“Never before have American voters, in their wisdom, produced a result so likely to end in disaster.” The Toronto Star Nov. 9, 2016
The other two thirds of the electorate recoiled in fear, anger, distrust and disgust at the billionaire who they felt was not even remotely qualified to sit in the Oval Office.
Donald Trump’s election success set off a wave of one-line headlines around the world. America's headlines used phrases like "Stunning Defeat or Trump Surges To Win" in the major dailies. In Alabama, Huntsville and Birmingham papers shared this embarrassing headline boo boo: "MADAM PRESIDENT".
Outside the US, headlines were more colorful. Australia’s Daily Telegraph read “W.T.F.” Australia's The Newcastle Herald printed a plea for “HELP” while Mexico’s El Gráfico headline, "F****CK!", reflected the dismay of a country who had endured Trump's slurs during the campaign. France’s Libération had a scary photo of Trump on the cover, and the headline “American Psycho.” Perhaps the nastiest magazine cover was by Germany's Der Spiegel, which used no words at all.
Of course, numerous publications were not so harsh, and some downright friendly. The UK's Metro headline read "Yes, The Wall Will Be Built" while Jamaica's Observer proclaimed "Hillary Trumped!
 |
| The New Zealand Herald |
 | |
| Le Rezon (Spain) The Populist States of America |
No doubt, my reactions, (shock, then anger and finally depression) were shared by the 3 million people who voted for Clinton, which comprised a clear majority of the electorate. And Trump's lame Inauguration Day, featuring B class entertainment and skimpy crowds, certainly failed to inspire me.
However, the next day, I was elated to see millions of people from all over the world who took to the streets to yell, sing, hoist signs, and stab the sky with their middle fingers to salute the new President.
And they haven't stopped marching since. That link shows how the protests evolved in reaction to a long list of bad behavior and bad policies that have occured in the last year. (Since I have dealt with this at some length in my posting and since all Americans have watched wall to wall coverage of all things Trump, I will not dwell on the subject today.
There are two very bright silver linings which have emerged from the Trumpian cloud these days. One is the emergence of an awakened public who are knee deep in participatory democracy. It is a movement called The Resistance. The other is a new found Mojo in newspapers and cable news. They are two of the great ironies of this presidency-- that many things Trump fights against end up doing well.
These are boom times for the anti-Trump industrial complex and the news it generates. Fundraising is through the roof for organizations that hadn't been relevant since the Clinton presidency; the grass roots have never been greener for activist groups. And young Americans have joined their elders to protect and reenergize the pillars of democracy, much like the 6o's movements a lifetime ago. "I wouldn't choose to have him as president," said Ben Wikler, the Washington director at MoveOn.org. "But there's a chance that he ends up really helping the progressive cause by banding everyone together . . . if we can stop some of his worst impulses first.
Here is a breakdown of some of the organizations and people involved in The Resistance umbrella:
The Need To Impeach (click here) is headed up by Tom Seyers, the deep pocketed fella that has financed the daily ads that you see on TV. He supports a petition asking Congress to impeach Trump. He has 5 million signatures as I go to press. Trump may tweet #FAKE PETITION!, of course.
Resist is a 50 year old organization (click here) that provides grants to grassroots activist organizations around the country, Resist has broadened in scope since its inception to include issues of environmentalism, the rights of women, prisoners, undocumented immigrants, the LGBTQ community and a number of Black community groups--all on Trump's s***t list. They have an international reach that involves a broad range of activities in support of farmers, environmentalists and humanitarian activists.
The Indivisible Organization (click here) Their Mission statement is "to fuel a progressive grassroots network of local groups to resist the Trump Agenda. Across the nation, over 6,000 local groups (at least 2 in every congressional district) are using the Indivisible Guide to hold their members of Congress accountable." The group admits to using tactics that worked so well for The Tea Party Republicans. To that end, they use local strategies to target individual congressional members at town halls, public events,district offices and telephone blitz campaigns.
Common Dreams News Organization, often referred to simply as Common Dreams, is a 501(c)3 nonprofit U.S.-based progressive news website. According to Wikipedia, Common Dreams
publishes news stories, editorials and a newswire of current breaking news. Common Dreams also re-publishes relevant content from numerous other sources such as the Associated Press and writers such as Robert Reich and Molly Ivins. The website also provides links to other relevant columnists, periodicals, radio outlets, news services, and websites.
