My heart goes out to the victims of the anti-Semitic terrorist shootings Saturday at the Chabad of Poway synagogue in California.
I believe that the most impactful and practical act we can do now to honor these victims of anti-Semitic terrorism and to stem the rising tide of hate crimes and violence toward Jews, Muslims, immigrants, and people of color is to impeach Trump, the bigot in chief.
Trump’s racist tropes and incitements to violence are encouraging white nationalist movements and terrorism in the US and around the world. Hate crimes against racial and religious minorities in the US have jumped since Trump announced his candidacy in June 2015 with bigoted statements against Mexicans, soon followed by the Muslim ban and racist and anti-Semitic tropes against blacks and Jews. The FBI reported a 17% increase in hate crimes in 2017, Trump’s first year in office. In 2017, hate crimes increased 16% against blacks, 24% against Latinos, and 57% against Jews. A record high number of LBGTQ people were murdered that year. Hate crimes against Muslims have increased 77% since 2015. A recent study found that in counties where Trump held rallies, hate crimes increased 226% in the following months.
Rep. Al Green (D-TX) was right to force a House vote on his solely-sponsored impeachment resolution in December 2017 on the grounds that Trump’s racism and bigotry make him unfit to be president. Green’s resolution recounted many examples of how Trump had harmed the American people “by publicly casting
contempt on individuals and groups, inciting hate and hostility, sowing discord among the people…on the basis of race, national origin, religion, gender, and sexual orientation” and “by associating the majesty and dignity of the presidency with causes rooted in white supremacy, bigotry, racism, anti-Semitism, white nationalism, or neo-Nazism.” Congress voted his impeachment resolution down 364-58, with most of the Democrats joining the Republicans in voting no.
Trump’s racism, bigotry, and incitements to violence are sufficient grounds alone for impeachment. But there are plenty of more grounds that are plain to see for anyone who cares to look at the news: self-enriching emoluments and nepotism; abuses of power, obstructions of justice, and contempt of Congress; constant lying; demonizing the press; harassment of journalists and immigration lawyers at the Mexican border; felony campaign hush-money payments; and seeking and welcoming campaign support from Russians, Saudis, Emiratis, and Israelis. The circumstantial evidence is overwhelming for crimes before he took office, including sexual assault, racial discrimination, money laundering, bank fraud, insurance fraud, tax evasion, wage theft, and refusing to pay contractors and creditors.
Only a rich white man could expect to get away with this in America. The Republicans would have impeached Obama instantly for any one of these offenses. But the Democratic leadership seems cynically intent on leaving Trump in office as a villainous foil for fundraising.
Greens should be at the forefront of the movement to impeach Trump. We need overwhelming public pressure to force the Democrats in Congress to begin an impeachment inquiry.
Democrats tell the Greens to wait until after 2020 before running a presidential ticket so they can get rid of Trump. But we can’t wait. The next victims of white terrorism can’t wait. Trump can gotten rid of now, well before the 2020 elections. If Trump is allowed to continue his racist rants and increasingly authoritarian rule without impeachment, it gives power to Trump and his ultra-right minions to mobilize and act on their violent racist delusions.
Impeachment proceedings will expose Trump’s crimes to the people—and expose the Republicans’ complicity in those crimes if they persist in shielding him. Even if the Republican-controlled Senate fails to convict Trump in a trial upon impeachment by the House, the racism, lawlessness, and many crimes of Trump and his Republican defenders will be exposed for all to see. The anti-Trump vote will be mobilized and the ultra-right’s political base will be reduced.
i’m really sorry to see this rubbish, howie. while i wish you well in the green primaries youre bound to win, an understand your virtue-signaling: it ain’t gonna happen as far as impeaching trump.
even if it did, you rather see mike pence as the US ruler? at least the bellicose bloward lets us know of his bigotries, desires to command and control the planet, smash the remaining bolivarian nations, etc. pence would just be more quiet and chrstianist about his evils.
i’ve aso been dismayed at your trumpeting extinction rebellion on twitter. kinda hard to know that you don’t understand that it’s another brand of green capitalism, as is aoc’s, bill mckiben’s ‘turn in your gas guzzling
SUV for an electric one. by the by, your green new deal touts electric cars, too. dependin on the source of the power used for those plug-ins, their carbon footprints aren’t any big carbon savings, either. check out corey morningstar, @elleprovacatuer on twitter.
Hi Wendy,
Thanks for your comments.
On impeachment, the Senate Republicans probably won’t impeach the bigot in chief in the end. But the way to beat Trump is to beat him up—and the Republicans who defend him—in the impeachment process. It would so debilitate them politically that they would be crushed in the 2020 election. We can’t let their bigotry, lawlessness, and crimes go without challenge.
On the Extinction Rebellion and McKibben, I am with you. The importance of Extinction Rebellion is that young people are actively resisting. The program may fall short, but they are putting climate collapse on the public agenda. McKibben’s reform capitalism through the Democratic Party is very problematic. I’m in the middle of an article that will hit McKibben hard on that.
