Election Day + 3: LOVE RALLY in the PARK

I begin with these above three photographs because they picture children. They remind us that this event was intended to be a family affair–cheerful, peaceful, with no disturbances and no arrests. 

In the first photo, we see two young boys proudly displaying their own posters, non-political, abstract drawings that may not even relate to the rally’s theme of “love.”  In the second, we see a young girl climbing a lamppost in order to get a better view.  In the third, we see another young girl with the most perfect perch: her father’s shoulders.

Whether the participants were old, young, white, colored, these photographs, again, capture the festive mood of the day.

Nevertheless, people also made and carried signs to express their concern with Donald Trump’s positions, their dismay at his behavior and their challenges to some of his ill-advised statements. The rest of my photographs focus and comment on some of these signs.

In June of 2015, on CNN’s State of the Union, Donald Trump first began talking about building a wall across America’s southern border with Mexico.  He claimed the Mexicans and other Latin Americans were “really bad….killers and rapists and they’re coming into this country.”  The wall will keep them out, and Trump will make Mexico pay for its construction–both utterly absurd statements. Trump still maintains his position on the wall, the result of which has been the alienation of an important American ally as well as its third largest trading partner.

Build Bridges Not Walls has become a common sign at rallies across the country. It signifies an enormous expense (the wall) which would accomplish nothing.  Meanwhile, actual bridge-building serves the real physical need of repairing our crumbling infrastructure; it also alludes to the metaphorical need of healing a citizenry which has been torn asunder by this nastiest of political campaigns. 

In both these aspects of bridge-building, Trump’s plans (to the extent that they exist) will do more harm than good.  His infrastructure plan is really a tax-cut plan for the utility industry and for construction investors. It will add over $130 billion to the deficit while enriching individuals. Bridge building to heal the citizenry is all talk and no action. How can one possibly make amends after attacking Muslims, African-Americans, Asians, POWs, Women, Disabled Persons and Reporters, among many others, for nearly the past two years?

Here, mother and son call for love as a counter to discrimination and hate. 

The issue of discrimination has dogged Donald Trump from his earliest days. In both the early 1970s and in the early 1980s, his urban housing development corporations were being sued for discriminating against African Americans. More recently, his executive order on “religious freedom” has been attacked as an unconstitutional move to legalize discrimination and violate the First Amendment.

Hate, an even broader issue, has appeared almost daily, ever since Trump began his public run for the presidency. With impunity, so it seems, Donald Trump uses hateful language to attack both individual people (Khizr Khan, Judge Curiel, Alicia Machado, Megan Kelly, Elizabeth Warren, Hillary Clinton) and groups (Latinos, Blacks, Muslims, Undocumented Immigrants, POWs, Women, the Disabled).

Sadly, this hate is not restricted to the utterances of Donald Trump. Because of his position, he has become an influential role model. The result of this is a noted increase in racist and xenophobic harassment throughout the country. In fact, at least one physician has voiced concern about the health consequences of what he terms an Epidemiology of Hate.

This is really a sign heralding the social values in American culture, particularly those of compassion and empathy for others. These are not values that we have seen exhibited by Trump.  More often than not, our 45th President is more likely to exhibit and embrace the opposing values of cruelty and enmity.

Allow me to transcribe this sign and let it speak for itself. It reads:
I STAND FOR  People with Disabilities…Women…Muslims… LBGTQ Community…Black Lives Matter…Prisoners of War… Undocumented Immigrants…Mexicans…Sexual Assault Survivors…the Lower Class…Planned Parenthood…Asians… Hispanics…Health Care…Anyone who has ever felt alone…LOVE.

The purple sign on our left reads: White Silence = Violence. Three simple words. Their meaning is obvious. To be silent before an observed wrong implies consent with that wrong. Not simply generic “violence,” the wrong in our present American context is racism. The association of white silence with violence is an accepted tenet of black social activism, at least since Malcolm X and the early 1960s. 

