Clay Jones

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LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

March 10, 2024

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

MAR 11, 2024

As predicted, last week was an important one for the Republican Party.

The Republicans’ rebuttal to the State of the Union on Thursday stayed in the news throughout the weekend. On Friday, independent journalist Jonathan Katz figured out that a key story in it was false. Senator Katie Britt (R-AL) described a twelve-year-old child sex trafficked by Mexican cartel members, implying that the young girl was trafficked because of President Joe Biden’s border policies.

Katz tracked down the facts. Britt was describing the life of Karla Jacinto, who was indeed trafficked as a child, but not in the present and not in the U.S. and not by cartels. She was trafficked from 2004 to 2008—during the George W. Bush administration—in Mexico, at the hands of a pimp who entrapped vulnerable girls. Jacinto has become an advocate for child victims and has told her story before Congress, and she met Britt at an event for government officials and anti-trafficking advocates.

Britt’s dramatic delivery of the rebuttal had already invited parody and concern about the religious themes she demonstrated. The news that a central image in it was a lie just made things worse. “Everyone’s f*cking losing it,” a Republican strategist told The New Republic’s Ellie Quinlan Houghtaling. “It’s one of our biggest disasters ever.”

On Friday, the Republican National Committee (RNC) voted to replace former RNC chair Ronna McDaniel, who resigned effective Friday, with Trump loyalist Michael Whatley and Trump’s daughter-in-law Lara Trump. They will co-chair the organization and have made it clear their primary goal is to put Trump back in the White House. 

Friday night, on Newsmax, Donald Trump Jr. recorded a video announcing that the old Republican Party “no longer exists outside of the D.C. beltway…. The move that happened today…that’s the final blow. People have to understand that America First, the MAGA movement is the new Republican Party. That is conservatism today.”

Just what that means was crystal clear on Friday night, when Trump hosted Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orbán at the Trump Organization’s Florida property, Mar-a-Lago. The darling of the radical right, Orbán has spoken at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) and hosted former Fox News Channel personality Tucker Carlson, and his policies inspired the anti-LGBTQ+ legislation Florida governor Ron DeSantis has championed.

The right wing’s fondness for Orbán springs from his having rejected democracy and replaced it in Hungary with what he calls an “illiberal state.” Orbán and other far-right leaders working against democracy maintain that the central principle of democracy, equality before the law, undermines society. It permits immigration, which, in their minds, dilutes the “purity” of a people, and it requires that LGBTQ+ individuals and women have the same rights as heterosexual men. Such a world challenges the heteronormative patriarchal world traditionalists crave.

Orbán’s takeover of the press, elimination of rival political parties, partisan gerrymandering, capture of the courts, and control of Hungary’s government are not just ideological, though, but also economic. Corruption and the capture of valuable factories and properties for cronies have allowed Orbán and his allies to amass fortunes. 

“There’s nobody that’s better, smarter or a better leader than Viktor Orbán. He’s fantastic,” Trump said on Friday. Trump said that Orbán simply says, “‘This is the way it’s going to be,’ and that’s the end of it, right? He’s the boss and…he’s a great leader, fantastic leader. In Europe and around the world, they respect him.”

On Saturday, Republicans in Oklahoma County, Oklahoma, censured Senator James Lankford (R-OK) over his work negotiating the border security measure. In January, state Republicans claimed they had passed a resolution “strongly” condemning Lankford; others said the vote for the resolution was “not legitimate and definitely does not represent the voice of all Oklahoma Republicans.” 

Lankford is a far-right senator whom Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) tapped to represent the Republicans in the negotiations. House Republicans had demanded the border security measure before they would allow a vote on a national security supplemental bill that funds Ukraine’s defense against Russia’s invasion.

Because the Democrats are desperate to fund Ukraine, they were willing to give up things they had never laid on the table before, including a path to citizenship for those brought to the United States as children, making the bill that emerged from the negotiations strongly favor the Republican position on immigration. The Border Patrol Officers’ union, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and the editorial board of the Wall Street Journal all endorsed it.

But the House Republicans’ demand for a border measure appears to have been an attempt to kill the national security supplemental bill altogether. As soon as it became clear that there would be a deal, Trump came out against it. He demanded that Congress kill the measure, and his loyalists agreed.

Lankford, who had helped to produce the strongest border measure in years at the request of the nominal head of the party, has now been censured because he crossed Trump.

Meanwhile, on Saturday, Biden signed into law one of the consolidated appropriations bills that must be finished to fund the government. The other must be finished by March 22. 