From Wikipedia: The Women's March on
Washington was a January 21 protest in Washington, D.C. that attracted about
597,000 people to Independence Ave & Third St. to protest Donald Trump's
first full day in office. Simultaneous protests drew large crowds across all 50
US states, and on all seven continents. There was an estimated 3.3 to
4.6 million people involved in the march across the country, making it the
largest protest in United States history.
There are two very bright silver linings which have emerged from the Trumpian cloud these days. One is the emergence of an awakened public who are knee deep in participatory democracy. It is a movement called The Resistance. The other is a new found Mojo in newspapers and cable news. They are two of the great ironies of this presidency-- that many things Trump fights against end up doing well.
These are boom times for the anti-Trump industrial complex and the news it generates. Fundraising is through the roof for organizations that hadn't been relevant since the Clinton presidency; the grass roots have never been greener for activist groups. And young Americans have joined their elders to protect and reenergize the pillars of democracy, much like the 6o's movements a lifetime ago. "I wouldn't choose to have him as president," said Ben Wikler, the Washington director at MoveOn.org. "But there's a chance that he ends up really helping the progressive cause by banding everyone together . . . if we can stop some of his worst impulses first.
Here is a breakdown of some of the organizations and people involved in The Resistance umbrella:
The Need To Impeach (click here) is headed up by Tom Seyers, the deep pocketed fella that has financed the daily ads that you see on TV. He supports a petition asking Congress to impeach Trump. He has 5 million signatures as I go to press. Trump may tweet #FAKE PETITION!, of course.
Resist is a 50 year old organization (click here) that provides grants to grassroots activist organizations around the country, Resist has broadened in scope since its inception to include issues of environmentalism, the rights of women, prisoners, undocumented immigrants, the LGBTQ community and a number of Black community groups--all on Trump's s***t list. They have an international reach that involves a broad range of activities in support of farmers, environmentalists and humanitarian activists.
The Indivisible Organization (click here) Their Mission statement is "to fuel a progressive grassroots network of local groups to resist the Trump Agenda. Across the nation, over 6,000 local groups (at least 2 in every congressional district) are using the Indivisible Guide to hold their members of Congress accountable." The group admits to using tactics that worked so well for The Tea Party Republicans. To that end, they use local strategies to target individual congressional members at town halls, public events,district offices and telephone blitz campaigns. Common Dreams News Organization, often referred to simply as Common Dreams, is a 501(c)3 nonprofit U.S.-based progressive news website. According to Wikipedia, Common Dreams
The Poor People's Movement 2018 click here may sound
familiar to veterans of the 1960's Civil Rights Movement. Indeed it is, as they take their inspiration from that era and the wisdom of Martin Luther King. From their website: "In partnership with hundreds of local and national organizations, we host mass meetings in states across the country to discuss the impacts of systemic racism, systemic poverty, the war economy, and ecological devastation. The mass meetings feature testimonies and keynotes by impacted persons and campaign leadership [ed. note: leaders are often church ministers] ."
#Resist
PRO
Kaufman pointed to the Democratic election victories in New Jersey, Virginia and Washington State as proof of the movement's success as well as the failure of Republicans to repeal the Affordable Care Act.
He then noted "Galvanized by huge protests at the beginning of the new presidency, the ground-level opposition ....has evolved into a sprawling...movement of many movements, using many different tactics to pursue its aims. While established progressive organizations have seen important upswings in membership and provided... guidance and resources, the most striking and novel aspect of the resistance has been the creation of an astounding number of new grassroots groups, at least six times the number the Tea Party could boast at its height. Locally focused, self-organized, and overwhelmingly led by women, these groups show every sign of digging in for the long haul."
Kaufman continues: "Most are doing other kinds of organizing as well...from direct support for undocumented members of their communities to anti-racism education to supporting candidates for local offices and much more."