ACLU lawyer, Corrine Fletcher uses the words in an article she wrote in July, 2016, for example. A month later, basketball star Isaiah Thomas was quoted on ESPN’s First Take saying: “White silence is the equivalent to violence in these issues.” Furthermore, a group of white artists from Brooklyn, calling themselves Breaking White Silence, invite others to join their “artivist action” for racial healing.

Yet, even a century ago, we find powerful condemnations of silence in the presence of hateful behavior, as in the voice of the poet Ella Wheeler Wilcox. Here is her opening line and the second stanza of the poem, Protest (1914):

Wouldn’t it be refreshing were her opening line heeded and taken to heart by our many, silent Republican lawmakers?

Did Donald Trump commit treason? We may never know, at least not while he is president. After all, the presidency gives him command of the relevant investigative agencies, and he “will have the power to hinder or even outright squelch them.”

The issue of treason has to do with Trump’s tangled connections to Russia;  Russia’s cyberattacks of the American Democratic Party;  the many comments Trump has made about these attacks (some encouraging them);  evidence of Trump’s past dealings with Russia as well as his open praise for Vladimir Putin;  and the various connections to and dealings with Russia by people in the Trump camp (Paul Manafort, Carter Page, Roger Stone, Michael Flynn and Rex Tillerson).

To quote NSA legal counsel Susan Hennessey, “If there was any evidence that the Trump campaign actively colluded with Russia and committed crimes, that would be the most shocking political scandal in American history.” 

Donald Trump complained that signs calling for revolt, like this, were unfair, and he fabricated this transparent lie on Twitter about  demonstrations around the country:  “Now professional protesters, incited by the media, are protesting. Very unfair!“

History, fortunately, exposes Trump’s hypocrisy.  Four years earlier, on November, 7, 2012, as Barack Obama won a second term, Donald Trump angrily tweeted that Americans should revolt and “march on Washington and stop this travesty… stop this great and disgusting injustice.”

Now that the tide has turned, the Trump election has activated a large segment of the American electorate of the opposite political persuasion.  Calls for revolt appear not only on signs carried by demonstrators, but also on the internet. One such article, by Lizzie Crocker of mid-November, 2016, calls for what is termed “big organizing.” Taking inspiration from the Sanders campaign, she introduces a participatory way to promote a revolutionary progressive agenda.  

Another approach, called Indivisible, was compiled by former Congressional staffers, and calls itself a “practical guide for resisting the Trump agenda.”  Indivisible encourages continual, organized activism on the part of America’s citizens. 

Coincidentally, Paul Krugman’s most recent article, “When the Fire Comes,” concludes by questioning the efficacy today of our system of checks and balances to stop further power grabs by the White House. “In the end,” he writes, “I fear it’s going to rest on the people–on whether enough Americans are willing to take a public stand.”

A revolt may well be in the offing.

This sign reads: I Will Not Call a Rapist Mr. President. These are strong words. They are not fabricated fictions, however.  They derive from actual lawsuits against Donald Trump. Whether in known and respected periodicals like Huffington Post or in newer, less well-known ones like Fusion, this troubling topic has been widely covered.

In the 1990s, Donald Trump’s first wife, Ivana, used the word “rape” in a deposition, saying that he raped her in a fit of rage. In a 1997 lawsuit, Jill Harth, who had been working with Trump on a business deal, describes a scene at Mar-a-Lago in which he sexually attacked her in the bedroom of one of his children. Then, in a lawsuit filed eight months ago in New York State, a woman (Jane Doe) accused Trump of raping her in 1994, when she was just 13-years-old.

These are serious charges. Clearly, something untoward occurred in private between Donald Trump and women.  The New York Times published an article last May, “Crossing the Line: How Donald Trump Behaved with Women in Private.” This article extended far beyond the women and incidents of these lawsuits. In summary, it noted how its “interviews reveal unwelcome advances, a shrewd reliance on ambition, and unsettling workplace conduct over decades.”