Biden has continued to ride the momentum built by Thursday’s State of the Union speech. His campaign has released a number of advertisements, and today he was in Georgia, where the largest political action committees representing communities of color—the AAPI Victory Fund, the Latino Victory Fund, and The Collective PAC—endorsed him and pledged $30 million to mobilize communities of color to vote in 2024.

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

Senator James Lankford, R-Okla., on Thursday blocked Senate consideration of the Equality Act, an LGBTQ civil rights bill, by citing "Harry Potter" author J. K. Rowling’s recent blog post, which has been criticized as a “transphobic manifesto.”

“To say in the words of J.K. Rowling this past week where she wrote, ‘All I’m asking, all I want is for similar empathy, similar understanding to be extended to the many millions of women whose sole crime is wanting their concerns to be heard without receiving threats or abuse,’” Lankford said on the Senate floor, as first reported by The Washington Blade. “Let’s work together to get equality. This bill does not do it in this form.”

The GOP-controlled Senate has refused to bring the Equality Act up for a vote since it was passed by the House of Representatives in May 2019. In addition, the Trump administration has advanced anti-transgender legal arguments before the Supreme Court and in federal rule-making processes.

Lankford Legacy  :   i.   ELEANOR’S MEMORIES

Senate Republicans have officially rejected this non-partisan analysis, just like they rejected the JCT’s previous analysis, the similarly bleak analysis from the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office, and the disastrous analysis from Donald Trump’s old alma mater, the Wharton School of Finance. Remember, kids: Facts don’t matter!

Reference Article:   The Hill, "GOP senators renew effort to bridge US racial divide with 'Solution Sundays,'" Olivia Beavers, October 10, 2017, 11:10 PM EDT

  http://thehill.com/homenews/senate/354851-gop-senators-continue-push-to-bridge-us-racial-divide-in-new-video/?amp=1

Two Republican Senators, James Lankford (white) of Oklahoma and Tim Scott (black) of South Carolina, released a video suggesting a grassroots movement to begin breaking down racial divides in America by encouraging families to invite a family of a different race to share a meal.   Speaking from different locations as the video cuts between them, both acknowledge their suggestion as a starting point.  Perhaps some Republicans share their concerns, and will listen.  Perhaps some conservatives do see their serious problems, from top to base, on the issue of racial division.   Truthfully, the Senators' idea is a good one.

It is just that there is a much bigger and more powerful way to address racial divides in America.  Join the Democratic Party.

Anyone who wants to consider solutions for America's issues of racial barriers and division, go beyond watching this video by a pair of Republicans.  When you are not part of the solution, you are part of the problem.  When you are an inadequate part of the solution and on the wrong side of it, you are still part of the problem, regardless of whether your personal beliefs are blameless.

Look at footage or pictures from Trump's campaign rallies, before or after inauguration.  You will see a black man.  He is the odd man consistently and conspicuously behind Trump's elbow.  This man calls himself "Michael the Black Man," and you can find more about him by searching "black man at trump rallies" online.  If you accidentally type "men," as in plural, the search will find "man," and bring up many articles about Michael.  Finding another face that is not white is like a high-difficulty game of finding Waldo.

Now look at footage or pictures of Democratic rallies, or look at images from liberal protests on any issue where diverse people who share values come together, drawn into solidarity by what they care about in this country, and what they hope to resolve.  If you are interested in solutions for racial division, join our crowd.  If this issue bothers you, or if another--any other--issue stemming from prejudice or bigotry bothers you, and you are a conservative, you are on the wrong side on these issues.  Join us.

Republican and conservative clustered bigotry is no secret.  Of course they are not all bigots.  But put into perspective Senator Lankford's encouragement for people to try--to begin--to start to "engage each other."  Lankford has said that on these issues, Trump's "rhetoric is not artful."  Referring to Trump's active efforts to divide America into 'other'-based antagonisms by using such extreme understatement risks credibility on the topic of racial divides in this country.  Tim Scott met with Trump after Charlottesville to speak powerfully about racial issues, but to no avail.

Resident Trump has used flashpoint politics to divide America along every pressure point of gender, sexuality, race, religion, country of origin, state of residence, wealth, education, rural or urban lifestyles --to name just some of his efforts.  These efforts by Trump bear an interesting similarity to reports of Russian pro-Trump interference, which pressed Putin's thumb firmly on America's sorest spots by buying and spreading online pro-Trump racist messaging.  These efforts by the Russians and by Resident Trump show a clear collaboration of purpose:  To damage America and the way that we as Americans have defined our values during the course of our painful history.  When you vote Republican, you are standing with them, and you are a collaborator endorsing their efforts.

Lankford Legacy  :   i.   ELEANOR’S MEMORIES