Trump and Vance Aren’t Weird, They’re Mendacious, Deceitful

Yesterday’s comments by JD Vance show without any question that he and Trump don’t care what the truth is, what the facts are, they will say what they think “the people need to know,” or perhaps what they think will keep their base enraged and so totally committed to them.

First, they continued to say that the Haitians in Springfield, OH eat their neighbors pets.  This despite the Republican mayor of Springfield and the Republican governor of Ohio saying their statement was basekess.

Second, he continued to say that the Haitians were illegals despite being told that they were here legally.  His response was that the fact that the Biden administration (his words were “Kamala Harris”) had granted them permission to come here to work does not make them legal.

Third, they continued to generally disparage the Haitians.  This despite both the Republican mayor and governor again saying very explicitly that the Haitians were critical to the revival of Springfield’s manufacturing economy the past few years.  That they were hard working, etc.

Finally, they continue their anti-Haitian rants despite the fact that their words have created a security problem in Springfield, with bomb scares closing schools and hospitals, and the community being very scared.

Vance said quite bluntly that if he has to make up stories to tell people what they need to know, he will do that.  That’s pretty irresponsible even for a politician.  But the truth is probably worse.  He doesn’t really think people need to know this garbage, but he does think that if people hear this and believe it, it will inflame people’s anti-immigrant feelings, which will increase their commitment to Trump.

Unfortunately, even if Trump supporters knew the truth, it probably wouldn’t sway their vote.  Witness Governor Dewine writing an impassioned opinion piece in the New York Times stating the truth about Haitians and Springfield and saying how sad it is that Trump and Vance keep making these statements despite being told that it’s not the truth.  But he indicated very clearly that he will nonetheless vote for Trump in November.

Governor Dewine apparently does not take this instance as a warning that Trump does this routinely on every subject.  He likes Trump’s positions on policy matters, and what he says to get there Governor Dewine doesn’t seem to care.  He will vote for Trump.  This is an abdication of his ethical responsibility as an elected official.

What Is a Liberal?

In the past few decades, "liberal" has become a dirty word to almost half the population because the way in which Republicans, and especially Trump, have defined it and spoken of it.  But "liberal" is quite different from their definition.

A liberal is someone who believes that all citizens – men and women – should be treated equally and that all have the right, as stated in the Declaration of Independence, to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

Whether you are rich, middle class, or poor; whether you are a person of color or white; whether you were born here or are an immigrant – you have that right.

And the role of government, again as stated in the Declaration, is to ensure those rights.  What does that mean?

It means that government must do what is necessary to ensure that all citizens have an equal opportunity to pursue those rights.  It may require laws, regulation of business, or funding measures.  But the goal is always to ensure that all citizens have a meaningful equal opportunity, – that is, not just stated on paper.

The goal is not to make everyone equal because that is not the goal of a democracy.  That would be communism.  Rather the goal of a liberal and of our democratic government is just to ensure each person has an equal opportunity to pursue their rights.  What people make of that opportunity is their own responsibility.

Further, a liberal does not just believe that all citizens have equal rights, he or she also believes that all people have obligations that flow from citizenship.  Under the American social contract that developed in the early 1900s, each citizen has an obligation to support the common good.  Each citizen has an obligation to do nothing that takes away another citizen's rights. Each citizen has a responsibility to support the government financially in its performance of its functions, each according to his means. 

And, yes, I am a liberal and proud of it. 

Is There a Solution to the Ongoing Middle East Crisis?

For more than 75 years, since the founding of the State of Israel, there has been conflict in the Middle East, not just between Israel and Palestinians, but between Israel and most of the Arab countries surrounding it.  The cause of the ongoing conflict boils down to the following:  The Arabs who have lived there for centuries understandably consider the entire area their homeland, while Jews, Zionists, consider the land to be their homeland, it being the land of Israel in Biblical times.

Politically, the land was not part of any modern state.  Prior to WWI the land was part of the Turkish Caliphate.  After WWI, the area became a British mandate called Palestine, which after WWII, the British proposed dividing into two states - Jewish and Arab.  In 1948 Jewish Zionist leaders unilaterally declared the creation of the State of Israel within the boundaries set by the British.  The Arabs countries rejected the division and launched an attack against the new Israeli state.

Ever since that time, Israel has claimed its right to the land and has defended it, while the surrounding Arab countries and Palestinians living in the territory outside Israel claimed it was their land and sought to drive Israel back to the sea and eliminate its existence.  

All the wars that have occurred during this period - 1948, 1967, 1973, and present - were started by the Arab countries and/or the Palestinians in an attempt to destroy the State of Israel, wipe it off the map.   I should note that Egypt and Jordan signed peace agreements with Israel in 1976 and 1994 respectively.  Most recently, the UAR and Bahrain entered into a normalization of relations agreement with Israel in 2020.

