When hate becomes a problem ...

 

Anita Chabria is a highly opinionated, downright cheeky, political columnist for the Los Angeles Times. Her take on the Trump-Vance shitshow is delicious. 

The Trump campaign has long seemed to function on the belief that it could scurry around under the garbage of racism and misogyny, nibbling at ideas such as the Great Replacement Theory (that immigrants are “hordes” that will destroy America), then run for cover when the spotlight flips on.

“Fake news!” they cry when caught in the glare. “Liberal media!”

It’s a cynical strategy of barfing ugly all over the rug, then blaming it on the dog, to switch critters on you.

It skitters underneath the “cat lady” claims, as well as the false “chameleon” narrative that Kamala Harris does not equally embrace her Indian and Black heritages.

Both assertions are about putting women and minorities in their place with venomous dog whistles of resentment and rancor that ring clearly in the ears of a certain set of voters, ones that have long made up Trump’s most loyal following — angry young white men.

But a funny thing happened when the Democratic ticket became a California stepmother with Hindu and Jewish influences and a salt-of-the-earth Midwesterner with two IVF kids.

The dog whistles changed frequency and we all could hear them clearly.

It turns out the average voter — the swing state undecided who is critical to victory — doesn’t believe “childless cat ladies” are a subset of sociopaths. Or that being mixed race is somehow too confusing to comprehend.

Hate is a lot harder to hide — or embrace — when it’s directed at particular people. When the Trump playbook found itself unexpectedly facing Harris and Walz, the bitterness against diversity, equity and inclusion morphed.

The derided acronym — DEI — switched from being a dog whistle into shorthand for values most of us respect, and that many families embody everyday simply through their complicated, varied existences.

California values. American values. Family values.

What’s the Trump campaign to do?

... the problem for Trump-Vance is that their family values have long been grounded in white Christian nationalism — controlling women, ending rights for the LGBTQ+ community — and backing away from the hate is freaking out that base. That is especially true for those angry men.

“Tonight I declared a new Groyper War against the Trump campaign,” white nationalist Nick Fuentes wrote recently. “We support Trump, but his campaign has been hijacked by the same consultants, lobbyists, & donors that he defeated in 2016, and they’re blowing it. Without serious changes we are headed for a catastrophic loss.”

Groypers, for those with better things to consider, are a bunch of far-right white supremacists who count Fuentes as their leader.

Right-wing podcaster Joe Rogan also signaled defection from Trump, seemingly endorsing Robert Kennedy Jr. before backing away from that. Ditto for hard-right YouTuber Tim Pool.

Trump is feeling that heat enough that Monday night he did a social media interview with Elon Musk, child-king of petulant men. That call drew more than 1 million listeners.

During that conversation — calling it an interview is an insult to anyone who has ever asked a sentient question — Trump gave the usual rants, including his promise to close the U.S. Department of Education. “Not every state will do great” with giving their kids the foundation for success, he conceded. But it will be So Great for the far-right. As for Musk, it was serious fanboy energy

Not all of those listening were fans, to be sure (I was one of those million). But it turns out angry men really do like Trump, and he really does like that adoration — Sally Field at the ’85 Oscars type of like.

They like the Trump who calls immigrants murderers and rapists. They like the Vance who slams women for not procreating according to his standards.

They don’t want to be moderate.

And so Trump-Vance has a problem. Going for the middle may gain some votes. But it may also lose the hate-based base.

I wonder how long it will be before some more national outlet swoops up a writer of Chabria's caliber? For the sake of the LAT's long suffering fans, I hope she gets a good run in the southland.

Guilty - he loves his son

Our right wingers think that Joe Biden speaking to his irresponsible addict son this way somehow condemns the father. This seems to be an accurate tidbit of stolen audio messaging. The wingers' judgment of Biden here speaks volumes about the damage they do to themselves by choosing rage over love.

Demagogic power

In Jesus and the Disinherited, the theologian Howard Thurman writes of humanity's encounter with the God-Man from the perspective of people who "stand with their backs against the wall." Their encounter is very different from the stance of comfortable middle class churches. This special book influenced Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in his struggle against the domination systems of the United States. Thurman is brutally uncompromising in calling out the lies, the hypocrisy, the justified hatreds, the survival stratagems that those on the downside of power employ which get in the way of realizing their own humanity.