CON
There are major unanswered questions about whether the Dems
Perhaps the strongest source of criticism of the national resistance movements is the venerable National Review magazine. A year ago, the magazine, often called "The Bible of the Conservatives" simply didn't approve of using the word Resistance in describing anti-Trump protesters: An editorial penned by Verad Mehta intoned "The depiction of the [Women's March] as a manifestation of opposition to President Trump didn’t bother me; that’s what it was. What stoked my ire was the implicit, causal assumption that this opposition constituted a “resistance.” Such unthinking credulity is galling. Reporters are supposed to interrogate, to borrow a rebarbative term from academia, the idea of a resistance, rather than proselytizing on its behalf. But proselytize they have, taking for granted that there is a resistance movement without first asking whether one exists and what it would mean if it did. There’s an element of circular reasoning involved: The media reports on the resistance because the resistance exists because the media reports on the resistance. But thinking something doesn’t make it real. Its value is entirely in the title itself rather than in any activity it describes. Thus, resistance becomes the name, not the deed."
"On the one hand, Trump’s anemic approval ratings might suggest the media are winning in their 24/7 efforts to portray Trump as a Russian colluder, rank profiteer, distracted golfer, tax cheat, sexual predator, trigger-happy warmonger, or senile septuagenarian. On the other hand, the media are polling worse than Trump."
My take on these arguments goes something like this: (1) The Resistance is indeed huge, but it is only a year old. History records how massive protests persisted for more than a decade during the Vietnam war and the civil rights era. People died in those protests. Tanks were in the streets of Washington D.C. and neighborhoods like Watts burned for days.
(2) Actually, the media has enjoyed a renaissance during the last year. After closing its second year of profits, the 140-year-old The Washington Post is poised to expand its newsroom and business operations. Publisher Fred Ryan recently stated the paper's "digital subscriptions have tripled since 2016, [adding] ... more than 1 million paid digital subscribers."
The New York Times Company continued to post significant subscriber growth, propelling the company to a healthy 2017.
Year end financial reports [show] it added "157,000 net digital-only subscriptions in the fourth quarter...pushing overall subscription revenue to more than $1 billion for the year.
The L. A. Times reported that Cable News was equally euphotic: "The politically right-leaning Fox News solidified its status as the cable ratings news leader by being the lone friendly forum for President Trump's policies and supporters on many of its shows."
In addition the report said "MSNBC gained ground by serving ...viewers dedicated to resisting Trump's policies, led by its progressive prime-time star Rachel Maddow. The NBCUniversal-owned channel saw a staggering 51% year-to-year audience increase in prime time, lifting the average to 1.6 million viewers."
Lastly, they noted that "CNN focused on aggressive reporting on the Trump campaign's alleged collusion with Russia, which turned the network into the president's favorite target on Twitter and campaign rallies. While the network fell behind MSNBC in prime time in overall viewers, it was still the most watched year in the channel's history, which dates to 1980."
(3) While the 1st Amendment guarantees the right to petition the government for redress on anything they dislike, Congress is the only entity that can impeach a President. 5 million signatures on an impeachment petition is only a squeaky wheel which politicians may or may not choose to hear.
Goodnite, dear readers. Sleep well, knowing that once again Americans are righteously engaged in the never ending battle to make a more perfect union.
"The Higher Ground Moral Declaration provides a moral agenda for our nation on issues including: democracy and voting rights; poverty and economic justice; workers’ rights; education; healthcare; environmental justice; immigrant rights and challenging xenophobia; criminal justice; LGBTQ rights; and war-mongering and the military."
American Bridge 21st Century is a progressive American Super PAC that
supports Democratic candidates and opposes Republican candidates. It was
founded by David Brock in 2010 and is associated with Media Matters for
America. It is an opposition research hub for the Democratic Party. The group
physically tracks and monitors Republican candidates and officials and uses
social media to deploy its findings.
The Center for American Progress was created in 2003 as a left-leaning alternative to think tanks such as the Heritage Foundation and the American
Enterprise Institute.
The Center
for American Progress (CAP) is a progressive public policy research and
advocacy organization. According to CAP, the center is "dedicated to
improving the lives of all Americans, through bold, progressive ideas, as well
as strong leadership and concerted action." The Center presents a liberal
viewpoint on economic and social issues. It has its headquarters in Washington,
D.C. Generation Progress was launched in February 2005 and is CAP's youth
outreach arm. According to the organization, "Generation Progress is a national organization that works with and for young people to promote progressive solutions to key political and social challenges."
