James R. Poplar III: Not honoring their oath of office – Northern Virginia Daily

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I have followed with great interest the Shenandoah County School Boards unilateral crusade regarding the changing of school names and mascots in an effort to condemn racism and affirm an inclusive school environment for all. Like many parents and grandparents, I wrote to the School Board members and spoke at the public hearings, held at the Shenandoah County Government complex in Woodstock.

Ordinarily, people would expect to debate perhaps even demand a referendum on the advisability of changing the names and mascots (at an estimated cost of $500,000). But that debate was cut short when the School Board made its rushed and unilateral decision to sweep our schools clean of local Civil War history. Fortunately, the issue is being litigated in our court system, and only time will tell whether the School Boards virtue-signaling decision is implemented. Regardless of the outcome we must abide by it, as we are a nation of laws.

Before taking office, our elected School Board members take an oath of office that reads I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support the Constitution of the United States, and the Constitution of the Commonwealth of Virginia, and that I will faithfully and impartially discharge all the duties incumbent upon me as according to the best of my ability, so help me God." (That last phrase - the one with God in it - is optional today. Which may explain a lot.)

Based on my personal observations, the School Board by no means acted impartially. Our form of government is a representative democracy, founded on the principle that our elected officials represent their constituents, e.g., those citizens who are currently residents of Shenandoah County who are taxpayers and registered to vote.

Instead, it was made clear and explicit that the majority of the board members had already made up their minds and had chosen to ignore their constituents. Add the influence of woke activists whose mission is to re-cast Shenandoah County in Fairfax Countys image and this is what we get. Hearing input and anecdotes from former graduates was nice, but the School Boards obligation to at least consider the desires of those who voted them into office never even entered the picture. It became a matter of Stonewall Jackson bad. Anything else good! End of story.

For failing to represent and listen to their constituents, I recommend those who voted in favor of the resolution to change the names of the southern campus schools resign immediately, for openly and without hesitation dishonoring their oath of office. Shenandoah County deserves a School Board that values student achievement and fiscal responsibility over political correctness and the suppression of our valley history. I suspect that one way or another Shenandoah County will get that very thing, and soon.

James R. Poplar III, of Quicksburg, proudly served with the U.S. government for over 40 years. He specialized in national security affairs at both Vanderbilt and the National Defense University.

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LGBTQ+ Community Taking Over Proud Boys – Minaret

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By Romelo Wilson

Proud Boys stand back and stand by, said President Trump in the debate with former Vice President Joe Biden. When Chris Wallace, the moderator, asked the president if he would condemn white supremacist groups, the response was every attempt to avoid directly answering the question. I would say almost everything I see is from the left-wing, said President Trump. Appearing as if he didnt know the name of any white supremacist group, he refueled the popularity of the Proud Boys by refusing to condemn them at the moment.

A couple of days later, he clarified his disapproval of all white supremacists on Sean Hannitys Fox News show. On the same day, George Takei, best known for his role in Star Trek, tweeted, What if gay guys took pictures of themselves making out with each other or doing very gay things, then tagged themselves with #ProudBoys. I bet it would mess them up real bad. #ReclaimingMyShine. Since the organization doesnt have an active presence on Twitter after getting their account banned in 2018, the hashtag was overtaken by thousands of images of the LGBT+ community showing their pride.

As stated by the Southern Poverty Law Center, the group of western chauvinists that adamantly oppose political correctness, was created in 2016 during the presidential election. Their political beliefs lean far-right, declaring that theyre not a white supremacist group but instead an opposition group of Antifa. However, their actions dont match their statements. After the groups Twitter page was banned in 2018, the Proud Boys moved to an app called Parler, which is popular amongst conservatives, according to Forbes. On Parler, members of the far-right organization posted memes that support white nationalism, anti-Muslim rhetoric, and homophobic comments.

After Takeis tweet calling out for the overtaking of #proudboys on social media, the Canadian Armed Forces joined the movement by posting a picture of two male soldiers kissing. The caption was simply #ProudBoys, with the Canadian and pride flag right alongside. A screenshot of this tweet was posted on Parler, where the right-wing members expressed their disgust of the picture. Cant stand gay peopleshould be illegal, said @Ryanha5150. This is the type of diction that represents the values of the Proud Boys.

The group claims to be against bigotry, but their claims are disproven by their history. In the past, members have organized gatherings like the Unite The Right rally that brought together other hate groups like the KKK. This is the same group that was told by the president to stand back and stand by. The night after the presidential debate, Google Trends show that the search of the term proud boys jumped from 1 to 100. In effort to curb this sudden boost in popularity of the organization, Takei called upon the LGBT community.

Other celebrities decided to join the call for action such as Bobby Berk from Queer Eye and Andy Cohen. Of course, members of the Proud Boys were angered by this, as some the people they targeted with their speech and now taking recognition away from them.

In the beginning, some were skeptical of the hashtag takeover. This movement was compared to the #BlackoutTuesday social media campaign where users posted black squares in an attempt to support the Black Lives Matter movement. However, in reality they pushed informative posts to the bottom of the tag #BlackLivesMatter. The difference with the overtaking of #ProudBoys is that the posts that are being pushed to the bottom are not beneficial to the progression of this country. This takeover drowned out posts from a group that promoted separation and was replaced with photos of LGBT+ couples expressing how proud they are of their love.

The goal of Takei and other LGBT members was to strip the hashtag of its negativity and connection to the far-right group, and fill it with images of compassion, something that the country desperately needs at the moment. In the end, the movement was a success, but the presence of the Proud Boys still remains

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LGBTQ+ Community Taking Over Proud Boys - Minaret

University autonomy is not total indulgence –

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By Chang Kuo-tsai

Media have reported that a number of private Taiwanese universities signed one China agreements with Chinese educational institutions, pledging not to engage in activities that promote one China, one Taiwan, two Chinas or Taiwanese independence during academic exchanges.

With the Ministry of Education citing university autonomy and the schools citing freedom of expression, the ministry has failed to take action and these institutions have escaped punishment.

University autonomy seems to have become a shield that allows these reckless schools to flout the law, while freedom of expression has been twisted to allow people to voice support for Taiwan being an inseparable part of Chinas sacred territory, but not for one China, one Taiwan, two Chinas or Taiwanese independence.

The low birthrate and the excessive number of local universities directly challenge private universities survival, but for them to survive, Taiwan must survive.

Should the government allow them to sell out Taiwan and sign such agreements on behalf of Taiwanese without thinking twice?

To be blunt, the ministry has adopted an ostrich policy by emphasizing the separation between education and politics, respect for academic freedom and university autonomy.

For the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), political correctness is the only means of survival and political correctness is to do whatever the party says.

In such an environment, private Taiwanese universities are prone to surrender to the Chinese, swapping freedom for survival but, naturally, this only leads down a dead-end street.

The Chinese media must publish whatever the CCP says, and entertainers must curry the favor of the CCP and Chinese President Xi Jinping () by expressing the partys political stance as their own.

How can universities survive if they do not follow the partys every whim or curry its favor?

For example, Huadong Taiwan Businessmans School is operated in China by retired army general Chen Ting-chung (), a former commander-in-chief of the Republic of China Army who recently said that he is Chinese, calling it a symbol of pride.

Could his school for Taiwanese students allow them to build an awareness of their Taiwanese identity? Does it teach a Chinese or Taiwanese identity? Does it shape students into Chinese or Taiwanese? The answers to these questions are obvious.

The ministry pays Chens school an annual NT$60 million (US$2.07 million) subsidy.

In response to his praise of China and insult to Taiwan, the ministry simply said that his remarks were inappropriate, but drew no correlation between the remarks and the subsidy the ministry keeps paying the school, kidding itself and refusing to stop.

Regardless of the purpose of the subsidy, the ministry should stop daydreaming and deceiving itself.

Chinas Confucius Institutes have used education as an excuse to do political work around the world or as the Chinese saying goes: Hanging a sheeps head while selling dog meat.

After Beijings political trick was finally exposed, many Confucius Institutes were forced to close in the US, Germany and Sweden.

Ironically, the ministry continues to pay a school operated in China for Taiwanese students.

Chang Kuo-tsai is a retired associate professor at National Hsinchu University of Education.

Translated by Eddy Chang

Comments will be moderated. Keep comments relevant to the article. Remarks containing abusive and obscene language, personal attacks of any kind or promotion will be removed and the user banned. Final decision will be at the discretion of the Taipei Times.

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Opinion: Letter to the Editor: Vandalism As ‘Dialogue’ in McLean – Virginia Connection Newspapers

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Lewinsville Road, McLean: Vandalism photo taken on Oct. 1. Photo by Nicholas Kalis

Unfortunately, in McLean, this is what passes for "dialogue." It seems that among many Democrats and the left wing media, prayer is at the altar of dialogue. Actually their purported calls for dialogue really mean they talk and we listen. Two recent incidents of vandalizing Trump signs on Lewinsville Road illustrate well what seems to be replicated on a national level.

I get it that the left lives in an echo chamber - they are convinced that only they are right and everyone else's opinions are wrong. Here in McLean, they seem to feel that their being right gives them license to trespass and destroy. Many media outlets reinforce this notion that their views are the correct ones - after all, "political correctness" has entered the national vocabulary as a well understood term.

Is there any correction available? Moving on to a larger arena or topic, if the left - who are often well-educated people are so intolerant, why can't they take some action to check themselves? Alcoholics often avoid bars. Why does the left not hire ombudsman for their media outlets so that opposing views can be heard on a regular basis?

Nicholas Kalis

McLean

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Opinion: Letter to the Editor: Vandalism As 'Dialogue' in McLean - Virginia Connection Newspapers

Letter: God bless Donald Trump and America – Opinion – Gaston Gazette

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How soon we forget!