I'm not going to try to discuss Thurman's thoughts in any depth here (or probably ever), but in reading his book, I encountered a chilling passage I cannot resist sharing:

Several years ago I was talking with a young German woman who had escaped from the Nazis, first to Holland, then France, England, and finally to America. She described for me the powerful magnet that Hitler was to German youth. The youth had lost their sense of belonging. They did not count; there was no center of hope for their marginal egos. According to my friend, Hitler told them: "No one loves you -- I love you; no one will give you work -- I will give you work; no one wants you -- I want you." And when they saw the sunlight in his eyes, they dropped their tools and followed him. He stabilized the ego of the German youth and put it within their power to overcome their sense of inferiority. It is true that in the hands of a man like Hitler, power is exploited and turned to ends that make for havoc and misery; but this should not cause us to ignore the basic soundness of the theory on which he operated.

Does Thurman's account of Hitler's power remind you of anyone in U.S. public life? Here's a reminder:

“Go home. We love you, you’re very special.” ... “I know your pain, I know you’re hurt. ..."

Yes, that's Donald Trump tweeting from the White House to the mob he incited to attack the Capitol and the Congress on January 6, 2021.

The power in recognition -- in the claim to love -- is a neutral thing; the question is, what or who does that power -- that charism -- serve?

Where fear is trumping perfect love

I'm haunted by an article from Peter Wehner, long time Bush Republican and now Never Trumper, titled The Evangelical Church Is Breaking Apart in The Atlantic.

Wehner is clearly in pain over the evolution of his co-religionists -- so he did the right journalistic thing and interviewed scores of them. Academics and discouraged pastors agree: political hatreds are trumping Jesus in U.S. evangelical-land. Congregations dissolve into warring parties over culture war issues; people who didn't come for the battles are driven out.

He concludes:

... it isn’t simply the case that much of what is distinctive about American evangelicalism is not essential to Christianity; it is that now, in important respects, much of what is distinctive about American evangelicalism has become antithetical to authentic Christianity. What we’re dealing with—not in all cases, of course, but in far too many— is political identity and cultural anxieties, anti-intellectualism and ethnic nationalism, resentments and grievances, all dressed up as Christianity.

Jesus now has to be reclaimed from his Church, from those who pretend to speak most authoritatively in his name. ...

He's gentle about it; these were/are his tribe. And that makes his dissection of their hateful behavior all the more poignant. Absolutely worth reading for anyone who seeks not to denounce, but to understand.

• • •

Somehow I suspect that this wonderfully named little storefront church in San Francisco is not riven by the particular conflicts about which Wehner writes. These good folks look to be poor and, given the location, likely from some community of color. I did actually search Wehner's article for the adjective "white," but found no declaration that he's really talking about a white evangelical religiosity. But quite evidently, he is.

Nice find on the Great Highway

End violence against Asians. Click to enlarge.

The empty Great Highway was lovely on a spring Sunday afternoon, a great venue for an imaginative political statement. The sand-strewn stretch of road has been closed to cars since the pandemic locked us in -- and recreational users want to keep it that way. 

Sunset district neighbors are not so thrilled about that idea. They get all the cars that used to buzz by next to Ocean Beach over on their streets. 

But perhaps traffic calming measures can encourage most drivers to take other routes. Hayes Valley is still adjusting after almost two decades from replacing a freeway stub with the much more human-friendly Octavia Boulevard. 

Change is hard, but reducing cars is worth some habit adjustments.

A season to reject hate

Several churches on Martha's Vineyard that display the LGBT rainbow flag found themselves tagged with this offensive sticker recently. Nearby on the mainland, the Falmouth Jewish Congregation had its property defaced at the time of the Yom Kippur (Day of Atonement) in September.

The Island Clergy Association offered a vigorous statement:

We state unequivocally that we and our various religious traditions are united against hatred and discrimination, and that we stand together in respecting the dignity of every human being.

We make this statement in our current climate of rancor and divisiveness that many of us have not seen since the Civil Rights Movement and the Vietnam War. We are deeply concerned by the erosion of civility and the current trend that relegates those who disagree to a demonized other, one whose voice and opinions are not worth listening to.

We are as concerned and more by the motivations and actions of those who have taken their ideology to the next step of doing harm to others through their speech or actions. We acknowledge that people, often religiously or ideologically motivated, may disagree and hold differing views concerning the beliefs and actions of others. ...

The statement from the religious leaders received respectful coverage from the local media. Islanders don't want to think that the conflicts which roil the nation rumble on here in this isolated, slightly precious, community as well. But they do, of course.

The Rev. Stephen Harding of Grace Episcopal, where we've been attending, preached on the clergy statement which he obviously had some role in assembling. Quite properly, he spoke for our imperative as followers of Jesus to seek reconciliation with all people, to meet hatred with love. That's not easy.

I wish he'd also more clearly coupled that message with a bold restatement of our concurrent call to work for justice and dignity for the oppressed, which the day's readings from the biblical prophet Isaiah emphasize as part of the content of the prophet's vision of peace. This too is our calling.