On electric cars: I am calling for clean-powered electrified transportation emphasizing rail networks—freight rails, intra-city light rails, and inter-city high-speed rails. That should be the center of a transportation system whose lines and hubs are designed so cities, towns, suburbs can be restructured into walkable communities served by that system. But even with that, there will still need to be some electric vehicles to move freight and people to their final destinations.
I hope that makes my positions clearer.
–Howie
Agree about Impeachment ‘orocess’ BEING OBLIGATION OF SO-CALLED REPRESENTATION BY THE CONGRESS…TO UPHOLD ACTION TO SUPPORT WHATEVER DEMOCRACY WE HAVE! I am now convinced it is NECESSARY TO GO FOR IMPEACHMENT OF THIS DICTATOR-WOULD-BE-KING!! Things are bad enough with the Electoral College & sick gerrymandering & LIMITED BALLLOT ACCESS AND NO EQUAL TIME AMENDMENT!!! WE MUST PUSH FOR IMPEACHMENT! Thanks Howie!
thanks for responding, howie, but it’s my sense that Greens calling for T’s impeachment is a bad tactic, as my belief is that Greens should stand for less partisan things, and this is a waste of time. but you and your advisors must see it far differently. ‘
i out up a marxist critique on green new deal UK and extinction rebellion both at my home (rather boutique) website as well as at a place i cross-post. believe me, few even want to explore or contemplate how venal both are, although i’m sure most of those in the street understand what the ‘asks’ of XR are, and what they really mean.
same with those who are weighing (bottom of the comment stream) about what it means, doesn’t mean when nations endorse a climate emergency. you mightwant to check it out.
https://caucus99percent.com/content/marxist-critique-green-new-deals-and-extinction-rebellion
I’m old. The optometrist tells me that I am developing cataracts on my eyes. My point in this is that tiny fonts and light-gray colors make your message unreadable. Please use larger fonts with black typeface.
Long after President Trump is gone from our lives…there will be a Green Party, a Green Movement to sustain our somewhat lofty goals.
Toning down the anti Trump rhetoric will set the Green Party apart from the frenzy displayed in the Democrat Party.
Clean & Green & Fresh…..not mired in hatred is our proper way forward!
Jules in Ohio
just to give you a heads-up, mr. wd and i both get your updates, and the two recent ones are empty white fields for both of us. i even forwarded them to myself, which sometimes works, but hadn’t in this case.
and i agree with Eddie, the pale grey font is hard for my eyes to read, as well.
I fully support the drive for impeachment, for precisely the reasons cited by Howie. Further, it would set a precedent that such outrageous behavior will not be tolerated. don’t forget the torrent of lies, averaging something like 20 per day. We cannot allow this to go unchallenged! Fascists routinely lie and act like it doesn’t matter. When Reality looks into a mirror, she sees Truth. Jon (just yesterday ending my 3 year term as co-chair of the Maine Green Independent Party)
Hey Howie, I strongly disagree with your conclusions that the Green Party getting involved with the impeachment process will yield the positive results you stated, “the racism, lawlessness, and many crimes of Trump and his Republican defended will be exposed for all to see” plus “The Anti-Trump vote will be mobilized and the ultra-right’s political will be reduced.” Dead wrong on both counts: most American voters seem to be totally uncaring about American Fascism while being somewhat aware of President Chump’s war crimes abroad, his corporate welfare bill inflating the national debt, his blatant misogyny and racist antics plus the anti-environmental emphasis of his shameless war criminal administration! I predict that the impeachment farce will help mobilize the Pro-Chump vote by bringing in more ignorant simpletons disgusted by the biased mainstream media coverage and the profitable political circus of this particular grandstanding that only serves the talking heads and the hypocritical Demogorgons- two faces for every position and occasion! Instead of playing into their two-faced clutches and wasting time, energy and money from donors, I propose you and I help to further expose the truth about both evil war parties with a powerful public art campaign that puts a painful weed up the ultra-right command’s collective ass while rubbing it in the two-faced Dems that the only great difference between them is the liberal rhetoric or moderately conservative beliefs used by their evil manipulators. Until We The People are committed to establishing free and fair elections, there will always be a war criminal commander-in-chief that deserves to be dragged away in chains like Mubarak was and executed in a humane fashion like Saddam received! Let’s make Los Angeles the artistic battleground where the resistance against the two evil war parties can get a lot of media attention for our superior political platform and can get the necessary celebrity endorsements while actively working on winning a Congressional seat here that actually represents the masses by first addressing the homeless epidemic full-scale instead of the token gestures of opening a few more homeless shelters of about fifty occupants- what a disgrace! Building a solid resistance with the other small political parties and representing for all the disenfranchised voters is what can’t wait until 2020 to start campaigning for; Stumpy in the Shite House is just a misogynistic reflection of our own collective narcissism, materialism and racism that happened to get him selected by the Electoral College because $hillary was an even more heinous warmonger and loathsome manipulator than the celebrity political apprentice.