Donald Trumps main campaign promises in 2016 were: Drain the Washington swamp. Stop ISIS terrorists beheadings of reporters, Christians, and Americans. Appoint pro-life conservative judges. Build a wall on our border with Mexico. And rebuild Americas military and the economy.

President Trump has kept most of those promises and hes working on the rest.

The liberal swamp press has fought to annul the 2016 election for four full years. Indeed, the cheerleaders of the swamp mob namely, CNN, CBS, NBC, ABC, and their ilk, have refused to give President Trump credit for anything and they blame him for everything. They were still all-in with Speaker Pelosis House vote to impeach Mr. Trump up to-and-thru February 2020 -- even as our president and his scientific advisers were working to prevent the first wave of the Coronavirus pandemic.

Even now, the swamp media reports chaos and anarchy as peaceful protests while spinning and weaving whole wardrobes of "Emperors Clothes news" for its gullible viewers and hiding its sleazy affair with socialism behind their lib-speak.

This is what people get after allowing lawyers and atheists to run their country for 60 years.

The anti-God swamp news media are leading the spiritually blind over a cliff. The lower their swamp drains, the worse it smells and the louder swamp creatures scream.

Those who study Bible prophecy understand the present pandemonium. Mainstream America has rejected the Holy Bible and rebelled against God. Through this COVID 19 epidemic, God has shown the spiritually naked masses that He is ultimately in charge.

Those who bought the "Emperors Clothes" have been suckered into believing that they dont need God, there is no God, and that Thou shalt not kill does not apply to living babies in the womb, nor to women, doctors, or lawyers.

Too many Christians have become enchanted with the voodoo tailors clothing which skews their vision to believe it is more righteous to hate President Trump than it is to protect the lives of unborn babies or to honor the Sabbath Day.

The hilarious scuttlebutt over de-funding the police that Americans are witnessing right now, is exactly what you get when you drain the swamp.

Who, in his/her right mind -- besides those wearing "Emperors clothes" -- would believe the swamp psychiatrists will leave the safety and sanctity of their $250-per-hour practices to replace local cops at scenes of 9-1-1 domestic violence calls?

I predict they wont do it. Because psychiatrists know who the crazies are and they know how crazy they are -- even if they cant share that knowledge with the rest of us because their swamp-speak/diversity-correct, political-correctness wont allow it.

Those who knowingly wear "Emperors Clothes" rail against the God who provides the very oxygen they breathe because they hate the outsider who won the oval office in 2016 more than they love their own children.

Im with God. Im with the Bible. Im with the "Most High God who rules in the kingdom of men and gives it to whomsoever He will". (Daniel 4:17)

Im praying that Americas voters and the "Most High" will grant President Trump four more years and bless America with three more young, pro-life Supreme Court justices (after Judge Amy Barrett) who honor the Constitution -- so that Trump can finish draining the swamp and get rid of the stink.

It wouldnt be the first time. In 841 B.C., God anointed an unrefined and violent man named Jehu, to clean up the swamp created by evil King Ahab and his wicked wife, Jezebel. And He can do it again.

It only takes five minutes to read all about Jehu in II Kings, chapters 9 & 10.

Herman Myrick is a resident of Belmont.

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Letter: God bless Donald Trump and America - Opinion - Gaston Gazette

Donald Trump Sounds So Happy Describing How His Government Killed a Man – Mother Jones

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With less than three weeks until Election Day, President Donald Trump abruptly pivoted from his closing campaign message that Osama Bin Laden is actually still alive to praise US Marshalls for killing a murder suspectin Oregon last month.

Trump, speaking at a rally in Greenville, North Carolina, on Thursday afternoon, described the death of Michael Reinoehl, an antifa activist who had been suspected of shooting a Trump supporter in Portland in late August and was confronted by US Marshalls a few weeks later. What exactly happened in that confrontation is still unclear, but there are significant reasons to be skeptical of the official government narrative; the New York Times reported last month that [i]n interviews with 22 people who were near the scene, all but one said they did not hear officers identify themselves or give any commands before opening fireand killing Reinoehl.

I said, What happened? Well we havent arrested him,' Trump said, recalling his conversations with local authorities.

Two days, three days went by, we sent in the US Marshalls, took 15 minutes it was over. Fifteen minutes it was over, we got him, Trump continued. They knew who he was, they didnt want to arrest him, and 15 minutes that ended.

Fifteen minutes, that ended.

Theres not really any way to spin it: Trump is describing the killing of a suspect like it was a mob hit that he ordered. He thinks its great what happened. This isnt some pablum about bravery-in-the-line-of-duty and all that. Hes praising the principle of itthe efficiency with which a suspect was removed (to use Attorney General Bill Barrs phrasing). Fifteen minutes, over and done with, nice and cleanas if he were discussing the Bin Laden raid or the hunting of a bear. Who needs a trial, when you can end it in 15 minutes?

These comments have been making the rounds on social media, but I think they have been slightly misread as Trump saying that the they who didnt want to arrest him were the US Marshalls. Its easy to get confused on that point, because the US Marshalls didnt arrest him and killed the man instead. But the they here refers to the local law enforcement authorities in Oregon. Its an important distinction, not because its in any way exculpatoryarmed agents of the state killed a man who had not been convicted of anything!but because its actually the heart of this whole standoff between the federal government and local authorities, in Portland most famously, but in New York City and Washington, DC, as well.

Trump is saying that Democratic officials are refusing to do their jobs and cowering to the anarchists, and only the strong man in the White House can cut through the political correctness to restore security. Michael Reinoehl is what you get, he is saying, and what he got was just and deserved. In doing so, he is placing the story of a US Marshall raid in the same space as Kyle Rittenhouse crossing state lines with a rifle to shoot two people in Kenosha, and of the McCloskeys waving firearms at protesters in St. Louis. If you will not act, then others will. In this case, the vigilante killers are federal law enforcement officers. This is both the nadir of law and order, and the truest definition of what it means.

There is just so much of this every day. Sometimes reading the news in the Trump era feels like driving on that highway from Twisteryou are just trying to stay on course and dodge the cows, and as a simple survival mechanism dont have time to dwell on any of it. But the crowd cheering here is chilling, and the president hailing a deadly raid by state security forces is dangerous and ominous as hell.

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Donald Trump Sounds So Happy Describing How His Government Killed a Man - Mother Jones

Jack McCall: The right and wrong sides of tobacco stalks – Lebanon Democrat

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Well, its almost that time of year again. In a few days tobacco stalks will be making their appearance once again as tobacco striping will be in full swing. Holders Tobacco Warehouse in Hartsville is one of the few places left in our part of the world where a large quantity of tobacco will be processed. It is a big, sprawling building, a former garment factory, and still a center of activity during tobacco season.

Across the street in the parking lot, wagons piled high with tobacco stalks will soon begin to appear.

The sight of them always takes me back in time.

My first job in a tobacco barn was hauling off tobacco stalks. A small boy could handle a small load. It seemed to me a thankless job.

Anybody can carry out tobacco stalks. From the earliest days that job fell to my brothers and me. It didnt get any better as we got older. Later, we were promoted to stripping tips. That, too, is a thankless job certainly not brain surgery. You dont have to be skilled in grading tobacco to strip tips. You just strip off the last two or three leaves and thats it. And what, may I ask, do you have left? A tobacco stalk. And what is the other responsibility of the tip stripper? Hauling out the tobacco stalks. It was a job that would not go away.

After the stalks piled up on the stripping table, they had to be moved outside the tobacco barn. Sometimes we let them grow into a mountain of tobacco stalks just outside the barn. At other times they were loaded directly onto a wagon. Either way, the stalks were eventually hauled off and disposed of properly. Proper disposal usually meant being scattered on a tobacco patch.

I have scattered some tobacco stalks in my time. I found no easy way to do it.

One at a time is more fun if you are playing cowboys and Indians. A tobacco stalk makes for a great Indian spear. It is properly balanced and already sharp on the big end. I have thrown hundreds of Indian spears. The problem is: Tobacco stalks dont scatter very fast when you are throwing them one at a time.

I found the best way was to grab a big armload and spin my body around like a centrifuge as I let the stalks go. That still didnt work very well.

I usually had to walk back through the stalks I had just scattered and kick them around to get more even coverage.

Then came the year my brother John backed the manure spreader up to the barn and suggested we load it with tobacco stalks. It seemed to be a wild idea at the time. But my father gave it his blessing.

I shall never forget the scene when John pulled that manure spreader, loaded down with tobacco stalks, into the tobacco patch, which was bare of the crop just harvested. He kicked in the PTO in gear and to my amazement, tobacco stalks began to fly in every direction. Some were being hurled 20 feet in the air and scattered perfectly! It was a beautiful thing!

I have marveled over the years at how fast tobacco stalks decompose when scattered on the land. And over those years I heard people tell how tobacco stalks had brought a piece of worn out ground back to life. Many a gulley or ditch has been filled with tobacco stalks over time, and many a washed-out place has been saved by a load of well-placed tobacco stalks.

My appreciation of the lowly tobacco stalk runs deep. You might say we go back a long way.

Come to think of it, Ive been whipped or disciplined (Im making an attempt at political correctness here) with a tobacco stalk.

My father was a mild-mannered man, slow to anger. But when he thought one of his sons or daughter needed to be brought back in line, he would grab the nearest instrument he could find. In the tobacco barn that was a tobacco stalk or a tobacco stick. Ive been whipped with both. I prefer a tobacco stalk. If you have ever been on the wrong end of either one of them, you know why.

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Cache political parties unite to condemn yard sign thefts – Cache Valley Daily

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In a rare joint statement, the Democratic and Republican parties of Cache County have united to condemn a recent rash of stolen and vandalized campaign yard signs.

CACHE COUNTY Local Republicans and Democrats are uniting to condemn a recent rash of campaign yard signs being stolen from county residents homes.