After their defeat in the 1967 "6-day war" and Israel's occupation of the West Bank and Gaza (it had been under the control of Jordan since the 1948 war), the Arab League made clear its stand once again:  no peace with Israel, no recognition of Israel, no negotiations with Israel.

The conflict worsened when, after the 6-day war and the Arab League statement, Israel began to build settlements in the occupied territory.  Initially the Labor Party government established a small number of settlements in the West Bank for security reasons.  But the conservative/ultra-right parties that have governed for most of the time since 1977 have considered the occupied land part of Israel (it was part of the Biblical Jewish land) and have through aggressive settlement building in the West Bank, especially in the past 2 decades, made the West Bank de facto part of Israel and have made a Palestinian state almost impossible to configure.

During the late 1990s, international diplomatic efforts resulted in the PLO - the Palestine Liberation Organization headed by Yasser Arafat, the recognized voice of Palestinians for decades - removing the offending clause calling for the elimination of Israel from its charter so that the two-state process could move forward.  

Israel in fact made two offers, in 2000 and 2008, to end their occupation and for the creation of a Palestinian State, but those offers were rejected by the PLO.  Regardless, in 2005 Israel unilaterally - that is to say with no conditions or agreement - evacuated all Israeli settlements in Gaza and the army withdrew.  

That action did not result in any lessening of the conflict.  While the PLO still maintains its stance accepting Israel, Hamas, which has become the more prominent Palestinian movement, seeks nothing less than the destruction of Israel. The peace offers in fact resulted in more hostile actions by the Palestinians led by Hamas - suicide bombings, etc. with more than 1000 Israelis killed.

This ongoing conflict is an example of extremism on one side breeding extremism on the other.  As much as I understand the desperate need after WWII for Jews to finally create their own nation, to do so in a land already inhabited by Arabs, without their agreement, was an extreme action. And that extreme action was met by an extreme reaction by the Arabs – their wanting to erase Israel from the map.  

Israel's aggressive settlement building in the West Bank, which accelerated in the past two decades, has been a further extreme aggravating action by Israel, which was in turn partially a reaction to the extreme actions of the Arabs in repeatedly trying to destroy Israel.  

I should note that regardless how much I question the wisdom of the creation of the State of Israel unilaterally, once it was in existence, I certainly support its right to defend itself.  But in the current Gaza War, Israel under Netanyahu has gone beyond defense to seeing a chance to destroy Hamas regardless the civilian toll.

As a side note, Israel's aggressive actions in the Gaza War have provoked large-scale protests in the West.  However, this war is not an example, as many protesters and Palestinians claim, of genocide.  Israel is trying to eradicate Hamas and unfortunately has no concern if in the process tens of thousands of civilians are killed and homes reduced to rubble.  But Israel has no intent or desire to eliminate the Palestinian people.  Also, people need to be reminded that the war was a reaction to the invasion of Israel by Hamas on October 7.  If that had not occurred, and if Hamas' actions - rape, killing, kidnapping - not been so horrendous, the war would not be occurring and the tens of thousands of civilians and their homes would not have been destroyed.  Israel is guilty of overreach, and stopping the war is critical, but the immediate situation was caused by Hamas' action.

So to answer the question posed in this post's title, there is no solution to this conflict so long as the Arab countries and the Palestinians do not accept Israel's right to exist.  Only then is the 2-state solution imaginable.  Because, understandably, only then will Israel feel secure in turning the occupied territory over to a Palestinian state.  

As has always been the case, the ball is in the Palestinians' hands - either they truly accept Israel and seek to live in peace next to Israel or they maintain their position and be subjected to the eternal enmity of Israel.  There is nothing Israel can do other than once again being on record as being in favor of the 2-state solution (that is not currently the case) on condition that the Palestinians and surrounding Arab states accept the right of Israel to exist and cease all hostile actions.  At such time, Palestinian citizens of Israel should no longer be second-class citizens but be given equal rights and responsibilities with Jewish citizens.

Is Trump Stupid or Is He Just Sowing Discord?

I have always thought that Trump was a shrewd person who saw it was to his advantage to sow discord.  But recently Trump was invited to appear at a conference of Black journalists and he was interviewed by three journalists.

His most oft-quoted remark from that interview is that Kamala Harris is not really Black.  Questioning her identity, he said that she was totally Indian until recently when she decided to be Black.  The implication clearly was that she made this change for political advantage.

I am not aware of the reaction of Trump allies to his statement (I found nothing on the internet).  All others have trashed the statement as a misstatement of fact.  The Vice President said it was "divisive and showed disrespect."

Yes, it was a misstatement of fact.  Ms Harris' mother was Indian and her father was Black.  While it's true that she identified strongly as a child with her Indian identity, and still does, she also identified, certainly since she was a teenager, as a Black, attending Howard University, a Black college. Her identity as a Black is thus not recent.

