We rethink the week with Dean Spiliotis, Civic Scholar and Presidential Scholar at Southern New Hampshire University; Stephen Pimpare, Professor at the University of New Hampshire and a nationally recognized expert on poverty, homelessness, and U.S. social policy; and Robert Hennelly, investigative reporter for The Chief/Leader, a public employee union journal in NYC, for NJInsider, Salon.com, and @stucknation.
As Herman Cain dies of COVID-19 and as Republican Congressmembers and White House staffers are coming down with the illness, we wonder how any rational member of the Republican Party can continue to support Pres. Trump’s willful blindness toward the pandemic. How can they back him up in failing to address this plague in any kind of meaningful way? Why won’t they break away from their leader even on the subject of putting together a public health infrastructure that might protect many of the American people? After all, taking action to defeat the virus and put Americans back to work is one thing that could be a tremendous help to Republican candidates in the November elections.
We also discuss the huge increase in demand for guns. This is probably due to Trump and his administration’s constant stoking of hatred and violence. They are intentionally trying to scare suburban families with unreasonable fears that “mobs” and revolutionaries could show up on one’s doorstep at any moment (showing them videos of confrontations between militarized federal tactical officers shooting teargas at demonstrators in Portland).
We note that, as soon as federal agents from DHS/Border Patrol (BORTAC) backed away in Portland and stopped inciting and provoking the citizenry, the protests returned to being peaceful and non-violent. Trump’s thugs succeeded only in drawing out lots more protesters than before (even the peaceful kind of protesters), and also provoked confrontations that could have been resolved without any violence.
The Trump Administration’s tyrannical political agenda was made clear by the following contrast: Trump’s elite federal forces were sent to Portland to protect the symbols of authority (graffiti on the courthouse), but the Administration said nothing when the 20-year-old son of a federal judge was murdered (by an activist Trump supporter) – apparently in an attempt to murder the judge herself because she had ruled against the assassin in a lawsuit.
Also within the past month, an active-duty army officer – who was a member of the “Boogaloo Boys,” a private right-wing militia – murdered an African-American federal court security guard who had been providing security for the federal courthouse in Oakland, CA. We agreed that these vigilante murders should rate at least the same level of priority from federal law enforcement (like the FBI, ATF, and Dept of Justice) than the possibility that peaceful demonstrators might paint graffiti on some columns outside the Portland courthouse.
