51 years ago, Bobby Kennedy urgently asked the right question, "How can we possibly survive five more years of Lyndon Johnson?"
As a child of Cuban refugees, who were not fans of the Kennedys, my parents didn't shed a tear when JFK and Bobby were assassinated. It was only later in life that I came to read more about Bobby and grew to respect him as a flawed man, who after a great deal of soul-searching, truly did want to heal the racial divides.
1968 was a tough year for inner city Boston children. This Latina will never forget the palpable fear as we rushed me home from school to get off the violent streets. The playgrounds were ruled by the drug dealers and gangs. We weren't lucky enough to have a private backyard, so we played floor hockey on linoleum floors with rulers and a large cleaner cap for our puck. We didn't live in fear so much as we accepted it as part of our lives.
After MLK and Bobby's assassinations, there was a sense among many that hope was dying, too. Then, Nixon and his toxic Southern Strategy polluted our country even more and more hope died out.
But, it's too easy to heap all blame on the racist Nixon.
Noted historian and biographer, Doris Kearns Goodwin, was a White House fellow with a front row seat to the divided legacy of President Lyndon B. Johnson left behind.
"On the brutal day in November 1963 when Johnson assumed the presidency, he knew exactly where he wanted to take the country in domestic affairs and he had a working idea of how to get there: “I’m going to get Kennedy’s tax cut out of the Senate Finance Committee, and we’re going to get this economy humming again. Then I’m going to pass Kennedy’s civil-rights bill, which has been hung up too long in the Congress. And I’m going to pass it without changing a comma or a single word. After that we’ll pass legislation that allows everyone anywhere in the country to vote, with all the barriers down. And that’s not all. We’re going to get a law that says every boy and girl in this country, no matter how poor, or the color of their skin, or the region they come from, is going to be able to get all the education they can take by loan, scholarship, or grant, right from the federal government. And I aim to pass Harry Truman’s medical-insurance bill that got nowhere before.
Within two years of his taking the presidential oath, every single one of these goals had been achieved.
Yet, as the terrain shifted from the domestic policies of the Great Society to the war in Vietnam, Johnson demonstrated an epic failure of leadership that would compromise his credibility, forever scar his legacy, and nearly tear the country apart.
A majority of people came to believe that he had systematically misled them. This lack of trust forced his hand. He made the decision in 1968 not to run again. When he left office, he knew that the war had split his legacy in two. The four years left to him were more bitter than sweet, as I was there to witness.
www.theatlantic.com/..."
It is no secret Bobby Kennedy and LBJ disliked each other. However, as the country began tearing itself apart over Vietnam and race, Bobby was certainly not gleefully celebrating LBJ's downfall. Nor did he originally plan a primary challenge. Key Kennedy family and friends were opposed to Bobby mounting a campaign.
As Vietnam began to spiral even more out of control with the Tet Offensive, Bobby grappled with how to respond to the many pleas for help that poured into him.
After the Johnson administration largely dismissed the findings of the Kerner Commission which had reported "white racism" was the root cause for much of the violence and unrest, Bobby famously turned to long-time Kennedy advisor, friend and advisor, Arthur Schlesinger Jr, and posed his fateful question,
"How can we possibly survive five more years of Lyndon Johnson?"
51 years later, the question is "How can we possibly survive five more years of...Donald Trump?"
Donald Trump's epic failure of leadership has compromised what little credibility he had at the start of his first term. His words, actions and policies are tearing the country apart. Yes, LBJ championed Civil Rights while Trump tramples them daily. Yet, we can't and shouldn't shy away from the fact both Presidents refused to accept or act on their own hired experts' conclusions that "white racism" is to blame for much of the violence and unrest.
51 years later, the country is being torn apart along racial lines, and the press, pundits and politicians are reacting like business as usual.
Violent hate crimes have risen for 3 straights years.
Children are caged and dying.
The President is painting a target on brown and black's backs.
White racists are more empowered than ever before and shedding more blood.
Little children sit crying on a street corner, abandoned and homeless, after ICE attacks their brown parents, while letting white employers off free to see to their own white children.
Congressional Democrats deliver "fiery" speeches denouncing Trump as unfit, a menace, then scatter fretting over whether to impeach or not. They simply aren't treating Trump, his horrific policies and the growing violence as a REAL national emergency requiring urgent action.
Nearly all Democrats candidates spent the week smiling, laughing and barnstorming the Iowa State Fair while the blood wasn't even dry on the streets of one of the worst massacre of Latinos. This Latina thanks them for their thoughts and prayers, but I want action.
The Parkland survivors and March for Our Lives chapters are taking action, yet again. They’re organize protests and boycotts of Walmart in an attempt to shut down their gun sales.
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Julián Castro took action by sending a direct message to the racist’n chief.
I don't know if Beto O'Rourke can ever come close to living up to his namesake, Robert Francis, who was also changed by a great tragedy that hit close to home.
But, today I sincerely believe Beto is really out of fucks to give about polls, focus groups, the race, the campaign, all of it. Like Bobby, his soul is crying for those who have been denigrated and demeaned, and shot down.
"Mr. O’Rourke said he had begun to think of the campaign differently after being asked last week whether he would break away from his grieving city to attend the Iowa State Fair, a traditional stop on the presidential trail. He chose to skip the fair, and on Wednesday said he felt that kind of campaigning did not match the political moment.
I don’t know that I’ve been doing a good enough job to match that threat with the urgency and the honesty and the clarity that it deserves,” Mr. O’Rourke said. “Being with those who have been denigrated and demeaned is more important than it has ever been.
In his speech, Mr. O’Rourke said he saw that the country’s shared institutions, including Congress and the press, had been “impotent in the face of the greatest threat that we have ever known,” raising the burden on individual people to take on social challenges like gun violence and xenophobia."
www.nytimes.com/…
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We must all find our inner Bobby today and with a real sense of urgency ask each other and the country,
"How can we possibly survive five more years of Donald Trump?"