The reason why I raised the question of whether Trump is stupid, as opposed to just divisive, is because it's quite possible that he truly doesn't understand what it means to be bi-racial, to have two identifies. 

Maybe that's why it comes so natural to him to vilify immigrants –  he truly cannot understand being, for example, Muslim and being a proud American.

Which means that he doesn't understand most Americans.  Most Americans have an immigrant background and a large percentage are either the child of immigrants or immigrants themselves.  In 2013, Census data shows that 13% of all Americans were foreign born, 12% were born here but the child of an immigrant, and 56% were the grandchildren of immigrants.  All Americans have an immigrants in their background.

While immigrants to the United States have in the past always worked to assimilate into the larger culture (that is less true recently of Hispanics), many have tried to retain their ethnic identity as well.  So they were both proud of their ethnic background and proud to be an American.

To not understand this basic characteristic of most Americans and the nature of American citizenship makes him unfit to be President, on top of all the other reasons why he is unfit.

 

The Real Facts about Donald Trump’s Domestic Record as President

Under Trump, COVID became a pandemic, the economy and the working class suffered, racism and antisemitism increased, and low- and moderate-income people were worse off than before. These are the real facts, not the fake facts that come from Trump and his allies. For proof, read on.

COVID - Trump’s mismanagement of COVID was a disaster. The U.S. government learned about COVID on December 31, 2019, one year before the end of Trump’s term in office. In the first few critical months, the U,S, government did nothing to stop the spread of COVID, other than stopping flights from China. The result was that by April, 2020, all 50 states declared disasters because of the spread of COVID. Had all travel from overseas been screened as soon as the danger was known, the pandemic could have likely been prevented. Had masks been mandated uniformly, the spread could have been greatly curtailed. By the time the vaccine was available - incredibly fast, within one year, which is a credit to Trump’s determination - COVID had reached epidemic proportions which the vaccination of only part of the population (10% fully vaccinated within the first few months, 62% within a year) could not stop, especially when combined with the relaxation of COVID restrictions which was encouraged by Trump. In the end, more than 1 million Americans died of COVID.

The Economy - The economy suffered under Trump. He enacted huge tax cuts for the rich which ballooned the deficit and did not bring the promised growth. His trade war with China caused a spike in prices and did not bring back jobs to the U.S. To deal with a possible recession, the Federal Reserve slashed interest rates, which while stimulating growth led to the growth bubble, increased prices, and inflation which we have been suffering from.  And the pandemic, which was much worse because of Trump’s actions or inaction, was a huge drain on the economy. As a result, working class Americans suffered and were worse off.

Racism - Both in his 2016 presidential campaign and during his term in office, Trump vilified Hispanic and other immigrants in the harshest of terms, claiming the undocumented were causing a host of problems, which in fact they were not. In many instances, they were actually a benefit to the economy, providing employers with workers to do jobs that Americans, including Blacks, did not want, especially in farming. Trump also vilified American muslims, that is to say American citizens who were Muslim. And Trump catered to the White Supremacist movement saying, after the riot in Charlottesville, VA, that there are “many very fine people” in the movement and in other statements.

Support for Low- and Moderate Income People - After enacting huge tax cuts for the rich, Trump proposed massive cuts to basic assistance that millions of families struggling to get by needed to help pay the rent, put food on the table, and get health care. The cuts would have affected a broad range of low- and moderate-income Americans, including parents, children, seniors, and people with disabilities, both people of color and white, both urban and rural. These cuts were not enacted because of the Democratic majorities in Congress.

Abortion Rights - This is the one area where he speaks the truth; he is responsible for this disaster.  Trump appointed 3 justices to the Supreme Court using a litmus test of whether they would overrule Roe v Wade and end the constitutional right for women to have an abortion within reasonable parameters. When an abortion case came before the Court in 2022, the new conservative super-majority overruled Roe v Wade and ended the right to abortion.

These are the real facts; except for abortion rights, very different from the lies and hype that come from Trump and his allies.

Is this someone you want as your President?

Misinformation is Hurting Biden

Misinformation is always a problem in elections.  Specifically, misinformation generated by Republicans about themselves and Democrats.  And as I’ve written previously, both in my book, We Still Hold These Truth, and in blog posts, Democrats have been amazingly ineffective at setting the matter straight for the voters.

Why do Republicans always do this?  The answer is that they know that if the voters knew the truth about them, they would lose national elections because their policies do not in fact support the middle and lower classes, whether white, hispanic, or black.  They are hypocrites posing as the party of the people, and they are expert at this deception.  Unfortunately, they have been very successful in this deception, never more so than under the leadership of Trump.