Its one thing to disagree with someones candidate of choice, according to a joint statement released by GOP County Chairman Chris Booth and Danny Beus, chairman of the Cache Democrats. But it is never okay to disrespect and/or vandalize peoples private property by taking and/or destroying signs.

Lets continue to show everyone around us why Cache County is the best place to live, the statement continues. Be respectful, be civil, be kind and, most importantly, be ready to exercise your constitutional right and vote.

The vandalizing of political signage and campaign billboards is by no means strictly a Cache County problem. Similar incidents have been reported throughout Utah and across the country as the November general election approaches. Political scientists and psychologists are suggesting the trend is a form of silent protest by Americans who feel frustrated by their inability to openly express their views due to a climate of political correctness.

A recent national survey by the conservative Cato Institute found that selfcensorship is on the rise in the United States. Nearly two-thirds of Americans say the political climate these days prevents them from saying things they believe because others might find them offensive.

The share of Americans who selfcensor has increased since 2017 when 58% of Americans reported that they felt social pressure to conceal or downplay their political views.

The Cato survey found that worry about giving offense in face-to-face interactions was felt across the political spectrum. Nearly 77 percent of Republicans say they are reluctant to share their opinions, along with 59 percent of people who self-identify as independent voters and 52 percent of Democrats.

Only liberal ideologues appear to be immune to such social pressure. Regardless of their political affiliation, nearly 60 percent of staunch liberals say they feel free to unreservedly advocate for their opinions, especially via social media.

The perceived need to self-censor in public also crosses racial lines. The Cato survey found that nearly two-thirds of U.S. Latinos and Whites agreed that the current highly charged political atmosphere prevents them from expressing their true beliefs, along with 49 percent of African-Americans.

The obvious root of these concerns, experts suggest, is political polarization in America.

But Booth and Beus apparently needed no survey to reach that same conclusion.

It is no secret that our country is more divided now than in a very long time on numerous issues, they wrote. Cache County has been and should continue to be the standard (of public civility) for everyone else!

The findings of the Cato Institute were based on a survey of 2,000 Americans over 18 years of age polled during early July of this year.

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Cache political parties unite to condemn yard sign thefts - Cache Valley Daily

Republicans: The New Confederacy | by David W. Blight – The New York Review of Books

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Democracy works best when politics dont mirror the countrys deepest social divisions, and all sides can accept defeat and a transition of government. As Trump flags replace Confederate flags on truck caravans and at Republican rallies, we are about to experience a presidential contest, perhaps the first since 1860, when it is possible that millions on each side will not find defeat acceptable.

Democrats represent a coalition held together loosely by an ideology of inclusion, a commitment to active government, faith in humanistic and scientific expertise, and an abhorrence of what they perceive as the monstrous presidency of Donald J. Trump. Republicans, with notable defections, are a party held together by a commitment to tax reduction, corporate power, anti-abortion, white nationalism, and the sheer will for power. We are essentially two political tribes fighting a cold civil war that may determine whether or not our institutions can survive the strife fomented by a pandemic, a racial reckoning, an economic collapse, the death of a transcendent Supreme Court justice, and the reelection campaign of our homegrown authoritarian president.

How can this be the casenot in the dictatorships of Belarus, Hungary, Turkey, or Venezuela, but here in the US, during the 233rd year of the Constitution? The answers are historical and structural. A modern campaign of voter suppression conducted by one of our parties grows with warped intensity. Changing demographics and the 15 million new voters drawn into the electorate by Barack Obama in 2008 have scared the Republicansnow largely the white peoples partyinto fearing for their existence. With voter ID laws, reduced polling places and days, felon disfranchisement, voter roll purges, restrictions on mail-in voting, an evisceration of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, and a constant rant about voter fraud without evidence, Republicans have soiled our electoral system with undemocratic skullduggery. They are also frightened of the results of the 2018 midterm elections, when voter turnout favoring Democrats was 67 percent for ages 1829, and 58 percent for ages 3044. Nearly 30 percent of the electorate is now Black, Hispanic, Asian-American, or another ethnic minority. White nationalism and conservatism are colliding with the future. There is no Republican majority in America, except on election days. It all depends on who votes and who is allowed to vote.

President Trump frequently claims that the only way were going to lose is if the election is rigged. He also loves to milk cheers from his crowds by warning them to watch all the thieving and stealing and robbing of votes by Democrats. Every reasonably informed American knows that the only things rigged in this election are the Electoral College itself (in favor of less populated states that tend red), the decidedly undemocratic institution of the US Senate (a Republican majority represents a population smaller by 15 million than the Democrats), and the myriad ways the current administration has manipulated government agencies to influence voting.

The Republican Party has become a new kind of Confederacy. They are secessionists without taking the revolutionary step of seceding, power-obsessed rebels who fight to preserve a bygone America by gaming the system. They have managed to win the presidency twice without the most votes, maintain control of the Senate although vastly outnumbered in the national electorate, and build a majority on the Supreme Court by stealing an appointment that belonged to a sitting Democratic president.

According to the historian Stephanie McCurry in Confederate Reckoning (2010), the original Confederates of 1861 took perverse pride in being out of step with the modern world. One Southern minister saw the Confederate nation as a righteous minority of three hundred and fifty thousand white men commanding the labor of four million African slaves in the service of civilization. That nation faced colossal defeat four years later; a similar political fate may yet befall a Republican party unhinged by todays world.

This new Confederacy is partly regional and also rural (a declining population). It knows what it hates: the two coasts, diverse cities, marriage equality, certain kinds of feminism, political correctness (sometimes with reason), university elites, and liberals generally. It is racial and undemocratic. It twists American history to its own ends, substituting patriotism for scholarship and science. It has weaponized truth and rendered it oddly irrelevant. It has brought us almost to a new 1860, an election in which Americans voted for fundamentally different visions of a proslavery or an antislavery future. For now, this minority interest fights for its existence from within the union by trying to own it.

We cannot imagine the same violent result this time, even as we resolve to save our democracy from the grip of minority rule. But a preservation of our Union will not come from merely calling out moral hypocrisy, or wringing our hands over cynicism, or even from the power of numbers. Democracy has to be sustained by the same will to power that can destroy it.

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Republicans: The New Confederacy | by David W. Blight - The New York Review of Books

Standing firm in an age of weaponized information – The Christian Post

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By Wallace B. Henley, Exclusive Columnist Follow | Wednesday, October 14, 2020

The press is all in, in support of Biden, said Texas Senator Ted Cruz after the vice-presidential debate October 7.

That reality is an alert that the upcoming election is about much more than Donald Trump or Joe Biden but has serious implications for the nations long-term political and institutional freedoms.

Conservative candidates for public office must not only run against a human opponent, but also must withstand a massive left-oriented consensus establishment that weaponizes information.

Those who tell the stories rule society, said Plato centuries ago.

Whoever controls the media, the images, controls the culture, said Allen Ginsberg more recently.

Neil Postman, in his book, Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business(Penguin Books, 1985), argued that TV is turning all public life (education, religion, politics, journalism) into entertainment. The result is that image is undermining all forms of communication, particularly the written word.

Further, our bottomless appetite for TV is leading to an information glut so that what is truly meaningful is lost and we no longer care what weve lost as long as we are being amused, added Andrew Postman in his introduction to his fathers book.

Neil Postman reflected on Aldous Huxley and his dystopian book Brave New World. According to Postman, Huxley was telling us that people will come to adore the technologies that undo their capacities to think.

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Camille Paglia says Postman saw that the young would therefore inherit a frantically all-consuming culture of glitz, gossip, and greed.

The Consensus Establishment eagerly promotes such a culture.

The Bible foresees a time when people are easily led into lies and delusion by the spirit of antichrist. (2 Thessalonians 2) We seem to be living in such an age.

As I have noted in previous columns, the Consensus Establishment consists of five elites: Information, Entertainment, Academic, Political, and Corporate. In my book, Two Men From Babylon: Trump, Nebuchadnezzar, and the Lord of History (Thomas Nelson/Emanate, 2020), I have compared this powerful conglomerate to the Chaldeans of Babylon in Daniels day. Under Nebuchadnezzar they defined and enforced Babylonian political correctness.

Today the elites of the Consensus Establishment are in agreement among themselves about how reality works and what we should be influenced and even forced to think and believe.

Woe be to those who are threats to that mighty coalition of elites. To refuse to yield to their consensus is to be cancelled.

Political correctness has thus morphed into the cancel-culture beast. Rod Dreher has this in mind in his book, Live Not By Lies: A Manual for Christian Dissidents. (Sentinel, 2020). There he writes, I am not at liberty to thank some of those who helped me research this book, because it would put them at risk of retaliation in the workplace... None of these anonymous helpers live in the former Soviet bloc; all are Americans.

In a review of Drehers book in National Review, Daniel Flynn says that many Americans (already) cannot live out loud... because revealing oneself comes at great expense.

Dreher believes that we in the West are living already under decadent, pre-totalitarian conditions that make our society vulnerable to the totalitarian temptation to which both Russia and Germany succumbed in the previous century.

The bottom line: If Biden and Harris win in November, the left that dominates the Consensus Establishment will be in power in the United States for a long time, shaping the consensus through its powerful manipulative tools.

They will be able to perpetuate their worldview across generations, impacting not just the contemporary moment, but history itself.

We are thus living in a seriously dangerous moment. The left warns about an effort by Donald Trump to hold on to the presidency even if he loses the vote. But the American people must also keep a steady watch on the Consensus Establishment that will continue telling the stories

forming the accepted narrative and controlling the images.

Yet the answer is not for the church to lean more heavily on the right-wing. The passion for profit is as powerful as the progressivist forces that propel the left.

The only way to keep from being swept into these constricting, distorting worldviews is to focus beyond them, to Transcendent Truth.

Perhaps never has it been more important for the church to hold to the highest view of the Bibles inspiration and authority. The bottom line is that the leftward Consensus Establishment strives to direct our socio-cultural concepts away from scriptural foundations to their own value system and worldview.