I think my Congressmember, Speaker Nancy Pelosi, caught a right balance between justice and love in her recent responses to a loaded question about whether she "hated" Donald Trump. Of course she has differences with the man and his party about policies.

“I think the president is a coward when it comes to helping our kids who are afraid of gun violence,” Pelosi said. “I think he is cruel when he doesn’t deal with helping our ‘dreamers,’ of which we are very proud. I think he’s in denial about the climate crisis.”

[But] “As a Catholic, I resent your using the word ‘hate’ in a sentence that addresses me. I don’t hate anyone. I was raised in a way that is full — a heart full of love — and always pray for the president. And I still pray for the president. I pray for the president all the time.”

I think she means this.

I'm not as good a Christian as my Congressmember; I despise Donald Trump. That is, my heart is ready to consign him to the category of less-than-human. He's not, of course. He's just a terribly damaged specimen of humanity who inflicts his vile neediness on everything he touches. The best I can do about him is try not to fixate on him, a practice I think I achieve relatively successfully for a person who tries to be an active political actor where I can. I recommend this.

Fortunately we have Pelosi, many Democrats, and many others who are doing their darnedest to curtail Donald J.Trump's assault on truth, rule of law, and decency. Let's also build as we resist.

Extending that Republican Rx for sickness: "just die"

If I didn't have some (weak) confidence that the Times does elementary fact checking, I'd find this unbelievable. But it's widely reported.

Charles Blow digs into how deliberate cruelty makes Trump a "folk hero" for many (most?) Republicans.

A Lust for Punishment
... Trump’s own punitive spirit aligns with and gives voice and muscle to American conservatives’ long simmering punitive lust. And this insatiable desire to inflict pain has particular targets: women (specifically feminists), racial minorities, people who are L.G.B.T.Q. and religious minorities in this country. In short, the punishments are directed at anyone who isn’t part of, or supportive of, the white supremacist patriarchy.

... The whole discussion of abortion and those who oppose a woman’s right to choose this legal and legitimate medical procedure is in part rooted in punishment. The woman was a reckless custodian of her body and dared to have sex, unprotected, at a time when she wasn’t prepared to be a mother or with a man she didn’t want to be her child’s father. For shame. She should be made to complete the pregnancy, give birth to the child and raise it. This is her punishment for sex.

... In discussions about the disproportionate rates of black male incarceration or black men gunned down by the police, I can’t tell you how many times I’ve read or heard conservatives say that these black males’ own actions courted the punishment, that they got what they deserved.

This has ever been the case: the flaying of black flesh as punishment for some infraction, perceived or real, from the lash and hounds of slavery to the lynchings that surged after the Civil War, from state execution when the killing moved indoors to our current extrajudicial killings by the police in which the morbid act moves back outside. ...

Read it all.

World Refugee Day: we've been here before, to our shame

The United Nations proclaims this day as an occasion to

educate the public on issues of concern, to mobilize political will and resources to address global problems, and to celebrate and reinforce achievements of humanity.

Meanwhile, U.S. Leading Decline in Global Support for Refugees Under Trump Administration.

So far, eight months into fiscal year 2019, which began at the start of October, just 18,051 refugees have been welcomed into the U.S. at a rate of around 2,250 a month.

Those numbers stand in stark contrast to the country's historic average of welcoming more than 6,500 refugees per month since 1980, with an average ceiling of 95,000 per year.

In FY 2019, the admissions ceiling has been placed at a historic low, with the cap set at just 30,000 refugees, representing less than a third of the country's historic average commitment.

The low ceiling has also been coupled with what the IRC has branded an "artificially" reduced processing capacity, with U.S. admissions slowing at times to a virtual standstill.

It's not broad public opinion driving the regime's cruel policies.

...public opinion polls have suggested that levels of support for welcoming refugees and immigrants into the country are among the highest they have ever been.

A January poll from the Pew Research Center found that more than 60 percent of people in the U.S. believed that immigrants strengthen the country. Meanwhile, another poll that month from Quinnipiac University saw more than 75 percent of people in the country say they believe immigration is "good" for the U.S.

Human decency demands that we change who is in charge.

Yes, it was a hate crime

Dr. Mohammad Abu-Salha, the father of the two murdered women:

We're not giving in; this is our country; we claim it.

The case of the angry white man who in 2015 killed three Muslim college students in Chapel Hill once again turned into a discussion of whether the murders were a "hate crime."

Craig Hicks pleaded guilty Wednesday to shooting three young Muslims in their Chapel Hill home, ending the 2015 case the district attorney called an act of “cold-blooded malice” driven by a gun fanatic’s hatred of his neighbors’ religion.