Democrats must find a way of getting most Republican-leaning voters to understand (forget Trump’s core base - they are lost) that Republicans are not the party of the people.  That they promote policies that support corporations and the upper classes.  A new stump speech must be developed; and a scorecard should be developed showing key measures that support the middle class and poor and Republicans’ position against those measures.

In the current presidential election, there are two major matters of misinformation that have to be countered by Biden and Democrats.  Admittedly, these are not matters that the Republicans can be blamed for.

First, many voters blame Biden for current interest rates and high prices.  This is not unusual - the sitting president is typically blamed or gets credit for current economic conditions, regardless of the actual facts.

When Democrats argue the economy, they tend to focus on jobs and unemployment.  But Democrats must recognize something – it doesn’t matter that the economy by most measures is strong, the job market good, unemployment down, we have not gone into the expected recession. Why do these facts not matter?  Because the middle class and poor are suffering from high prices, and high interest rates make it impossible for them to get the loans that they need..  That is what concerns them most and will impact their voting.  That the economy is strong is irrelevant to them

So while it’s fine to tout Biden’s credit for jobs, their focus must be on saying to voters, “We feel your pain; we know how you are suffering from high prices and interest rates.  Unfortunately these are matters beyond the control of any president.”  They must make clear that while Biden policy initiatives can take some credit for the strong job market and lower unemployment, not only is he not responsible for inflation and high interest rates, but there is virtually nothing he can do about either.  It is instead a function of corporate greed.

Corporations in most areas of commerce found during the pandemic that the old laws of supply and demand no longer apply; that they can raise their prices and have almost no impact on sales - people will pay the increased prices.  And so greed has led them to increase prices far beyond what is justified by their costs and so increase their profits.  Which is good for increasing share prices and thus investor wealth.

So what can the President do to set the matter straight?  He can point the finger of blame where it is appropriate - at corporations.  And which party is the main supporter of corporations and their desire to be free of any regulation?  Republicans.

Regarding high interest rates, that is within the sole control of the Federal Reserve and there is no way for Biden to influence their decisions.  They are historically and legally independent in their mission and authority.  That is a fact and Biden must make that clear.  And here too, the reason why the Fed's high interest rates have not had much of an impact on inflation is because corporate greed is not impacted by interest rates; regardless how high the interest rate, corporations will raise prices out of greed.

Second, a just-out poll reveals a truly shocking finding:  17% of voters nationally blame President BIden for the reversal of Roe v Wade.  This is shocking because Republicans, quite accurately, have taken credit for this reversal; it is something they have fought for for years and Trump as president appointed justices to the Supreme Court who would reverse Roe.

So how can such a large percentage of voters be so confused of something so clear?  The only thing I can think of is that, as with the economy, Biden is the sitting president and so uninformed people are blaming him for the Supreme Court’s reversal.

What can the Democrats do?  They must do even more - they are already focused on this - to pin the blame for Roe’s reversal squarely on Trump by focusing on his nominations to the Supreme Court.  The speeches and ads they have developed are obviously not effective enough or are not reaching this uninformed audience.

There is no question in my mind that if voters knew the truth, Biden would win the election handily.  That must be Biden’s and the Democrats’ task.

Israel's Self-Inflicted Damage

The response by Israel to Spain's, Norway's, and Iceland's recent recognition of Palestine have been predictable.  “A reward for terrorism" has been the criticism and Israel has halted the disbursement of Palestinian tax revenue.

Recognition by these member-states of the EU is not a reward for terrorism.  It is a rebuke of Israel for its overreaching response to the acknowledged horrific Hamas attack of October 7.  It has gone far beyond “an eye for an eye” to unrestricted warfare.

As I stated in my recent post, "The Palestinian/Israel Conflict - A Reality Check"  the international community (at the least the western part) was behind Israel after the attack.  And it understood why Israel had to make a military response.

But as the response turned into a new war and civilian deaths mounted, together with wide-spread destruction and a humanitarian crisis, the sympathy of the world, including a significant portion of the West's population, went to the suffering Palestinians.

What to do when you, either as an individual or a country, strongly support the state of Israel, but have serious problems with its actions.  I must note that this is not just a problem of the current Netanyahu government.  This is a problem that has existed with all Likud-leaded governments and they have been in power for all but 9 years since 1977.  

The international community can no longer ignore what has long been clear - that the current and former Likud-led Israeli governments have and have had no intention to even minimally protecting Palestinians and their interests in the “occupied territories.”  And they have intentionally made the two-state solution almost impossible geographically.

Israeli governments have long snubbed both the international community and international law in its continued occupation of and expansive settlement policies in the West Bank.  Recognition is the one symbolic tool countries have to indicate the extent of their disapproval of Israeli government policy, of a country they otherwise wholeheartedly support.  Would Israel rather countries take more direct action?