More than Anybody

 

More Than Anybody 

OK, we know he lies whenever he speaks, but there are two which keep resounding as desperate hopefulness that if he says them often enough, they will become true.

        The first is Trump’s constant repetition that he and/or his administration was responsible for enacting the Veteran’s Choice bill which allowed veterans in the VA system who live more than 40 miles from a clinic to opt to use private health care providers. This resounds with those too ignorant or, more likely, too naïve to simply Google it. Doing so would reveal the following: President Obama signed the Veteran’s Choice Act into law in October 2014. Read it again. Trump claimed this in June, 2018: “So it’s now my great honor to sign the VA Mission Act, or as we all know it, the Choice Act, and to make Veterans Choice the permanent law of our great country,” the president said, standing in the Rose Garden. “And nobody deserves it more than our veterans.”

        The germ of truth is that the original Choice bill mandated that within 40 miles of a clinic, the veteran would be required to use VA facilities. The Mission Act did not, as Trump has implied too often to count, initiate, or allow a “new” concept. What it did do, in what amounts to a valentine to private health care providers, was to ease the 40-mile restriction in some cases. The other part of that is that the original Choice Act, passed by a hostile GOP controlled Congress, badly underfunded the original act. The Mission Act, passed by the Trump crony US Senate, in the main, simply added appropriate funding and several other administrative measures. Choice was already the “law of the land” halfway through Obama’s second term.

        Even more insulting, and to a much larger segment of the population, are statements such as: “My Administration has done more for the Black Community than any President since Abraham Lincoln.” This analogy, in almost always the same words, has been reiterated numerous times, usually when he can’t honestly answer a legitimate query posed by another individual. He even used it with Bob Woodward during interviews for his recent Book, Rage. It’s another sort of “but whaddabout” response. You know as in “Mr. President how do you respond to charges that you encourage white supremacists?” and Trump says, “But, I’ve done more etc.…”  

        We’ve all seen and heard him do it. He said during the recent debate that he was, “The least racist person in the room!” Of course, the best laboratory in which to prove or disprove this is the public acts and statements of the man himself, Accordingly I’ve saved my readers the trouble of research and found several relevant examples, either quotes or anecdotal observations.

·       “Black guys counting my money! I hate it. The only kind of people I want counting my money are short guys that wear yarmulkes every day. … I think that the guy is lazy. And it’s probably not his fault, because laziness is a trait in blacks. It really is, I believe that. It’s not anything they can control.” (commenting on a casino employee)

·       “When Donald and Ivana came to the casino, the bosses would order all the black people off the floor,” (a former employee of Trump’s Castle, in Atlantic City, New Jersey) verified by eyewitness reporter several times

·       “Who the f*** knows? I mean, really, who knows how much the Japs will pay for Manhattan property these days?” (Pre-White House)

·       By June 2020, two hundred of Trump's judicial nominees had been confirmed to lifetime appointments as Article III judges. Neither of his two Supreme Court judges, none of his 53 appeals court judges, and neither of his two Court of International Trade judges are Black. One is Latino American, and seven are Asian Pacific American. The remainder of Trump's 200 judicial appointments were to district courts. Nine of these 143 district court judges (6%) are Black

·       August 2019, Trump's anti-immigrant rhetoric was widely criticized, especially remarks regarding Hispanics and his repeated warnings about an immigrant "invasion", the same wording used by the El Paso shooter in his anti-immigrant manifesto in which he wrote, "this attack is a response to the Hispanic invasion of Texas." Representative Veronica Escobar, whose district includes a large part of the city, said "Words have consequences. The president has made my community and my people the enemy. He has told the country that we are people to be feared, people to be hated." Presidential candidate Beto O'Rourke, who is from El Paso, stated: "Anyone who is surprised is part of this problem right now—including members of the media who ask, 'Hey Beto, do you think the president is racist?' Well, Jesus Christ, of course he's racist. He's been racist from day one.

    

       While I doubt that these examples are revelations to most sentient Americans, it  is worth noting that this skewed sense of social reality was learned early from Fred Trump Sr. The Trump paterfamilias got rich using Government loans to build apartment housing, primarily in Brooklyn and to some extent in in New Jersey in the post war housing shortage. While all taxpayers’ money theoretically contributed to the financial backing with which Fred Sr. built this empire, eventually totaling more than 27,000 apartments and a few row houses, only white taxpayers were allowed to live in it.

