY AN ENTIRELY NEW LEVEL OF ACTIVISM 

CAN EXERT ENOUGH PRESSURE TO:

1. BREAK THE MEDIA SILENCE ON GLOBAL WARMING AND 
2. BREAK THE REPUBLICAN REFUSAL TO PROTECT HUMANITY FROM HARM

With the stunningly unexpected victory of a Trump Administration that regards global warming as a hoax, WE CANNOT EXPECT NATIONAL POLICY TO SLOW GLOBAL WARMING – (UNLESS CATASTROPHIC CLIMATIC EVENTS BREAK THE FOSSIL FUEL INDUSTRIES’ CONTROL OF REPUBLICAN POLICY). 

We can, however, try to breach the denial of science BY A VERY BROAD BASED AND HEIGHTENED LEVEL OF ACTIVISM TO MAKE THE PASSAGE OF ESSENTIAL LEGISLATION POSSIBLE.

Knowing the positions and priorities of the in-coming Presidential Administration and Congressional majorities, PROACTIVE organizing to break the media silence on and Republican Party denial of global warming must begin NOW.

Further, we must build an activist movement that cuts across specific organizational priority issues. Since we are all vulnerable to the increasing harm of global warming, single issue politics (like gun control, LGBT rights, Black Lives Matter, etc.) must come together in coalitions that draw upon uniquely broad based activism.

More than half of the electorate voted for Hillary Clinton and sensible global warming policy. A very large majority of Americans acknowledges global warming as real. WE ARE ALL ACTIVISTS. If we can FLOOD the local media, our local House members and our Senators – in person, with email, with calls, with letters, we can make our views much more difficult to deny and, hopefully, promote the essential global warming legislation. 

CLIMATE CHANGE. Democratic Senator from Oregon Jeff Merkley (L) corrects a sign that reads 'Congress Wake Up to Climate Change', beside Democratic Senator from Rhode Island Sheldon Whitehouse (C) and Democratic Senator from California and Chair of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee Barbara Boxer (R), at a news conference held to announce members of a newly formed Senate Climate Action Task Force, on Capitol Hill in Washington DC, USA, 14 January 2014. File Photo by Michael Reynolds/EPA

What kind of future does humanity face?

Runaway Global Warming, Politics, & Our Future

Since the Republican Party leadership and the U. S. media, as well, give little importance to the increasing of global warming and actually denies/ignores its existence, it is all the more important to reach any and all who will listen to the scientific community about the urgency of avoiding runaway global warming.

Runaway global warming means that whatever humanity does:

1. It will no longer be able to slow the pace of warming 
2. The world will not have time to adapt with less harm to humanity from the many changes brought by increased warming

And those changes include

Drought stricken soy bean field.

– increased sea level rise, more frequent intense storms & flooding, greater droughts, more wildfires, increased food crop loss, fresh water loss, more widely spread disease carriers, increased human migration, increased conflicts, etc.

Bleached coral due to global warming - Great Barrier Reef

The science suggests that we are on the verge of runaway global warming. At the same time, the on-going research continues to yield findings that the earlier assumptions about the seriousness of the impacts of warming and about the contribution of positive feedback loops (increasing warming) were serious underestimates of the speed of change due to global warming.

So, the 2016 election is our hope that we can begin to implement policies that will slow global warming and permit adaption with less harm to humanity. 

In other words, whether the 2016 election will yield a Democratic Presidency and Congress that can make global warming slowing policies is the answer to WHAT KIND OF FUTURE HUMANITY FACES.

I ask that you please share this post with the hope that as it is shared, you can encourage others to join this fight for our very lives.

A fight against climate denial and inaction to slow global warming.

A fight on all levels of government: Federal, State, and local! All voices and votes are essential for a Democratic win! Thank you!

Presidential Election Campaign: Surveys

From this point on in the 2016 Presidential election campaigns, we will be hearing or reading about more and more survey results from the media that ask respondents which of the (typically) two candidates the respondents plan to vote for in November.