The early church in first century Athens had to face elitist philosophers whose beguiling sophistries would have snuffed out the simplicity and purity of devotion to Christ. (2 Corinthians 11:1-3) In Rome, the infant church had to minister in a city and empire ruled over by mighty elites eager to take the cancel idea to its fullest expression in the Colosseum.

The Bible-based church must hold its ground in this present age. She must distinguish herself from a right-wing consensus that would too eagerly abandon principle for the sake of pragmatism, and a left-wing consensus that has turned from transcendent principle to secular progressivism and idealism.

The road ahead will be hard, and the church and the people who are its living stones (1 Peter 2:1-5) must take seriously Pauls admonition to stand firm against the mighty elites and their establishments. (Ephesians 6)

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Wallace Henley is a former pastor, White House and congressional aide, and author of more than 25 books. His newest is Two Men From Babylon: Nebuchadnezzar, Trump, and the Lord of History, published by Thomas Nelson.

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Standing firm in an age of weaponized information - The Christian Post

Letter: Jupiter and Saturn have an abundance of moons – Post Register

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For a little diversion, a friend of mine recently reminded me that the planet Jupiter has 79 moons. (And we need only one to brighten our nocturnal lives.) They range in size from larger than the planet Mercury to the size of a stadium. Also, Saturn has been found to have 52 moons, 29 of which are awaiting confirmation of their discovery.

These two guys have quite large families to keep in tow and following the right path through space. Jupiter and Saturn have been referred to as Jovian planets dont exactly know how they figured that out, optically, but they both certainly benefit from an uplifting attitude with a responsibility of such gravity. And we think the president has his problems.

A little jovial fathering is needed, here, to head them in the right direction. Political correctness aside. And, oh, I dont have a bachelors degree in gravitational mentoring from Berkeley.

Evan Tibbott

Rigby

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Letter: Jupiter and Saturn have an abundance of moons - Post Register

Two different views on Trump and what’s at stake in election – Iron Mountain Daily News

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EDITOR:

Weve recently been treated to fawning letters of praise for the current White House occupant. Pardon me if I dont get it. This man has mocked and humiliated a disabled person, reportedly wanted disabled vets excluded from his parades because nobody wants to see that. He has mocked the grief of Gold Star families, referred to POWs and dead soldiers as suckers and losers. (I prefer men who didnt have bone spurs.) This person has cheated on each of his three wives, cheated his contractors and employees, and cheated on his taxes. (His companions say he even cheats at golf, for Petes sake.) While demanding total loyalty from those about him, he himself is loyal to no one. On the world stage, does he represent the best that America has to offer? I think not. His devotees refer often to his having done so much for this country. Like what? There is not an area of our lives that is better today because of him. Unless, of course, one was very wealthy to begin with. Neither we nor the world are in a better place today because of him. Except maybe Kim Jong Un. And, of course, Vladimir Putin.

Donald lives in a fantasy world in which he can achieve his ends by pretending it is so. Many have chosen to join him there. I have not. We have 4% of the worlds population and 20% of all the worlds COVID-19 deaths. But its okay, you see, because he feels great, and its all going to go away. How can I suspend my disbelief when we know that he has lied to us over 25,000 times in four years? How can I forget that he kowtows to foreign dictators? It was after a chat with Turkish dictator Erdogan on his personal cellphone that he suddenly withdrew our troops from Syria with no notice to our Kurdish allies, leaving them alone to be slaughtered. What country would ever come to our aid if they cant trust us to keep our commitments? After being informed by our own as well as foreign intelligence sources that Putin was paying a bounty for American deaths in Afghanistan, Trump did nothing.

I want him out of office, along with all his enablers and sycophants. I have already voted and I encourage others also to make it emphatic. If at no other time in our lives, this year we must vote straight Democratic.

Lola Johnson

Kingsford

EDITOR:

Now that ex-CIA director John Brennans handwritten notes to President Barack Obama have been released, proving that Hillary Clinton hatched the Russian hoax against Donald Trump in order to cover up her own crimes of using a personal server and destroying subpoenaed evidence (obstruction of justice), how many voters still think the Democratic Party is for the right thing? Im praying that the scales will be lifted from your eyes and the truth will fill your minds and guide you.

Of course, syndicated media Deep State propaganda will spin it into a despicable crime perpetrated on Brennan, Obama, Clinton and, no less, Biden by the Republicans who will do anything to make Donald Trump the all-powerful dictator.

If you are a Democratic voter, not a politician, I pray you dont get angry at me for telling you the truth; rather, direct your anger at the cause of all the disinformation that has confused you into thinking that Donald Trump is the enemy. The real enemies here are the people who want to turn this country into a socialist disaster and take away all your rights, brainwash your children and eliminate God from our society, along with the middle class. Biden also opposed busing for school desegregation.

Remember Darth Vaders famous words, You underestimate the power of the Dark Side. Isnt it funny how science fiction becomes reality over time? If you vote Democrat in this election, you are actually voting for the communist party in disguise. If they win, they will pound political correctness down your throat until you puke, then softly and politely say, If you dont mind, could you please hand over your guns and Bible? Thank you. Kiss you on the cheek and stab you in the back.

Brian Rose

Crystal Falls

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Two different views on Trump and what's at stake in election - Iron Mountain Daily News

The Boys season finale: Victoria Neuman head exploder twist reveals the limits of the show’s nihilism. – Slate

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Now you AOC see her Amazon Prime

This article contains spoilers for the Season 2 finale of The Boys.

Watchers of The Boys got a real jolt of a reveal at the end of the shows second-season finale. Victoria Neuman, the truth-speaking young congresswoman played by Claudia Doumit, who had worked with the vigilante Boys in their efforts to bring down the evil Vought Enterprises, turns out to be a secret superhero. She also seems to be pretty evilshes the one responsible for all the disgusting random head explosions that have made the show so hard to watch this season. In fact, the terrible scene we were subjected to in Episode 7a Congressional hearing Neuman calls in order to bring Vought Industries to justice ends in a huge mess as the star witness and multiple attendees get their gourds squished by an invisible forcewas all Neumans doing.

Why did this surprise retain the power to jar and upset me, since Im generally a huge fan of what Slates Matthew Dessem has described as the shows deep and abiding misanthropy? Because Neuman is clearly an Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez analog. The comic-book series the shows drawn from had a character named Victor Neuman, but he was a dim-witted Vought exec turned politician, apparently inspired by George W. Bush. This Victoria Neuman is totally different. Shes a young woman of color (Doumit is Lebanese, Italian, and Australian). Shes plain-spoken, sharp, and brimming with charismaand just like AOC, Neuman knows her way around a statement lipstick.

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The show even gestures to the similarity explicitly in Episode 5, when Neuman convenes a rally outside Vought after the once-hidden fact that the company has been manufacturing a superhero serum goes public. Homelander (Antony Starr), the evilest superhero, drops in on the rally, paying Neuman a series of smarmy compliments. Didnt you love that little Walk Like an Egyptian dance she did online? he asks the crowd, a seeming reference to that time a video of AOC dancing adorably to Phoenixs Lisztomania on a rooftop in college went viral. So fun! I loved it! Homelander, an old-school sociopath deeply uncomfortable with the workings of online celebrity, did not in fact love itbut the crowd, full of people hoisting signs that say We love you, Victoria!, clearly did.

Not everyone is sold on Neuman, even before the big reveal. The Boys meet with Neuman at a mutual allys house to prepare for those hearings that end in blood. Their leader, Billy Butcher (Karl Urban), doesnt want to collaborate; he is, to put it politely, not a believer in electoral politics. Weve never had Congress on our side before, says the ally (Grace Mallory, ex-CIA, played by Laila Robbins), asking Butcher to play along. To which Butcher spits, in his classic brutal form: Congress? Please! What a bunch of corrupt fucking cunts they are! Neuman replies, casually: Youre not the first to call me a cunt, Mr. Butcher; Im starting to think its like a badge of honor. Rep. Ted Yoho called Ocasio-Cortez a fucking bitch on the Capitol steps in July of this year, so this cant have been an explicit connection since this season of the show was already in the can, but Ocasio-Cortez certainly gets enough abuse online to make the connection resonate.

Looking back at the times Neuman appeared this season, Im not sure why I didnt call this turn ahead of time. This particular show is not about to put its faith in a politician, no matter how apparently virtuous. The reveal that Victoria Neuman is a head-squishing supe works within the universe of The Boys, because nobody but the Boys (and maybe the good superhero, Starlight, and Grace Mallory) are allowed to have pure hearts. But this twist of the story makes me look twice at the shows nihilism, and wonder whether I want to be along for this particular ride.

When we find out shes a supe secretly working against the Boys, Victoria Neumans force of personalitythe leadership qualities that draw people to attend the rallies she convenes, toting signs that say Victoria Neuman, Political Badassbecomes instantly suspicious. Its just too reminiscent of online right-wingers making up fables about AOCs secret nature (Snopes.com has debunked conspiracy theories from AOC is an actress playing a congresswoman to AOC wants to ban motorcycles.) Clearly jealous of her youth and beauty, these real-life conspiracists insist shes too good to be true. I wish this show hadnt done the same.

Neumans nature isnt known to the Boys yet (just to the shows viewers), and the finale ends with Hughie (Jack Quaid), the most idealistic of all the vigilantes, joining up with Neumans campaign. Season 3 is supposed to start filming in early 2021, COVID willing. I suppose theres some room for a turnaroundmaybe well find out the congresswoman had reasons for busting the heads she busted. But Im not holding out much hope.