Hicks will serve a life sentence in prison without the possibility of parole for killing his neighbors: Deah Barakat, 23, his wife Yusor Abu-Salha, 21, and her sister Razan Abu-Salha, 19.

Family members and lawyers connected to the case said Wednesday’s hearing corrects a 4-year-old narrative that mistakenly cast the murders as a parking dispute rather than a hate crime.

The News & Observer, Raleigh, NC

There are plenty of procedural and legal reasons, as well as possible bias reasons, why authorities don't want to call this or other offenses based in hate by the label "hate crime." The legal categories don't quite fit; Hicks would get the same sentence anyway. But a newly released tape from Deah Barakat's phone in which polite students tried to mollify their angry neighbor just before he shot them more than made the case. Here's how the prosecutor responded:

The "hate crime" label matters because it is society's way of acknowledging that racism, Islamophobia, homophobia and misogyny violate community values -- and no one should forget that. Calling a crime a "hate crime" sets a standard for law enforcement to be conscious that their job is to uphold and enforce inclusive justice for all.

It may seem just words, but naming hate crimes what they are is a significant way we announce that all of us us are in this together.

From a vigil for the victims of New Zealand mosque shootings

At the Lake Merritt Amphitheater in Oakland CA, Monday, March 18.

"By doing more, we honor the beloved of god that were lost."

What is to be done about hate cults?

It was heartening this morning to see that New Zealand's Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has been both asking her police/counter-intelligence apparatus to investigate whether they ought to have come across clues about the killer in their midst -- and also was pushing to reduce the killing capacity of legal guns. Those are the sort of governmental measures which are appropriate after an atrocity like the Christchurch massacre.

But being human, we also ask, why? What makes a young man from an unremarkable Australian family (which was "shattered" by his crime) into a monster? Why do some individuals take a violent direction?

Deeyah Khan makes films about this question. Raised in Norway, the child of Afghan and Pakistani Muslim parents, and now a Brit, she calls herself "born in the West to parents from the East." In 2015, she used her facility in several worlds to create the documentary Jihad: A Story of the Others. It consists of her revealing interactions with British Muslims who had once been attracted to violent extremism, but who had eventually found other paths through which to express their cultures and serve their communities.

Then Khan jumped off what might look like the deep end into a cesspool of hate, filming US white nationalists in action at Charlottesville, at a rural martial arts training camp, and in their homes. Yes, she reports, there were times when she was plenty scared for herself, a lone, brown, Muslim woman among these posturing men. The product is White Right: Meeting The Enemy.
The film is gripping and affecting. It will surprise few reading here that the "intellectual" super-stars of hate like Jared Taylor seen in the trailer are a lot less interesting than the foot soldiers. The "leaders" are just making a buck off their cult; many of the guys in trenches of this vicious movement are better captured in what one says of himself:

"I was an egomaniac with no self-esteem."

Of course, sometimes people who are their targets die -- at Charlottesville, in Charleston, and at Christchurch.

Both Khan's documentaries are available from Netflix; highly recommended. ...Deeyah Khan shared challenging thoughts in a Vox interview about what we can do about these young men who endanger us all and who are suckers for far more evil people.

They want us to become really afraid; they want us to become divided; they want us to join their “us and them” thing. On a larger scale, I think we have to resist that. It’s an argument for celebrating and nurturing our diversity and nurturing our multicultural society, and our pluralism.

But on a more concrete, practical level, I think we need to support people who want to leave these groups, because we often underestimate how many people, once they’re in it, actually want to leave but find zero support, because everybody is so busy condemning these guys that nobody really wants to extend a hand to them and let them get out. I think that’s really, really important.

... I still feel positive and hopeful, because I do think change is possible, and I think it’s going to require us not giving up. All of these extremists want us to give up, to fear each other and them, to become more divided. And they don’t want us to be kind, or to show empathy, or to organize, or to vote, or to do any of that.

He's alright!

Micah David-Cole Fletcher, who survived his attempt to intervene in the hate crime on a train in Portland, is a 21-year old pizza server and poet.

I am alive
I spat in the eye of hate and lived
This is what we must do for one another
We must live for one another
We must fight for one Mother
We must die in the name of freedom if we have to.
Luckily it’s not my turn today.

A hate crime and running free

With all the crap flying about, I didn't focus right away on the murder last week of one man and injury to two others in Olathe, Kansas. The shooter seemed to be one of those crazed aging white men who rant at Those People to "get out of my country." It all just seemed one more expression of the general disinhibition of hate that the Ranter-in-Chief has loosed; the Ranter is denying this, naturally. Not to mention that our nuts can easily stock up on the weapons of war.