In addition to the many in-person
protests, there has also been Anti-Trump activism on social media. This
activism has been represented by various hashtags. The following are several
prominent ones that were frequently used for Anti-Trump activism online.
#Resist
Though the exact origin of this
hashtag is unknown, it spread to various social media platforms. It symbolizes
solidarity against Trump as well as alongside other policy specific hashtags
targeting marginalized groups such as minorities and women. Though its height
of popularity was in the days following Trump’s inauguration, it has resurfaced
during times of political controversy such as the infamous Charlottesville
rally and the initial Muslim ban. In addition, hashtag has been adapted to other forms such as
associated with the #BlackLivesMatter movement.
#NotMyPresident
This one gained immediate popularity after Trump's election win,
immediately trending on Twitter and the hashtag was used in over 78,000
tweets. Facebook was also used as an outlet for #NotMyPresident. On
November 9, 2016, a Facebook event titled "Trump is Not My President"
was created and received over 40,000 interactions.
#StillWithHer
The hashtag #ImWithHer was first seen
on Twitter, when Bill Clinton was watching his wife in the debate and tweeted
his support: #ImwithHer.” This tweet created a new campaign slogan for the
Hillary 2016 campaign: “I’m With Her.” Many Twitter users use #StillWithHer
hashtag to “express their messages of hope, sadness, and determination
following the 2016 Election.”
#LoveTrumpsHate
This hashtag plays on the double entendre
of the word “trump." It originated from Clinton's last campaign speech,
where she said that "love trumps hate." This hashtag is often seen as
a reference to Trump practicing and preaching hate on various minority groups
and used by Anti-Trump individuals online to state they will overcome the hate
that he spreads.
One year in, here is an overview of the effectiveness of The American Resistance:
The Guardian Newspaper commented three months ago in a guest editorial by LA Kaufman which said "There’s a shiny bright spot on the dismal American political landscape: one year after the 2016 election, it’s now...abundantly clear that this...toxic and menacing presidency has sparked an unprecedented grassroots response, different in both scale and character from anything we’ve seen before."
Kaufman pointed to the Democratic election victories in New Jersey, Virginia and Washington State as proof of the movement's success as well as the failure of Republicans to repeal the Affordable Care Act.
He then noted "Galvanized by huge protests at the beginning of the new presidency, the ground-level opposition ....has evolved into a sprawling...movement of many movements, using many different tactics to pursue its aims. While established progressive organizations have seen important upswings in membership and provided... guidance and resources, the most striking and novel aspect of the resistance has been the creation of an astounding number of new grassroots groups, at least six times the number the Tea Party could boast at its height. Locally focused, self-organized, and overwhelmingly led by women, these groups show every sign of digging in for the long haul."
After duly noting the record numbers of people in the streets, Laufman also said this: "But it wasn’t simply their size that made these marches distinctive. For all the crucial work that dedicated organizers and pre-existing groups around the country did to shape and support the protests [they were] set in motion by a couple of Facebook posts, had a self-mobilized quality that set them apart from any prior big demonstrations in American history."
A research team led by civil-resistance scholar Erica Chenoweth and political scientist Jeremy Pressman has tallied hundreds of demonstrations around the country each month since January. They drew one important comparison to the aforementioned 6,000 registered groups in Indivisible thusly: "...The Tea Party – whose strategy formed the model for the Indivisible Guide – had somewhere between 800 and 1,000 groups at its height, or about 15% of the number of functioning resistance groups. Plug a few zip codes into Indivisible’s directory and you can see how truly widespread the local organizing is."
Kaufman continues: "Most are doing other kinds of organizing as well...from direct support for undocumented members of their communities to anti-racism education to supporting candidates for local offices and much more."
This writer agrees with Kaufman's view that it's "...far too soon to say how the thousands of new local groups will navigate between leading from the grassroots and taking guidance and political direction from the people and communities most directly affected by Trump’s agenda...which were organizing long before the November 2016 election. For now, the thousands of groups show no signs of tapering off their level of activism. They’re busy doing ...unglamorous movement-building work, mobilizing for... calls to action, looking ahead to the 2018 elections, and staying on alert to respond to whatever new crises or attacks might arise under this dangerous regime. It’s a very solid start."