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The Boys season finale: Victoria Neuman head exploder twist reveals the limits of the show's nihilism. - Slate

The Second Season of The Boys Was Fueled by the Nihilism of Reality – The Ringer

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The penultimate episode of The Boys second season begins in unnerving fashion, even by the shows standards. A lonely young white man who lives at home with his mother is slowly enveloped, and radicalized, by the dangerous rhetoric spewed by the Vought Corporation superhero and newest member of the Seven, Stormfront. Over time, and with Stormfronts warnings of super-terrorists invading America from beyond our borders constantly booming from his phone and computer screens, the loner begins to suspect that his local bodega owner is one of these threats in hiding. (The owner is, of course, a person of color.) The tragic sequence culminates with the man shooting the innocent owner in the face.

While The Boys is a pessimistic thought exercise exploring what would happen if super-powered beings actually existed among usspoiler: yes, superheroes would absolutely abuse their powersthis particular moment, unfortunately, feels very much rooted in our current reality. As other on-screen superhero stories have confronted historical examples of fascismHYDRA, originally an experimental scientific branch of the Nazi Party, is a recurring antagonist in the Marvel Cinematic UniverseThe Boys portrays more contemporary racist ideologies. Modern fascism comes by way of social media, memes, and conspiracy theories.

Stormfront, a being who the second season reveals was originally created by Heinrich Himmler (a side effect of her powers is that she doesnt really age), is the evolution of the white supremacist rebrand in practice. Once a literal Nazi from Nazi Germany, she shaves part of her head, is undeniably crafty with her faux-feminist/anti-corporate messaging, and succinctly underlines her philosophy for recruiting people like the aforementioned loner. You cant win the whole country anymore, so stop trying, Stormfront tells Homelander, the shows sociopathic Superman/Captain America stand-in. You dont need 50 million people to love you, you need 5 million people fucking pissed. Anger sells. You have fans; I have soldiers.

That The Boys season finale, What I Know, premiered the day after the FBI uncovered a terrorist plot to kidnap Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer is further proof that, existence of superpowered humans wearing dorky costumes aside, the series has a firm grasp on how actual cults of personality are formed. Reality these days can be just as strange, and depraved, as fiction. (If the second season wasnt put together in 2019, Stormfront may well have given a shoutout to the same white supremacist group that the president told to stand by just two weeks ago; The Boys is rarely subtle.)

Viewers expecting a crass, irreverent take on superhero culturethe tone of Deadpool in the form of a TV seriescertainly wont be disappointed by The Boys, but Season 2 sure goes down with an un-Deadpool-like bitterness. Amazon Studios originally sent critics the entire second season in advance over the summer, so my enjoyment of the show was distilled in a few afternoons. But The Boys actual release modelafter the first three episodes premiered on September 4, Amazon went with a weekly rollouthas its pros and cons.

On the one hand, the series reaped the rewards of sustaining interest for weeks on end; its popularity is such that not only was The Boys renewed for a third season, but a spin-off about superpowered kids in college is also on the way. (Suggestion: Cast Nicholas Braun for all the Sky High heads out there.) On the other hand, stretching out this particular season into weekly morsels is asking fans to become gluttons for punishment. Even though her name was an obvious reference, Stormfront doesnt reveal her true nature until the end of the third episodeat which point, the show takes its time laying out the full extent of her awfulness (an ageless Nazi who, in a previous superhero iteration under the name Liberty, viciously murdered a young Black man). Its compelling, up to a point: Eventually, you just want to see Stormfront, like Ramsay Bolton on Game of Thrones, get her comeuppance.

To the credit of The Boys, What I Know does deliver a satisfying rebuke to, as many characters end up dubbing her, the Nazi bitch. After A-Train discovers the real reason why Stormfront doesnt want him back in the Sevenbecause hes Blackhe goes about stealing buried, classified documents of her Nazi past. With Hughie and Starlights help, Stormfronts real identity is leaked to the press, giving Vought another PR nightmare to deal with. (One of the many effects of the revelations of Stormfronts Nazi ties is that A-Train is let back into the Seven so the company can try and save face.) As for Stormfront, who confronts the Boys in the finale, she pivots very quickly from decrying the information as a deepfake to acknowledging that people like what she has to saythey just dont like the word Nazi.

And then, thankfully, she gets walloped. Queen Maeve, whos spent much of the series wallowing in self-pity, leads a Stormfront beatdown, joined by Starlight and Kimiko. The sequence is immensely cathartic and scored to the on-the-nose tune of Peaches Boys Want to Be Her. The Boys loves to take jabs at Marvelwhether intentional or not, three female heroes beating the crap out of a Nazi feels like the shows answer to Avengers: Endgames cringey and entirely unearned girl power moment. Stormfront eventually does her best Anakin Skywalker getting roasted on Mustafar impressioncourtesy of Homelanders superpowered son Ryan nailing her with his laser visionto cap off her arc. With all due respect to Aya Cash, who delivered an incredible performance, Id be fine if that was the last we ever see of her.

Season 2 was a transitional period for The Boys. After all, What I Know saves its biggest mic drop for last: Victoria Neuman, the representative reminiscent of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez whos been trying to hold Vought accountable for its actions, has powers herself. And not only that, shes the character responsible for the series of head-exploding assassinations this season. (Her final kill of the season was the leader of the shows equivalent of the Church of Scientology.)

While Neumans motivations arent entirely clear, it appears that Vought is covering all bases: Since the company cant stop the government from interfering in its nefarious plans, they might as well have a mole in charge of the newly established Office of Supe Affairs. If a Nazi becoming the most popular and social-media-savvy member of the Seven was The Boys appetizer, the shows main course looks like it will be Voughta conglomerate with shades of Disney and Lockheed Martin that turns a blind eye to fascists and murderers in its ranksvying for complete global domination.

Having a young representative in the mold of AOC secretly being a ruthless assassin who can explode heads with her mind is, uh, definitely in line with The Boys provocative sensibilities. But the finales Neuman twist also reaffirms what the show has hammered home from the very beginning: Whether its superheroes, celebrities, or politicians, you should always have a healthy dose of skepticism for authority figures and the institutions that put them on a pedestal. And if you ever find yourself confronted by a Nazi, punch them square in the face.

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The Second Season of The Boys Was Fueled by the Nihilism of Reality - The Ringer

How the Right Is Starting a Psychological War by Targeting the Old and Ageing – The Wire

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When Mahatma Gandhi was assassinated, he was a frail man, disappointed and also withdrawn from national politics. He was 78 years old, and one thought it was a travesty that a person who spoke tirelessly of non-violence all his life met a violent death. But it now looks it was not happenstance; almost 70 years later we are now witnessing a series of events that echo it.

It began with the murders of Govind Pansare, Narendra Dabholkar and Kalburgi all of them into their 70s, and more recently the arrest of Varavara Rao, and now Stan Swamy, both into their 80s. The silent but unmistakable ageism in the way the Right in India thinks will hold important clues to how they see life and the nihilism, and contempt for anyone considered vulnerable. What can explain the series of killings and arrests of octogenarians, and what could be the possible message that they wish to communicate?

From the left: Govind Pansare, Narendra Dabholkar, Varavara Rao and Stan Swamy. Credit: PTI

Predatory state

There seems to be a mix of factors as to how activists who are old, ageing and ailing seem to be picked up and made a spectacle of. It immediately communicates certain ruthlessness and recklessness. Varavara who was once known to be a powerful public speaker was struggling to find the right words and who was known to have an elephants memory failing to recognise his own family. All stress-induced symptoms also come with ageing. But repeated refusals to grant bail and machinations to keep him in prison are a clear message of seeing this as a fight to finish.

It symbolises a predatory culture where one can either be a victor or the vanquished. Targeting the old seems to bring a sense of doomsday where there is no escape for the rest if the old and ailing are not spared.

It seems to also resonate with the idea of a strong nation that has little space and patience for the unproductive bodies. It brings back the memories of Nazi rule that targeted not just the Jews but also the disabled White German kids and put them through the same gas chambers. It symbolises a kind of productivism of both the market and the nation. If one is not of use and not productive it is not immoral to dispense with them.

This, figuratively, seems to stand in opposition to the young and productive nation that is looking ahead. By default making a spectacle of the old and ageing seem to also signify that the values and ideologies they stood for are outdated and irrelevant. Shrinking bodies become the templates for conveying coded message of fading ideas and upend value system.

The recent video of Stan Swamy complaining of ailments and yet remaining steadfast for the values he stood for in fighting for the tribals can send a message of unflinching commitment, but it can also mean they are stretching themselves at a time when they needed to retire and spend time with grandkids, be contemplative and await the inevitable.

In Hindu philosophy, it signifies an age to move towards vanaprastha and sanyasa referring to giving up worldly pursuits. It goes with the symbolism of Prime Minister Narendra Modi meditating in the cave and taking a lonely walk between the election results and announcing 75 as a cut off year to hold administrative posts in state or central governments. He had moved the ageing leaders to a freshly minted Margadarshak Mandal.

The Right seems to believe that given the cultural codes of Hindu way of life, dispensing with the old will meet less protest and resistance from the society. It creates a scope for more fear and less resistance. The suffering they are being put through seems to be seen through the prism of a calculus of how many more years are really left and society would forgive and may be even forget the excesses more easily but the message of being ruthless and un-pardoning slowly seeps in.

Also read: Modi 2.0: A Coming-of-Age Drama for Majoritarianism and Authoritarianism

Political nihilism

While the arrests of young men brings a spirit of resistance that can inspire the society, incarcerating the old makes us more contemplative, look at the meaning and purpose of life, and we associate it less with action. It brings in a sense of nihilism, reminding us of the inevitability of death and futility of suffering. It reminds us of a time for other worldly pursuits as is poignantly reminded to us in the film Mukti Bhawan. In fact, in much of religious philosophy, death is Moksha, a kind of liberation for the corporeal self and body and is not something to grieve over, much less resist.

Ageing reminds us of a sense of loneliness that awaits us with a deep sense of vulnerability. It reminds us of the need to plan for ones safety and care and pursuit of collective interest and heroic activism can cost you not just your life but the bare needs necessary for an ageing body. It can have deep roots in psychology of creating innate insecurity; the Right consciously targets sites that harbour our latent and dark selves.