All these incidents call to mind the common idiom, where there’s smoke, there’s fire. Or, to cite from an article titled “The Undeniable Rape Culture of Donald Trump” written by the American playwright and performance artist, Eve Ensler, “we know that rape culture is a contagion, that once given license and permission divides and subdivides and spreads…”

Pussy Grabs Back quickly became a rallying cry when, in October, 2016, a video [3:06] from 2005 captures Donald Trump telling TV host, Billy Bush, how he seduces and kisses beautiful women without their consent.  “I don’t even wait,” Trump says, “When you’re a star they let you do it. You can do anything. Grab ’em by the pussy. You can do anything.“

Pussy Grabs Back has become a metaphor for most anti-Trump actions, whether it’s Rihanna protesting in front of Trump Tower last month while wearing a “This Pussy Grabs Back” hoodie or the artist, Simone Giertz, who has fabricated a Pussy Grabs Back Machine as protection–see her hilarious video [6:12] of creating and testing her machine.

Another utterance by Donald Trump which has taken on a life and meaning of its own is Nasty Woman. 

In the final presidential debate of October 19, 2016, held at the University of Nevada in Las Vegas, Hillary Clinton is addressing the topic of Social Security when Donald Trump rudely interrupts her and says to the audience, “Such a nasty woman.” 

Within minutes, women across the country were tweeting #IAmANastyWomanBecause, followed by whatever issue was important to them.  Huffington Post’s Women’s Editor, Emma Gray, called the phrase a “call for solidarity,” one which embodied the many derogatory insults that women have been subjected to for most of their lives. 

Women turned an insult “into a brag.”  One young woman, referring to Hillary Clinton, said, “If she’s a nasty woman, I want to be a nasty woman, too.” Soon, women began tattooing “nasty woman” on their bodies.

However, there is another meaning to this phrase, one emerging solely from Donald Trump’s psyche. Because Hillary Clinton–a woman–has successfully stood up to him without wilting or backing down, he feels unfairly victimized. Victimized by this “nasty woman,” who refuses to behave as a woman ought. “I am a victim,” he told a North Carolina crowd on October 15. Because I feel ill-prepared to deal with the psychological complexity of this apparent martyrdom complex, I submit to you the fascinating article by the author, Ann Jones: “Donald Trump, the Greatest Victim in the History of the World.”

The Future Is Female, and its high time that Americans embraced and understood the potential healing power embodied in this statement.  Near the end of her concession speech of November 9, 2016, Hillary Clinton told “all the little girls who are watching this, never doubt that you are valuable and powerful and deserving of every chance and opportunity in the world to pursue and achieve your own dreams.” 

Twelve days later, Janet Bertolus wrote “An Open Letter to the First Female President of the United States” in which she stated:  “My wish is that you have the intellect of Hillary, the sass of Elizabeth Warren and the authenticity and oratory chops of Michelle Obama.”  This would be my wish as well.  I know no man, Republican or Democrat, who comes close to possessing such skills (even one of them).

Then, at the 2017 Makers conference held last week, Hillary directly quoted the words of this sign, saying:  “Despite all the challenges we face, I remain convinced that yes, the future is female.”

Several groups promote the idea of more women in politics. Emily’s List may be among the best known, with its focus on pro-choice Democratic women.  Less well-known, although almost a decade old, is She Should Run, a non-partisan organization which promotes women and girls of all backgrounds.  As its co-founder, Erin Cutraro said, “If we want to have an effective country, we’re not gonna get there unless women’s voices are at the table.“

Consider just this one statistic, as cited by Andrea Drew Steele of Emerge America:  “On the Republican side, out of all of their party leadership and committee chairs, there is only one woman. She chairs House Administration, which is basically the secretarial committee.” 

No wonder Republican Congresses have governed so badly, and will perform no better now even though the GOP controls both houses. They must elect more women, because women are much more effective at advancing legislation, regardless of political party.

Bigoted, anti-immigration rhetoric helped Donald Trump rise above his fellow Republicans during his campaign for the presidency. Since his Inauguration, he has issued three Executive Orders against immigrants and refugees. These ill-considered Orders were characterized by Vox staff writer, Dara Lind, as “a 9/11-style crisis reaction — without a 9/11.”