CON
There are major unanswered questions about whether the Dems
will relate to the grassroots resistance, and vice versa. While some
local resistance groups are close to their local Democratic party committees; others are staunchly non-partisan, hoping to court wavering Republicans. And, of course, the Bernie Sanders folks on the far left are alive and kicking also. The mainstream Democrats, it seems to me, welcome local energy but jealously guard their national data silos and corporate sponsors. Yet few would argue that the Dems don't need a bottom up reformation.
Perhaps the strongest source of criticism of the national resistance movements is the venerable National Review magazine. A year ago, the magazine, often called "The Bible of the Conservatives" simply didn't approve of using the word Resistance in describing anti-Trump protesters: An editorial penned by Verad Mehta intoned "The depiction of the [Women's March] as a manifestation of opposition to President Trump didn’t bother me; that’s what it was. What stoked my ire was the implicit, causal assumption that this opposition constituted a “resistance.” Such unthinking credulity is galling. Reporters are supposed to interrogate, to borrow a rebarbative term from academia, the idea of a resistance, rather than proselytizing on its behalf. But proselytize they have, taking for granted that there is a resistance movement without first asking whether one exists and what it would mean if it did. There’s an element of circular reasoning involved: The media reports on the resistance because the resistance exists because the media reports on the resistance. But thinking something doesn’t make it real. Its value is entirely in the title itself rather than in any activity it describes. Thus, resistance becomes the name, not the deed."
Last week, almost a full year later, the magazine still failed to recognize the massive growth in the resistance movement, choosing instead to attack the media, to wit: "Trump wages a ... war against the proverbial mainstream media, whose coverage, according to disinterested analyses, runs over 90 percent anti-Trump. Negative Trump news fuels ...the rants of late-night-television comedians [numerous] impeachment writs, calls to invoke the 25th Amendment, and lawsuits alleging violations of the emoluments clause. [In addition] the boasts of the “Resistance,” the efforts of blue states to nullify federal immigration law... are [also] fueled by media attention and preconceived narratives hostile to Trump."
"On the one hand, Trump’s anemic approval ratings might suggest the media are winning in their 24/7 efforts to portray Trump as a Russian colluder, rank profiteer, distracted golfer, tax cheat, sexual predator, trigger-happy warmonger, or senile septuagenarian. On the other hand, the media are polling worse than Trump."
(2) Actually, the media has enjoyed a renaissance during the last year. After closing its second year of profits, the 140-year-old The Washington Post is poised to expand its newsroom and business operations. Publisher Fred Ryan recently stated the paper's "digital subscriptions have tripled since 2016, [adding] ... more than 1 million paid digital subscribers."
The New York Times Company continued to post significant subscriber growth, propelling the company to a healthy 2017.
Year end financial reports [show] it added "157,000 net digital-only subscriptions in the fourth quarter...pushing overall subscription revenue to more than $1 billion for the year.
The L. A. Times reported that Cable News was equally euphotic: "The politically right-leaning Fox News solidified its status as the cable ratings news leader by being the lone friendly forum for President Trump's policies and supporters on many of its shows."
In addition the report said "MSNBC gained ground by serving ...viewers dedicated to resisting Trump's policies, led by its progressive prime-time star Rachel Maddow. The NBCUniversal-owned channel saw a staggering 51% year-to-year audience increase in prime time, lifting the average to 1.6 million viewers."
Lastly, they noted that "CNN focused on aggressive reporting on the Trump campaign's alleged collusion with Russia, which turned the network into the president's favorite target on Twitter and campaign rallies. While the network fell behind MSNBC in prime time in overall viewers, it was still the most watched year in the channel's history, which dates to 1980."
(3) While the 1st Amendment guarantees the right to petition the government for redress on anything they dislike, Congress is the only entity that can impeach a President. 5 million signatures on an impeachment petition is only a squeaky wheel which politicians may or may not choose to hear.
Goodnite, dear readers. Sleep well, knowing that once again Americans are righteously engaged in the never ending battle to make a more perfect union.
No comments:
Post a Comment