Psychoanalyst Sudhir Kakar notes how rumours of poisoned milk being sold are spread during communal riots as figuratively milk symbolises a primordial maternal security. It can arouse latent fears and insecurities and primordial instinct for violence. In killing and arresting the old and ageing, the Right is targeting a psychological warfare on its own society to disempower and silence it.

It is an empowering irony to watch and get inspired by the dadis of Shaheen Bagh where Bilkis Bano symbolises the new hope. Her age evokes happiness, love and mischief. It transcends social boundaries of religion and place. Time magazine listed her in 100 most influential people of 2020.

Shaheen Bagh, on one of the evenings in March. Photo: Rayees Amin

Life moves through dialectics, as the current regime looks at the underside of age, dadis of Shaheen Bagh are reminding us of what Mark Twain once famously said: Age is an issue of mind over matter, if you dont mind, it doesnt matter. Age brings the best of lighter side of life and reminds us of taking life with a pinch of salt and standing for causes well beyond ones immediate interest could possibly be the most meaningful way of living ones life. Collective resistance needs to upturn the cynical spectacle in resisting for and celebrating the lives of these ageing soldiers of salvation and emancipation.

Ajay Gudavarthyis an associate professor at the Centre for Political Studies, JNU.

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Can the GOP ever redeem itself? – The Week

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Democrats look well poised to beat President Trump and the Republican Party in this fall's election. There are some observers who hope that a good electoral thrashing will bring Republican leaders to their senses and cause them to steer a course away from the party's unofficial platform of revanchism, culture wars, and white identity politics toward a less-alarming path.

But defeat no matter how large or ignominious probably won't redeem the GOP, nor cure it of its Trumpist excesses.

A landslide victory for Democratic candidate Joe Biden "would turn the Trump era of nihilism, tribalism, and cruelty into a cautionary tale of extremism, illiberalism, and, above all, failure," Andrew Sullivan wrote last week. He added: "And a landslide is the only thing that can possibly, finally break the far right fever that has destroyed the GOP as a legitimate right-of-center political party, and turned it into a paranoid, media-driven, fact-free festival of fear and animus."

This might sound familiar. Sullivan made a similar case in 2007, arguing in The Atlantic for the candidacy of Barack Obama as a means of repudiating the Boomer-driven culture wars that had culminated in the multiple disasters Iraq, Hurricane Katrina, the Great Recession of George W. Bush's presidency.

"At its best, the Obama candidacy is about ending a war not so much the war in Iraq, which now has a momentum that will propel the occupation into the next decade but the war within America that has prevailed since Vietnam and that shows dangerous signs of intensifying, a nonviolent civil war that has crippled America at the very time the world needs it most," Sullivan wrote. "It is a war about war and about culture and about religion and about race. And in that war, Obama and Obama alone offers the possibility of a truce."

Obviously, that's not how things actually worked out.

Republican leaders did distance themselves from Bush, but Obama's landslide election victory sparked a backlash that ushered in the Tea Party, Glenn Beck's ugly heyday, GOP intransigence, and birtherism.

When Obama won big again in 2012, there was a moment when the party's leaders appeared ready to set a new course. The Republican National Committee produced a postmortem report that proclaimed voters perceived the party as belonging to "stuffy old men." The RNC vowed to plunge its resources into reaching out to minority voters. Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) eyeing a 2012 run for the presidency even took the lead on crafting a bipartisan immigration reform bill as part of an effort to soften the GOP's image.

The bill never gained traction. Conservatives bludgeoned Rubio for his perceived softness on immigration. Republican voters chose Donald Trump and his border wall in the 2016 primaries, despite the obvious agitation it caused the party establishment. But when Trump was elected, that establishment including Rubio fell in line.

So even if Trump loses the election by double-digit margins, as several recent polls have indicated he might, recent history doesn't augur Republican repentance. The party's Trump-loving base voters aren't going anywhere. Neither is Trump. It is doubtful he would follow the lead of his predecessors and recede into the background after leaving office instead we probably can expect a Mar-a-Lago tweetstorm to keep the former reality star in the spotlight and stirring up trouble for as long as he is able.

One big election defeat, or two, might not convince Republicans of the errors of their ways. It might take a generation of losses, of being deprived of power, to do the trick. Republicans were locked out of the White House for 20 years starting with Franklin Roosevelt's election in 1932, and only reclaimed office after Dwight Eisenhower a hugely popular war hero whom Democrats had also tried to woo as their candidate took office and governed as a post-New Deal moderate. Similarly, Democrats spent most of the post-Richard Nixon era in the wilderness, given a break only by the Watergate-driven election of Jimmy Carter, and getting relief only when Bill Clinton arrived on the scene in 1992 to steer the party toward the center.

Maybe this time will be different.

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Passenger’s ode to quarantine | The Current – The Current – The Student-Run Newspaper of Nova Southeastern University.

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In early July, singer-songwriter Passenger, known for his 2013 hit Let Her Go, released his new studio album titled Patchwork. Although this is his twelfth studio album, there is one major difference that Patchwork boasts: it was written and recorded almost entirely during the COVID-19 lockdown.

The album sets the tone from the beginning with Sword in the Stone, which immediately tells the listener that this is going to be a concept album about the pandemic. Just when you think that you have heard enough about it, the first song brings about the realization that we have survived a major historical event. Passenger sings about the pain and frustration we endured on the rollercoaster that was the early months of the pandemic. For many, this is still a reality. There is a sense of vulnerable honesty when he begins the song by asking how his darling is and then sharing the unbearably hard time he has been having.

Year on Year, Day by Day gives the listener a shoulder to lean on and the assurance that, in time, everything will be okay. Passenger walks the fine line between nihilism and stoicism near the end of the song, calling life a comedy show and how if you live longer than expected, the Queen gives you a medal. In the albums titular track Patchwork, apart from the cozy melody that gives any lullaby a run for its money, the song is a love letter to the tenacity of humankind and the real-life superhero ability that is being able to move on. Patchwork encourages the listener to look at everything weve built and to, metaphorically, sew another square onto our quilt.

Venice Canals is one of those songs that makes you actually go and learn something. The track speaks to the numerous natural wonders that had returned during the quarantine. The stars of Beijing, the birds of Times Square and the fish in the Venice Canals. During the lockdown, the waters of the Venice Canals were clear enough to see the fish. Passenger speaks to a beautiful silver lining in the wake of the global chaos that began in March. He sings dont get me wrong, this aint no happy song, meaning that the human world is still in ruins, but ironically, the natural world is flourishing when it was previously the other way around.

Queenstown is the track on the album most deserving of being a single, meaning its really good. If one looks deeper, under its comforting chord progressions and warm verses, you can see its not just about a good time in a town in New Zealand. This indie, playing-guitar-by-candlelight ballad is about the good memories with friends and family before we had to wear masks that hide our smiles, stay six feet apart, do away with hugs and put on hand sanitizer every time we go out. Its the type of nostalgia that brings more sadness than euphoria.

Swimming Upstream is a very refreshing upbeat song, providing a little motivation boost for those who need it. This song is for those who feel like no matter how hard they try, life just does not seem to be leading them anywhere. He relates it to swimming upstream and encourages listeners to keep swimming. Somebody You Loved is the only cover on the album, originally performed by Lewis Capaldi, but Passengers version does it just like you would expect him to: soft guitar picking, overlapping vocals and an artistic touch of electric guitar here and there.

The album ends with Summer Rain, which sums up the entire album in one song seemingly reinforcing the idea, in case the listener has not understood it yet. The pandemic was and continues to be horrible. It has caused massive financial suffering, moral debates, serious sickness, and in the worst cases, death.However, comfort can be found in the fact that it happened to everyone. In this divided time, if we cant relate to each other on anything, at least we can share and understand each others pain.

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Strong government response needed in COVID battle – Harvard Gazette

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A worldwide forum convened to share insights gleaned from the fight against the novel coronavirus highlighted the importance of a strong, coordinated government response as crucial to stopping its spread, both within a country and internationally.

It has never been more important for us than it is now to shoulder the responsibility to respond quickly and effectively to the threat posed to human lives and to the health of our communities, local, regional, national, and global, said Mark Elliott, vice provost for international affairs and the Mark Schwartz Professor of Chinese and Inner Asian History. Introducing Global Perspectives on COVID-19, which brought together medical and scientific participants from China, Italy, South Africa, and the U.S. on Wednesday, Elliott characterized the pandemic as a monumental public health crisis.

There is strong evidence, however, that it is a crisis that responds to lockdown. Zhong Nanshan, professor of respiratory medicine at Guangzhou Medical University, discussed the speed of containment in Wuhan, China, where COVID-19 was first documented on Dec. 7, its severity apparent by Jan. 20, and the city locked down by Jan. 23. The containment appeared to work, said Zhong, who is also director of the National Clinical Research Center for Respiratory Disease, as cases in China leveled out at approximately 80,000 by March 1. To date, they have increased by only about 10,000, which he attributed to imported cases.

Strong action by the central government is still the most effective way to block transmission, Zhong said. The next step, however, is the development of vaccines, he said, citing the urgent need for international collaboration.

Fabio Ciceri, scientific director of the San Raffaele Scientific Institute, said earlier interventions and the introduction of some important treatments in Northern Italy helped bring down mortality rates in the San Rafaelle hospital from 24 percent to less than 1 percent. As the country prepares for a possible second wave, perhaps as soon as December, he stressed the importance of early testing and tracing, networking between hospitals, and referrals to COVID-19 care hubs. These centers have new clinical trials with investigational treatments, as well as post-COVID-19 clinics, which follow up on long-term care and management of late and lingering symptoms, he said.

