We Resist: Day 211

Posted by Melissa McEwan at Friday, August 18, 2017
a black bar with the word RESIST in white text

One of the difficulties in resisting the Trump administration, the Republican Congressional majority, and Republican state legislatures is keeping on top of the sheer number of horrors, indignities, and normalization of the aggressively abnormal that they unleash every single day.

So here is a daily thread for all of us to share all the things that are going on, thus crowdsourcing a daily compendium of the onslaught of conservative erosion of our rights and our very democracy.

Stay engaged. Stay vigilant. Resist.

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Here are some things in the news today:

Earlier today by me: Horrendous Hate Crime in Jackson, Michigan and Mike Pence Was Terrible Before Donald Trump and Bannon's Out.

I will start with two pieces of good resistance news today...

1. House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi has introduced the first resolution to censure Donald Trump for his Charlottesville remarks:
The President's repulsive defense of white supremacists demands that Congress act to defend our American values.

Today, Members led by Reps. Jerry Nadler, Bonnie Watson Coleman, and Pramila Jayapal have filed the first censure resolution against the President. Every day, the President gives us further evidence of why such a censure is necessary. Indeed, with each passing day, it becomes clearer that the Republican Congress must declare whether it stands for our sacred American values or with the President who embraces white nationalism.

Democrats will use every avenue to challenge the repulsiveness of [Donald] Trump's words and actions.
Pelosi is so fucking clever. She's forcing the GOP's hand and creating a paper trail like she's the head of HR. If she builds up enough censures onto which the Republican members can't not sign, then their case for not impeaching him gets very difficult.

2. Ed O'Keefe at the Washington Post: Members of White House Presidential Arts Commission Resigning to Protest Trump's Comments.
The remaining members of a presidential arts and humanities panel resigned on Friday in yet another sign of growing national protest of [Donald] Trump's recent comments on the violence in Charlottesville.

Members of the President's Committee are drawn from Broadway, Hollywood, and the broader arts and entertainment community and said in a letter to Trump that "Your words and actions push us all further away from the freedoms we are guaranteed."

"Reproach and censure in the strongest possible terms are necessary following your support of the hate groups and terrorists who killed and injured fellow Americans in Charlottesville," the commissioners wrote in a letter sent to the White House on Friday morning. "The false equivalencies you push cannot stand. The Administration's refusal to quickly and unequivocally condemn the cancer of hatred only further emboldens those who wish America ill. We cannot sit idly by, the way that your West Wing advisors have, without speaking out against your words and actions."
Soledad O'Brien noticed something interesting about the letter:


RESIST.

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To my earlier point that Steve Bannon isn't really going anywhere...


Here's the thing: Steve Bannon has invested an enormous amount of time and energy fomenting a white supremacist uprising. He's not going to abandon it now.

Consider the timing of his "firing" for a moment: The Friday before a weekend in which white supremacist demonstrations are scheduled in cities all over the country. Do you think seeing their hero being "ousted" is going to make them more or less rageful, especially as they view it as evidence of "cucks" trying to take over the White House they feel they'd just captured?

Either this entire thing is being orchestrated to do maximum damage by enraging white supremacists, or it just looks that way by accident. I know which I think is more likely.

Sebastian Gorka will be "forced" out next. Stephen Miller after that. Eventually Trump will be the only "pure" one left. All of it is fodder to elicit the white supremacists' violent support of Trump's open pivot to straight-up dictator.

Immediately after typing those words, Aphra_Behn (obviously not knowing I'd typed them) sent me this:


WELP.

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[Content Note: Violent threats] Alex Horton at the Washington Post: Mother of Slain Charlottesville Protester Says She's Received Death Threats. "Less than a week since her daughter Heather Heyer was killed in Charlottesville, Susan Bro says she has received threats against her life. 'I've had death threats already...because of what I'm doing right this second,' Bro told MSNBC on Thursday, one day after Heyer was buried and a vigil at the University of Virginia drew hundreds of candle-bearing supporters. ...Anchor Katy Tur, seemingly stunned when Bro said she was receiving threats, asked why they were coming. 'Talk is fear to them,' Bro responded, describing the white nationalists. 'I don't know why. Talk is fear.'" Such a tenacious woman.

Aaron Rupar at ThinkProgress: Mother of Charlottesville Victim Won't Talk to Trump, Citing His Defense of White Supremacist Rally. "During a Good Morning America interview on Friday, [Susan Bro] said that following [Donald] Trump's public defense of a white supremacist rally [during which her daughter was killed], she's no longer interesting in talking with him. ...'You can't wash this one away by shaking my hand and saying I'm sorry,' she said during the Good Morning America interview. 'I'm not forgiving for that.'"

I'd love to know how Trump explains this to himself, because he surely doesn't hear that Bro doesn't want to speak with him and reflect on why that might be and have a long, hard think about the kind of person he is. I'm guessing he just decides she's a hater and a loser and goes on with his shitty day.

Jeremy Diamond at CNN: As Trump Mulls Afghanistan, a Former General and Fallen Marine's Father at His Side. Jesus fucking Jones, that headline. That's precisely the sort of soft-focus, jingoistic bullshit that got us into wars like the one in Afghanistan in the first place. It's bad enough when it's an ordinary president, and Trump is no ordinary president. he's also clearly contemplating military action to bump his approval ratings upward, so maybe the political media could be wise enough to not help him in this vile endeavor.

Martin Matishak at Politico: Trump Elevates U.S. Cyber Command, Vows 'Increased Resolve' Against Threats. "Cyber Command has developed under the auspices of the NSA for years, sharing resources, staffing and infrastructure. Adm. Mike Rogers currently leads both organizations. But, [Kenneth Rapuano, assistant secretary of defense for homeland defense and global] said, the 'symbiotic' relationship between the two will eventually end, as the NSA's intelligence-collection mandate is quite different than Cyber Command's cyber war-fighting purview. Many specialists — even those who support such a split — are careful to note that cleaving the two is a long, difficult process that risks both sides losing out on valuable resources." Well, I'm sure the Trump administration will handle it well and our national security won't suffer at all j/k j/k j/k fuck.

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Lots of people are VERY EXCITED that Mitt Romney said words about Donald Trump defending white supremacy. Yeah. I had some thoughts about that.


I know that was long, but let's be honest — this shit makes me so angry it's amazing I even managed to keep it just to that much!

I guess everyone has forgotten that Mitt Romney was last seen angling for a place in Donald Trump's administration. Of course we're meant to afford him the good faith of assuming that was because he wanted to try to stop Trump's worst excesses. How he earned such an extraordinary extension of good faith has never been clearly articulated to me by those urging me to extend it.

They don't feel they need to, of course. I'm meant to understand that we should reflexively afford him good faith because he's a white man.

And 'round and 'round we go.

What have you been reading that we need to resist today?
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