When I got around to reading the particulars, I learned a little about Srinivas Kuchibhotla, the engineer who died of his wounds, and his friend Alok Madasani who was injured (as was an unconnected bar patron, Ian Grillot, who tried to intervene). Both South Asian Indians worked at the headquarters of Garmin, the tech firm known for its GPS devices.

Garmin is important to me. I own a couple of its fitness watches; they tell me how far I've run and thus free me up to explore trails with a random abandon I had not known until I used these devices. Garmin is part of my world.

Hate has killed within my world. Hate comes closer. Hate grows in potency and we resist as we can.***Since I've touched on running, I want to share this which is pure delight. Chau Smith is my idea of a runner, like me an old lady who won't quit, but unlike me possessed of some talent in addition to pure determination.
Since this video was made, she has run seven marathons in seven consecutive days on seven continents in celebration of her 70th birthday.

Smith ran all her marathons wearing a pink pussyhat.

"I hope I don't offend anyone, but I'm a woman. I have daughters. I have a granddaughter. I run to represent the women," Smith said. "I'm against any man, powerful man, who think they can do anything they want to women without our consent, without our permission."

Although the video shows Smith running on my home turf, she actually lives in Kansas City, not so far from the Olathe shooting.

This is a big, complicated country, worth trying to preserve against the tide of hate.

Polluting the air we breathe ...

I'm staying with an older relative who needs a little help. When we go out, to community events or just to see the ocean, she sometimes rides in a wheelchair.

Like most people in her circle, she's no fan of Donald Trump. I don't inquire much; if this is more because he is a vulgarian than because he is a racist, I don't need to hear about it. I hear nothing about her feelings about Hillary either, but she knows which way she is voting. In a dangerous season, that has to do. Period.

Today I looked at the wheelchair and asked if she'd like some kind of sticker to make it more her own, more expressive of her individual tastes. She's that sort; she perked up. I was a little surprised by how political her answer turned out to be.

Maybe it could just be the name and the red circle and slash! You know, 'No Trump.'

Then she thought a bit.

I guess they wouldn't bother an old lady in a wheelchair ...

Now, objectively, this is nonsense. In her world, she is more likely to receive cheers than jeers for dissing the Donald. But there it is.

Of course, she decided she wanted such a sticker. I think she'll enjoy the response when we put it on.

Hate comes out in the open

You've probably seen this ... If, somehow, you've avoided it, you owe it to whatever hopes and dreams you have for this country to look at this. Now.



A Muslim charity in Southern California held a fundraiser for a women's shelter; their "neighbors" responded with a picket line and denunciations of their religion. Fear has clearly overwhelmed whatever good sense or common decency these Yorba Linda white people may possess. Local elected officials including two members of Congress pandered to these pathetic hates.

CAIR-LA, the civil rights organization that assembled the video, has received a lot of messages of support. Here are some:

"I just wanted to communicate my utter disgust. As a Japanese American, I believe my community has much in common with the Muslim community especially in our post 9/11 society. There are a great many of us, from all backgrounds, who are completely disgusted with the protestors and what they did and support the ICNA, CAIR, and the Muslim community." -Daren M.

"With tears streaming down my cheeks after watching the hateful treatment of your fundraising event, I would like to express my sincere outrage that Americans think and behave in these despicable ways. If I could travel to LA from Georgia today, I would want to personally hug each and every person who had to witness this crowd - who have been convinced by the systematic pounding of media disinformation to fear and hate." - Darlene

"As a citizen of the United States I respect the right of others to protest, however I strongly condemn their hateful words, intolerance and ignorance. It is truly an insult to the flag of the United States and all it stands for to be flown behind the hatred of these protestors...As a Catholic Christian and a proud citizen of the United States, I respect and support your right to practice your religion, honor the Prophet, and encourage your members to invest in charitable works in their community." - Anonymous

"It upset me to see how horrible those protesters were. I am from North Dakota and would just like to extend my friendship and support. Have a great day!" - Dustin

"I'm from Yorba Linda, I've lived there all my life, and I've never seen anything like this before. I'm away at school right now, and I'm not sure I want to go home for spring break now that I've seen what happened. I recently returned to the US from a study abroad program in Cairo, Egypt, where I spent five months living safely and happily surrounded by people who I realize now would be scorned and hated were they to move to my home community." - Anonymous

I feel incredibly grateful not to live in the cramped and fearful world of the Yorba Linda protesters. Most of us don't. And we are fortunate. This sort of thing can overwhelm a people. But succumbing to our worst fears remains a choice. We don't have to make it.