Salim Abdool Karim, director of the Centre for the AIDS Programme of Research in South Africa (CAPRISA) and member of the African Task Force on Coronavirus, Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC), said that in Africa the coronavirus has infected approximately 1.5 million people and killed more than 36,000, a fatality rate of approximately 2.4 percent. COVID-19 now appears to be in decline on the continent, though that could be from underreporting or under-testing in some of its countries, or the facts that Africas population skews significantly younger than Europe or North Americas, and fewer of its citizens travel internationally.

However, he too credited a coordinated government response with saving lives. Citing a strong and consistent political commitment by the African Union, he noted that Africa CDC quickly set up a platform for a coordinated response for supplies. We were not competing against each other for, say, test kits, he said. This coordinated response also engaged the public. Karim pointed to a tradition of working for the collective good, which Karim called the principle of ubuntu, translated as I am, because you are.

You are safe because I am safe, Karim said. Our collective interdependence is how well protect ourselves going forward.

George Q. Daley, Harvard Medical Schools dean of the faculty of medicine, noted how in its 10th month, the pandemic has passed a grim milestone of 1 million deaths. Vanquishing COVID-19 will depend critically on how we learn from each other and how we collaborate as a global biomedical community united against this common threat, he said. Meanwhile, Megan Murray, the Ronda Stryker and William Johnston Professor of Global Health at HMS, discussed the possibility of zoonosis, the leap of pathogens from animals to humans and how it has been enabled by climate change and magnified by climate migration and the mass displacement of marginalized people. As the natural environment is destroyed, we can expect to see more such disease, she said, which will disproportionately affect the poor. Epidemics expose the fault lines of our society.

Paul Farmer, Kolokotrones University Professor of Global Health and Social Medicine and chair of Harvard Medical Schools Department of Global Health and Social Medicine, wrapped up the conference with a look at what doesnt work: contact nihilism, in which governments give up tracing contacts, and clinical nihilism, in which they focus solely on containment and almost give up on treatment.

When you see claims that the treatment of a pathology in a pandemic is impossible, unfeasible, not cost effective, make sure youre not seeing clinical nihilism, he said. Theres always a gap between the development of a new therapeutic and its widespread distribution.

The forum was co-sponsored by Harvard Medical School and the Massachusetts Consortium on Pathogen Readiness (MassCPR) as part of Worldwide Week at Harvard.

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Strong government response needed in COVID battle - Harvard Gazette

Exposing the Fault Lines – Harvard Medical School

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This article is part of Harvard Medical Schoolscontinuing coverageof medicine, biomedical research, medical education and policy related to the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic and the disease COVID-19.

Nine months into the coronavirus pandemic that has now killed more than one million people, global health experts have gained a clearer understanding of what has to happen to successfully contain the disease and protect populations going forwardand its going to require close coordination and collaboration.

They shared those hard-won lessons recently at a special, virtual gathering of international scientists and clinicians hosted by Harvard.

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Conquering this contagion will depend on unraveling the biology of the virus, understanding the pathophysiology of the disease, and developing treatments and vaccines to halt its spread, said George Q. Daley, dean of Harvard Medical School, in his welcoming remarks at the online symposium, which focused on developing solutions to the global health crisis.

Vanquishing COVID-19 will depend critically on how we learn from each other and how we collaborate as a global biomedical community united against this common threat, he added.

Scientists from the HMS-ledMassachusetts Consortium on Pathogen Readiness(MassCPR)in Boston, and colleagues in China, Italy and South Africa convened via teleconference on Oct. 7 to examine the impact of and response to COVID-19 in some of the early pandemic hot spots and to share lessons learned from past epidemics.

The session was part ofWorldwide Week at Harvard, and it featured researchers and clinicians who have spent decades fighting some of the worlds deadly outbreaks of infectious disease.

Mark Elliott, vice provost for international affairs and the Mark Schwartz Professor of Chinese and Inner Asian History at Harvard, welcomed participants to the remote event, noting that MassCPR is a historic partnership benefitting people around the world as nations join to confront COVID-19s unprecedented threat to life, health and well-being.

In just 10 months, Daley said, the pathogen has exacted an extraordinary human tollnot only through a high mortality rate, widespread infection, and the severity of illness it has wrought but also through economic devastation and radical transformations in the way societies are socializing, working and learning.

To help put COVID-19 in context, Megan Murray,the Ronda Stryker and William Johnston Professor of Global Health in the Blavatnik Institute at Harvard Medical School and director of research atPartners In Health, shared a historical perspective from epidemics past and a current view of ongoing outbreaks.

Murray described several of the most catastrophic epidemics of infectious disease in the 20th and 21st centuries, including outbreaks of pneumonic plague among migrant hunters in Mongolia, Nipah virus among farmers and meat processing workers in Malaysia, and the ongoing series of Ebola outbreaks that have ravaged the Democratic Republic of Congo.

The common threads that bind these outbreaks, she said, are economic and ecological disruption, which put impoverished people with limited access to health care in direct contact with deadly pathogens.

Murray noted that it is not just novel pathogens that pose a particular risk: tuberculosis, like COVD-19, does not cause symptomatic disease in most of the people infected and thrives where people live in crowded conditions with poor ventilation, indoor air pollution and comorbidities of chronic diseases associated with poverty.

The lesson for the current coronavirus pandemic is that these social and environmental forces need to be taken into account when confronting an outbreak, she said.

Epidemics expose the fault lines of our society, and we cannot address them without seeing and trying to mend the fissures in our society, Murray said.

Awareness of the social, cultural and political context of the disease outbreak is an important element in the way the pandemic plays out around the globe, both in terms of how the illness is transmitted and in terms of how it is treated and controlled, noted Paul Farmer, the Kolokotrones University Professor of Global Health and Social Medicine, head of the department of global health and social medicine at HMS, and co-founder of Partners In Health.

We need to look at pathogens, of course, which have different modes of transmission, he said. We also need to understand pathogenic forces that drive transmission in overcrowded hospitals and meat packing plants.

Farmer said that two key takeaways from his decades of experience confronting tuberculosis, HIV, Ebola and other pandemics around the world is that the global medical community needs to understand two deadly concepts: treatment nihilism and containment nihilism.

Treatment nihilism occurs when someone says its not feasible or sustainable to treat someone for a particular disease, typically people who are poor or in rural areas facing complex diseases, Farmer said. It explains why so many Ebola treatment units did not offer any treatment for people with Ebola in the 2014-2016 outbreak in West Africa. Containment nihilism is when someone says its too challenging or too late to control the spread of a disease.

COVID-19 case studies from China, Italy and South Africa highlighted during the symposium demonstrated the critical importance of ramping up treatment capacity while also controlling the transmission of the disease through social distancing, mask wearing and eliminating large gatherings.

In the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States, however, Farmer said there have been early and ongoing declarations from government leaders at the local and national level that it was too late or too challenging to contain the disease or do contact tracing.

This was a key element in the substantial failure at disease control in the U.S., he said.

In April, people had already given up on contact tracing, Farmer said.

At that time, Partners In Health was contracted by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts to provide assistance with contact tracing and social support to help individuals who were exposed or infected and were in isolation or quarantine.

Farmer said he believed that the expanded contact tracing effort Harvard and PIH were able to support likely played a role in helping Massachusetts maintain infection rates at lower levels than in many other states which were experiencing a rise in infection rates.

With COVID-19 now hitting the White House, Farmer said, there is no sign of any contact tracing being done to follow the spread of the outbreak into the communities of Washington, D.C., and beyond.

This is a real problem, since experience has shown us that contact tracing should play a role in curbing the pandemic, Farmer said.

Nanshan Zhong, professor of respiratory medicine at Guangzhou Medical University and director of the Chinese National Clinical Research Center for Respiratory Disease, was introduced by Daley as the legendary physician-scientist who discovered the first SARS virus and who has led the Chinese response to both SARS and SARS-CoV-2.

Zhong detailed the early response and evolving dynamics of the infection in China, describing the rapid recognition, characterization and response to the novel coronavirus when it first emerged in Wuhan.

The first cluster of pneumonia was reported Dec. 27, 2019, and by early January 2020, Chinese scientists had already sequenced the genome of the virus, sharing the information with the World Health Organization by Jan. 12, he said.

Following a rapid, thorough investigation of the outbreak, Zhong said the team on the ground in Wuhan reported definite human-to-human transmission and confirmed, within weeks of the first known cases, that medical staff there had been infected while treating people with the virus.

By Jan. 23, Wuhan was under lockdown; the government was providing real time announcements of the number of patients affected, and it was implementing a program of early diagnosis, early isolation and early treatment.

The Chinese government also issued orders for compulsory social distancing, mask wearing and travel restrictions in an effort to quickly contain the disease, he said, and it swiftly constructed 16 hospitals within 19 days that added 13,000 hospital beds to the local capacity, rapidly filling 12,000 of those beds.

That speedy response to contain and treat the disease helped drive a prompt decrease in cases, he said. Within two weeks of the shutdown order, Zhong said, the outbreak reached its peak. Within four weeks, he said, the outbreak was basically under control.

Since then, the outbreak has remained quite stable inside China, with low levels of infection, Zhong said. The total number of reported cases in China was 80,000 by March 1 and was just over 91,000 as of Oct. 5. The 11,000 cases reported since March 1 includes 3,000 cases brought into China by visitors from outside the country, Zhong said.

Because of the countrys swift, coordinated action, China was able to reduce infections and illness and reopen the economy sooner, Zhong said. Going forward, he added, a strategy of prevention remains crucial until vaccines can be brought online.

Herd immunity through natural infection would likely result in 30 million additional deaths, he noted. Meanwhile, even with a dozen vaccines already in various phases of the clinical trial process around the world, it will likely take 1-2 years, even with global collaboration, for vaccines to be widely available to the general public, he said.

Strong, coordinated action by central governments to help block transmission routes at the community level is still the most effective means for disease control, Zhong said.