       The usual process was to simply claim there were “no vacancies” when persons of color applied. This came to a head when a white operative for the NY Housing authority applied immediately after an earlier operative (a person of color) had been denied on the grounds of "no vacancy". The white applicant was assured there were several apartments available and offered a tour. The resultant federal lawsuit was settled out of court with a large fine. Donald’s statement to an attorney during the prolonged litigation was, “You know, you don’t want to live with them either.”

 

       In the present this has continued in much the same vein. The Trump administration reversed the 2015 Obama administration Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing Rule which was enacted to promote equal housing opportunities and level the playing field so that neighborhoods provided equal opportunities for all. (making “red-lining” and deed restrictions based on race or social intangibles, other than ability to afford the house, illegal)  Eugene Robinson called Trump's decision "Maybe be the most nakedly racist appeal to White voters that I’ve seen since the days of segregationist state leaders such as Alabama’s George Wallace and Georgia’s Lester Maddox.”

 

       Apparently, in Trump World, a suburb is the kind of community where great Americans live because “we've” limited it. He thinks it's just straight-up racializing this idea of housing, after all he and his dad did it in the 1970s. The Trump position seems to be, “I’m going to tell you that these people are good, (or some version of “us versus them.”) We are, the good people; they’re the bad people and we have to keep them out to keep our greatness.”'

 

       Bob Woodward, in “Rage” describes a recorded interview with Trump in which he (Woodward) talks about white privilege. Woodward asked Trump if he was working to "understand the anger and the pain, particularly, Black people feel in this country.” Trump replied “No. You really drank the Kool-Aid, didn’t you? Just listen to you. Wow. No, I don’t feel that at all.

 

       Admittedly, all the above mentioned examples could be subject to the interpretation of the reader, so let’s look at the “Done more for Blacks than anyone since Lincoln” mantra which is Trump’s almost daily fallback when pressed on the issue of his racism. Let’s look it in terms of concrete “civil rights” activities or legislation.

 

       Obviously, one could look at actual positive legislative initiatives which have been the product of the Trump administration’s efforts in the field. Unfortunately, that’s not possible because there have been none. Actually, Since Trump took office in January 2017, his administration has worked aggressively to turn back the clock on America's civil and human rights progress. I will limit this to just a few of the more blatant examples of this retrograde approach:

 

·       On February 22, 2017, the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division and the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights jointly rescinded Title IX guidance clarifying protections under the law for transgender students.

·       On October 2, 2017, ED Sec. DeVos rescinded 72 guidance documents outlining the rights of students with disabilities.

·       On November 16, 2017, the Federal Communications Commission voted to gut Lifeline, the program dedicated to bringing phone and internet service within reach for people of color, low-income people, seniors, veterans, and people with disabilities, with particularly egregious consequences for tribal areas. (“Red” persons!)

·       On June 18, 2018, Nikki Haley, the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, announced that the United States was withdrawing from the UN Human Rights Council.

·       On October 1, 2018,  a policy change at the Department of State took effect saying that the Trump administration would no longer issue family visas to same-sex domestic partners of foreign diplomats or employees of international organizations who work in the United States.

·       On May 22, 2019, the Department of Housing and Urban Development proposed changing the Obama-era Equal Access Rule to allow homeless shelters to deny access based on a person’s gender identity.

 

       This is, believe, me, but a tiny smattering of the body of retrograde civil rights actions taken either by Trump executive order or cabinet level officials with his approval. I can find not one piece of legislation signed by Trump which furthers civil rights for anyone

 

       On the other hand, re: the “more than anyone” claim, Consider the Civil Rights legislation personally pushed, especially in the Senate and signed into law by Lyndon Johnson. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 alone are momentous. Add to that Medicare and Medicaid and it’s obvious Trump is delusional, Sadly, LBJ, a flawed man himself, committed to US military engagement in South East Asia which, for many overshadowed his Civil Rights record.

 

        It is worth mentioning, in closing that, in 2013, the USSC  declared the Voting Rights act defunct as written  because the data regarding various voter suppression tactics, on which the original law was based, was 40 years old. The late Ruth Bader Ginsburg phrased her dissent thus: “Throwing out the act when it has worked and is continuing to work to stop discriminatory changes is like throwing away your umbrella in a rainstorm because you are not getting wet." Her words were prophetic, since Harry Reid and John Boehner, with both houses under GOP control, stifled any attempt to rewrite and repass. As a result, within three years after the ruling, 868 polling places had been closed down. Within five years, in 2018, nearly a thousand polling places had been closed in the country, with many of the closed polling places in predominantly African American counties. Trump’s ongoing attempts at voter suppression are proof positive of his racial bias, present since he was a boy.