Fear-Based Politics

From an email:

An idle thought....
In '68, I can recall driving rural KY and seeing Wallace bumper stickers: "Don't Live in Fear, Vote Wallace". Then it was the message of a Southern racist crackpot, now that's the message of the whole damned GOP, recited nightly at their convention. -- SD, 8/27/20

Both Wallace and Nixon ran racist campaigns, but they were campaigning as the challengers.

Trump, who is decrying things, is the fucking incumbent. He's the guy who has been in a position to try to do something to address the problems of this country. But all he does is engage in his barf-fests on twitter. Trump is the guy who said that neo-Nazis are fine people. Point out that Black and Latino Americans suffer disproportionately at the hands of the police and Trump makes mockery of those concerns.

Let's update Dr. King a tad:

“…I think America must see that riots do not develop out of thin air. Certain conditions continue to exist in our society which must be condemned as vigorously as we condemn riots. But in the final analysis, a riot is the language of the unheard. And what is it that America has failed to hear? It has failed to hear that the plight of the Negro poor has worsened over the last few years. It has failed to hear that the promises of freedom and justice have not been met. And it has failed to hear that large segments of white society are more concerned about tranquility and the status quo than about justice, [police brutality,] equality, and humanity. And so in a real sense our nation’s summers of riots are caused by our nation’s winters of delay. And as long as America postpones justice, we stand in the position of having these recurrences of violence and riots over and over again. Social justice and progress are the absolute guarantors of riot prevention.”

Fifty-five years ago, the cry was "Black Power!" Today, the cry is "Black Lives Matter!"

The counterpoint to that today tends to be bullshit. "Blue Lives matter" ignores the fact that, in many jurisdictions, crimes committed against police officers draw heftier penalties than crimes against people, in general. Blue lives have always mattered more to the justice system. Hell, the cops are the ones who routinely get away with committing perjury to the point that there is a term of art for that: Testilying.

Still, whatever you think of the growing protests over racial injustice, the hard truth of the matter is that Donald Trump, the man who promises that he along can fix things, has not only sat on his hands for the last three and a half years, he has made things worse. Whenever the issue of racial justice is brought before Trump by a reporter or congressman, Trump crosses his arms and affects the mien of an offended and petulant toddler.

If anything is going to be done, the first thing has to be to remove from power those politicians who are obstructionist Wallace-type racists, beginning with Donald Trump.