Trump’s Executive Orders on immigration have adversely effected almost everyone, from scientists, to the high-tech industry of Silicon Valley and its reliance on the H-1B visa program, to low-wage workers and our entire farming system. If, in this latter case, undocumented workers were removed from farm work, the United States would suffer a $30-60 billion loss in food production.

The reality behind immigration is that immigrants earn more than native born Americans, they study further, they stay employed more and they tend to avoid poverty more. This has to do with what author Anand Giridharadas terms “The Immigrant Advantage;” this advantage stems from an “ability to straddle the seemingly contradictory values of their birthplaces and their adopted land, to balance individualism with community-mindedness and self-reliance with usage of the system.”

Among their many benefits to our country, immigrants will contribute a net of $611 billion to our Social Security System over the next 75 years, so buoying to the solvency of this great system. Moreover, were America to legalize its undocumented immigrant population, it would add $1.5 trillion to the country’s GDP.

In other words, “Immigrants Make America Great” [Rex Nutting]; “America Is Still Great, and Immigration Is Still Why” [Lawrence Downes].

This is not quite accurate; or, to put it differently, it’s only 2/3 true. I’ll refrain from any further comment.

I’m not aware of a political group calling itself, Youth Against Fascism. However, one of the tunes from the 1992 album, Dirty, by Sonic Youth was given this title.  If you wish, listen to it here on YouTube [3:38].

The word, “fascist,” is often tossed about much too loosely. Most of us have misused it ourselves or know others who have.  Even Neil Gorsuch, Trump’s nominee for Supreme Court Justice, once created a Fascism Forever Club, albeit as a teenager in preparatory school.

The historian and scholarly writer on the topic of fascism, Robert O. Paxton, said “I’m very, very reluctant to use the word fascism loosely, because it’s almost the most powerful epithet you can use. I guess child molester might be a little more powerful but not much.” Having said this during an interview of last year, he went on to enumerate certain themes that Trump’s campaign shared with classic fascism: the use of ethnic stereotyping, the exploitation of a fear of foreigners, the idea of making a country great again, the enlistment of the working class against intellectuals, professionals and the left.

But as Robert Kagan wrote two months later in a piece for the Washington Post, a main connection between Trump and fascism is “attitude, an aura of crude strength and machismo, a boasting disrespect for the niceties of the democratic culture that he claims, and his followers believe, has produced national weakness and incompetence.” 

In the conclusion of this article, Kagan states: “This is how fascism comes to America, not with jackboots and salutes (although there have been salutes, and a whiff of violence) but with a television huckster, a phony billionaire, a textbook egomaniac ‘tapping into’ popular resentments and insecurities, and with an entire national political party — out of ambition or blind party loyalty, or simply out of fear — falling into line behind him.”

For those not yet prepared to accept this word as a descriptor for Donald Trump’s actions, David Frum offers a more acceptable substitute in his important and most recent article for The Atlantic, “How to Build an Autocracy.”

Not My President signs have proliferated throughout the United States to a much broader degree than after any previous election. A Facebook group calling itself Donald Trump Is not My President has sprung up.  In Portland, Oregon, chefs and bartenders will host a fundraiser called “Not My President’s Day” in support of Planned Parenthood.  Meanwhile, across the entire country, President’s Day–February 20–will be celebrated as (Not My) President’s Day.

The main impulse behind this wholesale rejection of Donald Trump as president is best summed up in two examples.  In one, people are saying “‘Trump is not my president’ because I am not racist, sexist, xenophobic, etc.”   In the other, people are saying “Mr. Trump has no intention of representing me, my family, the people I care about, or the majority of Americans, from the imperiled to the comfortable.”

In the end, this Love March in the Park was a joyous affair and, as a reporter for the Gothamist wrote, “there was little tension and no arrests.” This photograph perfectly captures its spirit. Everyone Is Welcome, and America still is “A Country for Everyone.”