The photo at the top of this page is another of the many shots that I took during my December 5, 2016 visit to the National Museum of African American History and Culture. It features three black leaders who fought post-Reconstruction Jim Crow between 1880 and 1960: Ida B. Wells, Booker T. Washington, and W.E.B. Du Bois. All three were fearless (not to be confused with reckless) public intellectuals who published, spoke, and agitated against post-Reconstruction racism and for the uplift of African Americans during a time of unchecked racial discrimination and deadly anti-black vigilante violence.
Today, while MSM media obsesses over President Biden’s age and ignores the convicted felon’s demented megalomania, America’s theofascist movement is taking off its threadbare mask of public civility. The RW political rapists such as the CEO of the Heritage Foundation and the Project 2025 gang are telling their intended rape victim (“the left”) to “keep still and nobody gets hurt.” This message is straight-up gangster/Mafia talk. It’s a criminal protection racket designed to play upon our fears and lead us to submit silently to the continuing assault on our freedoms and American democracy.
It’s time for us to put our clutching pearls back in the jewelry box and realize that the so-called “victory” over democracy that is being celebrated by the MAGA right has presented us with an opportunity to practice political jujitsu; IOW, help the theofascists defeat themselves through their own hubris. What MSM and too many Biden supporters have missed is that Mango Mussolini got no bounce in the polls from the June 27th debate debacle. The voters who were interviewed on TV after the “debate” took note of the convicted felon’s demented clown act as well as President Biden’s stumbling performance. Also, the rogue SCOTUS’s latest decision that claims “total immunity” for the President for “official acts” left it up to lower-court federal judges to figure out what constitutes “official acts.” Judges Chutkan and Engoron will take that loophole and run with it, even if their decisions are appealed. For his part, President Biden is already picking himself up by owning his debate fail and returning to the fight with renewed vigor.
The MAGA right, in its premature exuberance, has forgotten one important lesson from US and world history: Never count your chickens before they hatch. Meanwhile, we who believe in freedom and democracy have temporarily lost sight of the reality that “A setback is a setup for a comeback.” (quote by Dr. T.D. Jakes)
Our RW adversaries have shown their ability to come roaring back from political setbacks since LBJ defeated Barry Goldwater in 1964. It’s time that we learned that lesson as well. For our part, we can do the following:
- GOTV to reelect President Biden and give the Democrats working majorities in both houses of Congress (we finally get House Speaker Hakeem Jeffries in name as well as in fact).
- Lobby the upcoming Democrat-controlled House to impeach and remove from office the SC’s two most corrupt justices: Thomas and Alito (Section 1, Article III of the US Constitution states that “The Judges, both of the supreme and inferior Courts, shall hold their Offices during good behavior…”). [emphasis added]
- Lobby the upcoming Democrat-controlled Congress to pass legislation that (1) amends the Insurrection Act to exempt nonviolent mass protests; (2) rescinds the Comstock Act; (3) imposes the code of ethics followed by lower-court federal judges on SC justices; and (4) codifies all of the constitutional rights and environmental protections that have been achieved since the end of the Civil War.
- Push for DC statehood so that an additional Democratic congressperson and two additional Democratic senators can be seated in Congress (further reinforcing Democratic House and Senate majorities and giving DC’s taxpaying residents voting representation in Congress for the first time in US history).
It’s a perilous time for us all. But it’s also a great time to finish the social and economic transformation of American society that Brown v Board of Education began in 1954.
Crisis and Opportunity are meeting right now in our lives. Are we ready to seize the time?