There is also an urgent need for close international collaboration in tracing sources of new outbreaks, developing targeted treatment and finding effective vaccines, he said.

Salim Abdool Karim, professor of global health at Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health and adjunct professor of immunology and infectious diseases at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, said that, to date, Africa has seen many fewer cases and deaths from COVID-19 than expected, with 1.5 million cases and 36,000 deaths for the entire continent.

So far, the disease has been particularly concentrated in just a few African countries. South Africa alone represents nearly 40 percent of cases, with five nations on the continent accounting for two-thirds of all cases in Africa, he said,

He noted that while many African countries lack sufficient testing and reporting capabilities to gain a completely accurate picture of the spread of the virus on the continent, hospital surveillance confirms that there has not been a great increase in severe cases of respiratory disease there.

There is still no definitive evidence to explain why Africa has been less severely impacted than other regions, he said, but Karim noted that many suspect it may be related to Africas youth dividend, referring to the fact that Africa has a much younger population on average than other places that have seen higher rates of infection and severe disease.

Other possible explanations include the fact that there seem to have been few initial cases seeded before international and local travel were limited by early lockdowns, said Karim, a member of the Africa Task Force for Novel Coronavirus of the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

He also noted that there has been a strong, consistent commitment among the nations of the African union to control the outbreak, with strong guidance and a coordinated response led by the recently created Africa CDC. That included bulk procurement of testing supplies and personal protective equipment and early adoption of mask wearing and social distancing.

South Africa had some of the first reported cases on the continent in early March, but instead of seeing a rapid spike, the country was able to quickly get the outbreak under control following a rapid declaration of a national state of disaster and a highly restrictive shutdown, he said.

The early flattening of the curve brought a great deal of economic hardship, according to Karim, but the rapid shutdown bought the health system the time that it needed before cases surged.

If the peak had occurred in April, we would have had lots of death because we were simply not prepared, Karim said. Pushing the peak back allowed us to prepare.

South African health officials opened field hospitals with hundreds of ICU beds, and the government redirected industrial oxygen to medical purposes. Building on experience from nations that faced the surge earlier, physicians there replaced mechanical ventilation with less invasive means of delivering oxygen to patients in respiratory distress.

One important element of African efforts to control spread of the virus was a shift of responsibility from government control to individual engagement, Karim said.

We knew he had to pivot away from government action quickly so that people could take agency, he said.

The early emphasis on shutdowns and travel restrictions was replaced with an emphasis on mask wearing, social distance and hand hygiene. Education and awareness efforts focused on the individuals shared responsibility to their fellow community members.

The message was, If you don't follow the rules, you put everyone at risk, Karim said, drawing on the concept of ubuntu, a paradigm and social norm instilled by former South African President Nelson Mandela in much of South African society, Karim said.

Ubuntu holds I am safe, because you are safe, he said.

Our collective interdependence is the basis on which we will protect ourselves going forward, he said.

One other key concept is perseverance, he said. With the relaxation of restrictions, the levels of infection have begun to climb slowly, but Karim emphasized that the countrys efforts will not be over even when COVID-19 is under control.

Were not looking at it as a sprint, as we did in March, he said. Now were looking at it as a marathon.

We've seen other epidemics, and we will see more, he said. We recognize that we're going to have to deal with this for a long time. This is not something that is just going to go away.

Fabio Ciceri,scientific director of the San Raffaele Scientific Institute and professor of hematology at Vita-Salute San Raffaele University in Milan, shared his insights from the early days of the pandemic in northern Italy and its evolving nature there today.

When COVID-19 hit northern Italy, the novel coronavirus was still almost completely unknown, he said.

We were the first country in Europe touched by the wave, Ciceri said.

Centrally coordinated regional and national responses helped get the outbreak under control relatively rapidly, he said, with national shutdowns and care coordination that focused 80 percent of national health care resources on beating back the novel coronavirus.

Even in the early days of the outbreak, Ciceri said, his team made an extra effort to collect biological samples and clinical data to be used for important research activities, with scientists carefully analyzing the results of numerous potential treatments and enrolling many patients in clinical trials.

These early efforts to incorporate research into care delivery are now providing Italys scientists with the raw materials necessary to power biological studies of the viruss pathology and detail the immune systems response to the infection. Ciceri said this approach helped Italy rapidly lower mortality rates in the early surge.

As clinicians developed new protocols for rapid, aggressive early intervention in potentially serious cases, fewer patients needed to be admitted to hospitals, fewer of those who were admitted needed intensive care, and fewer patients died, he said. Mortality rates for those admitted dropped from 25 percent to 2 percent, he said.

Going forward, Italy has increased early testing and contact tracing of new positive cases and built connections between hospitals across the country to share experience and care, focusing on early interventions for patients with symptomatic disease and referrals to special COVID-19 hubs for patients who might benefit from new treatments and investigational trials.

Daley said the advance warning and the generous flow of clinical and scientific knowledge from colleagues in China and northern Italy was of incalculable value.

They provided us with ample warning about the hurricane headed our way, enabling us here in New England to prepare for the surge and avert catastrophic overload of our hospital systems, Daley said.

Unfortunately, he said, the U.S. failed to mount a coordinated national effort and some parts of our country did not heed the early warnings from abroadchoosing instead to ignore the very public health measures that had worked to ultimately bring the explosive virus under control in the early epicenters of the pandemic. To this day the U.S. continues to struggle to contain the virus, and the death toll continues to mount.

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Op-Ed: How Black people maintain hope and why that’s so important – Los Angeles Times

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Well, here we are again. With the most consequential presidential election in modern times approaching faster than anybody wants it to, and with the richest and most powerful country in the world threatening to collapse under the weight of its worst and most undemocratic impulses, Black peoples reenergized fight for equality could potentially pull America back from the abyss.

In the midst of moral chaos, the fight to validate Black lives once again requires the nation to examine its own ideals in order to definitively answer the age-old question: What kind of a country are we?

Not so long ago we had a stock answer: We are a country that stands for truth, justice and the pursuit of liberty for all. All political parties Democratic, Republican, Libertarian claimed these principles as their guiding lights; not to embrace them was heresy, or at least political suicide. Of course there were always huge gaps between the stated goals and reality, and Black people have lived in those gaps for all of our time in this country. Still, the broad public agreement on the importance of the ideals meant something actually, its meant everything.

Black people have hope only because of these ideals, because of the ongoing possibility that they might be fulfilled. Its an incredibly tenuous thing to hang a whole future on, but we do it, generation after generation.

We do it understanding that hope is not calm or static. Hope is vigilance, and it is also fury. You have to have hope for a just America in order to feel betrayed by the unjust one. It is a keen sense of betrayal (not nihilism, as conservatives claim) that has been animating this years street protests and calls for police reform. Black hope today is less patient. In 2020, the demand is that the long arc of the moral universe bend now.

Since May, many white people who have joined the police protests and adopted antiracist views have embraced that impatience as their own, as American. But can they really move an unjust system off its foundation?

For many whites, the ideals of democracy are noble and essential so long as the caste system is not seriously disrupted. This was Howard Zinns point in A Peoples History of the United States, that real revolution is almost never successful because the American hierarchy, built on color first and wealth second, is too entrenched, too beneficial to too many to be easily dismantled. In Zinns view, its the hierarchy, not the journey to justice, that largely defines us.

I think very uneasily about the 40-odd percent of Americans unnervingly loyal to President Trump. Its abundantly clear at this point that he is the total antithesis of anything resembling American ideals, the worst white man out there and his followers dont care! Their ideal America has nothing to do with equality and justice for all, and theyre fine with that. Theyre even proud of it.

Trumps role has been to make acceptable a pride in inequality that since the 1960s has had to be kept secret. Now it is cheered at televised rallies, where attendees boo protesters as unpatriotic and stand up for the Confederacy like a wronged family member.

This is what terrifies anyone not in the Trump camp, that these other white people will not be moved or shamed by appeals of change and justice, or worse, that these 40-percenters are, objectively speaking, the real Americans.

Its easy to condemn Trump for dragging down the country, but there would be no Donald Trump were it not for these 40-percenters who have always been open to his message. His naked white fury is a projection of them, not the other way around, and they like what they see.

What can we do about this America? Thats the real question thats been hanging over the country the last four years, the one that must be answered. The strategy of conscientious white folks seems to be simply trying to appeal to everybodys better angels, which Democrats essentially did during their convention in August. Its a strategy doomed to fail. You can be antiracist all day long, but if you cant call out other white folk for their racism because theyre friends or family, or because you think they actually have a point then little will change.

As usual, Black people saw it all coming, from 40,000 feet up, saw it the heady moment Barack Obama got elected the first time, when Republicans declared in the aftermath of the inauguration, before Obama had done anything of note, that their goal would be to make him a one-term president. Anti-Obama-ism a code for anti-Blackness quickly took root and in eight years totally remade the Republican Party, or revealed what it always was.

It was in this shift that Trump found his footing, and the new GOP base found a figurehead. Black people understand that at any given time in history, a good percentage of white people are wedded to anti-Blackness, in one way or another; we always hoped that the percentage in the body politic, like a viral load, would stay below a certain number.

Today, the percentage has hit a dangerous level. The best-case scenario is that the percentage of fair-minded white people and fair-minded people of all colors has risen at the same rate, and that their numbers are enough to soundly defeat Trump at the polls in November.

Even if this is case, the way forward will not be easy. A brewing clash of ideals has already turned violent with the appearance of armed white militias helping the police quell protests and defending property from alleged rioters, with Trump not so subtly urging them on.

At the heart of this latest battle of Who We Are, still at the bottom of the hierarchy but leading the elusive way forward, are Black people and their quest for the country of ideals that America must be. This time the quest isnt symbolic or abstract, or largely limited to Black folks; we all need to finally get there.

Erin Aubry Kaplan is a contributing writer to Opinion.

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Op-Ed: How Black people maintain hope and why that's so important - Los Angeles Times