It's easy when writing a column to revert to just railing against individuals and their insights which you've deemed unacceptable. With a few notable exceptions (read: Hugh Hewitt and Pat McCrory), we like to also offer helpful suggestions so that maybe, just maybe, we can positively contribute to widening people's insights and perspectives.
With that in mind, here's one. If all goes well in November, what senate Republicans would be wise to do is make Senator Tim Scott (R-SC) their minority leader. Otherwise, the already shrinking relevance of Republican voices will rightly be disqualified from any national conversation on race or police reform. With more of Senator Mitch McConnell (R-KY) leading the party the enabling of a president who wants to kill productive conversation by a thousand cuts with continue.
Hence this exchange two days ago (6.12.20) between President Trump and Harris Faulkner (cool name) on Fox News:
Trump: So I think I've done more for the Black community than any other
president, and let's take a pass on Abraham Lincoln because he did good,
although it's always questionable, you know, in other words, the end
result —
Faulkner: Well, we are free, Mr. President, so I think he did pretty well.
Trump: We are free. You understand what I mean.
Faulkner: Yeah, I get it.
Never mind the complete falsehood at the top of Mr. Trump's statement, but how exactly is the end result of freeing a race of people from the bondage of slavery and winning a war against an army lead by men who were traitors to their country questionable?
We have to side with The New York Times' Helene Cooper on this one and say that it's 'preposterous' to think that Mr. Trump can contribute productively to the conversation. As astounding as the aforementioned exchange is, let's not focus on that, but instead some of the statements coming from Senator Scott representing Republicans on police reform. It's heartening to him proclaim matter-of-factly that the time for the choke hold has come and gone. Also sounded very positive on a national database for police complains and misconduct for individual officers, which is something that should exist on a federal level. This way, officers fired from one department can not just simply go to another place and commit the same misconduct. What it would also does is allow departments to review individuals and consider the specific actions; if the level of offensive is such that maybe with counseling, retraining and a change of scenery, an individual can re-enter.
Point being, it takes one's blood pressure down a bit when you hear a Republican senator comment that having Juneteenth become a national holiday (why isn't it already?) is a "brilliant idea." To be clear, whether you agree with that or not, it's a little encouraging to be open to the idea. As Kasie Hunt reported, it is only Tim Scott that can deliver anything from Republicans, as a cultural shift in the country threatens to leave them irredeemably out of touch, if they aren't already.
On top of all this, the fallout continues for Mr. Trump over his photo-op political stunt with the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Mark Milley, making a video apology for appearing with the president and for the appearance of politicizing the military. With that as the backdrop, Chuck Todd interviewed the frustrating, but necessarily steady fmr. Secretary of Defense for both the Bush and Obama Administrations, Robert Gates.
Secretary Gates has had harsh words for both Mr. Biden and Mr. Trump respectively, but gives Mr. Trump's foreign policy initiatives the nod over Mr. Biden's, with whom he said he disagreed with most all of his foreign policy positions going back 40 years. Conversely, Mr. Gates explained that "at least he hasn't gotten us in any more wars," something for which we're all grateful for but the fmr. secretary neglected to mention that Mr. Trump left a great steadfast ally, the Kurds, high and dry in Syria to be sandwiched by Turkey and Russia.
Additionally, Mr. Gates mentioned that he agreed with challenging China and engaging with North Korea qualifying both that nothing has become of either. But what good are the initiatives if there is no strategic plan, which Mr. Gates knows that Mr. Trump never has. The glaring omission from Secretary Gates's commentary was no mention of the alienation of our two most important European continental allies, France and Germany. Australia is relieved that they're on the other side of the globe from us right now and it seems like 100 percent of Canadians are wondering the same thing as 60 percent of Americans - when will the Trump exhaustion finally end? The diplomatic malpractice with these vital allies is enough of a disqualifier on foreign policy.
As frustrating as Mr. Gates's answers can be, he still mentioned what every other fmr. senior military official checked this week, character or the lack thereof. An illustration of this is Mr. Trump flat refusal on the idea of renaming military bases that are currently named after Confederate military figures. Ms. Cooper, senior Pentagon reporter, explained that the military was only in the beginning stages of suggesting a commission to look at the issue, and before it was even a thing, Mr. Trump slammed the door on it.
It's a bigoted bet that Mr. Trump makes against his political opponents on behalf of pleasing his base, feeding them the red dog-whistle as it were. The same can be said for the original scheduling for a Trump campaign event in Tulsa, which has malicious intent in triplicate. Given Mr. Trump's statements on race, having a rally on Juneteenth, the celebrated day of emancipation for African-Americans is uncalled for to say the least. On top of that, Mr. Trump is having the rally in Tulsa, the site of the worst post-Civil War racial massacre of African-Americans in U.S. history. And lastly, Oklahoma is one of the states where cases of Covid-19 are spiking and the Trump campaign thinks it's still a good idea to cram 15,000 people into an arena with poor ventilation.
Dr. Nahid Bhadelia explained that hospital beds in Arizona are at 84 percent capacity and South Carolina is at 70 percent, illustrating the spikes in the South and the West. Because Mr. Trump is continuing to gamble with American lives, 116,000+ deaths and counting, by not taking the vitally necessary federal initiative to combat the virus, it seems as though we are indeed at the point that NBC's Joseph Fair (a Covid-19 victim) described as not a matter of waves or spikes but a consistent flow of infections and deaths until we discover a vaccine. And of course, the totals will disproportionately affect the black community.
Yet with all this, Mr. Trump still has the gall to say that he's done more for the black community then any other president, outside of Abraham Lincoln. The saddest part of Mr. Trump suffering from delusions is that the American people are tortured by them.
Panel: Kasie Hunt, NBC; Helene Cooper, The New York Times; Tim Alberta, Politico
No comments:
Post a Comment