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Progressive Revolt
Since the election of Donald Trump democrats have found their voice, stiffened their spines and launched an unprecedented progressive revolt. We saw the first signs of how large this movement was during the women’s march in Washington DC on the weekend of Trump’s inauguration. Close to a million people showed up and dwarfed the crowd size of Trump’s inauguration supporters (which drove Trump absolutely crazy). People all over the country decided that Trump and his divisive, misogynistic, racist, Islamophobic, anti-intellectual brand of fascism can not be allowed to destroy this country. So of course the next logical step is to figure out how to successfully oppose him.
Trump did win the electoral vote and therefore won the presidency. But a huge majority of voters voted for Hillary Clinton instead of Trump. She got 3 million more votes than him (which also drives him crazy). This means we are the majority and there are ways to stop his legislative agenda from being enacted. The Tea Party who strongly opposed President Obama was able to grind the gears that produced new legislation and approves presidental appointees to a hault even when democrats held power in both houses. The Tea Party did this with a very small number of activist and with ideas that were very unpopular with a majority of Americans. If they were able to do all of that with small numbers and unpopular beliefs, imagine what progressives can do with huge numbers and mainstream ideas that makes sense.
Two weeks of Trump in office has already produced an unprecedented number of scandals and disasters.
- Broke his promise to “drain the swamp” and instead filled his cabinet with billionaires, former Goldman Sachs executives, and lobbiest.
- Lied about the size of his inauguration crowd & ordered the US Parks Dept to produce a photo that makes his crowd look larger than the protest, which of course they couldn’t do because no such photo exist.
- Made a narcissistic speech in front of a memorial wall that recognized slain CIA operatives.
- Made ignorant racist comments about civil rights hero John Lewis and belittled his contributions to America.
- Needlessly combative phone conversations with US allies & spent a large part of the conversations telling them how big his inauguration crowd was and how “bigly” his campaign win over Hilary was.
- Threatened to send troops into Mexico.
- Ordered his press secretary to give an angry scolding lecture to the press because they would not report his lie about how many atteneded his inauguration.
- Barred all government agencies from communicating with the press and the legislature.
- Launched a disastrous military mission which lead to the deaths of one US soldier, an American 8 year old little girl, a crashed military helicopter and at least 14 other civilian deaths which were mostly women and children. Inspite of all this Trump and his press secretary called the mission a success.
- Signed an executive order banning entry into the United States for 8 Muslim majority countries without consulting any agency outside of the White House which lead to chaos and confusion at airports and a large number of unconstitutional detainments.
- Fired acting Attorney General for not defending Trump’s unconstitutional Muslim ban / travel ban.
- Added political strategist (and white supremacist) Steve Bannon as a permanent member of the National Security Council while removing the director of national intelligence and the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff as permanent members.
- Decided to make American tax payers pay for an unnecessary wall on our southern border instead of keeping his campaign promise to make Mexico pay for it.
- Used his speech at the national prayer breakfast to talk about how huge his ratings were on his former reality tv show The Apprentice compared to the new host Arnold Schwarzenegger’s ratings.
- Had General Flynn give a press conference to let Iran know we are “putting them on notice”, but did not explain what that meant and did not change our military posture. The White House didn’t even warn our military service members in the region that the “on notice” speech was coming.
Yes Donald Trump is President, but we need to recognize that his power as president is directly related to the amount of voices who stay silent. If the size of the opposition so far is an indicator of the size of the opposition movement ahead, Trump and his party’s hold on power is a lot weaker than any president we’ve seen in recent history. So don’t sit at home and live in fear of what might come next. Get involved! Check out the links below and post any information you may have about ways to get involved in the comment section.
Indivisible Action Guide Video
http://www.indivisibleguide.com
www.whatdoidoabouttrump.com
Tea Party Mandela Rip No Surprise
Former House Majority Leader Newt Gingrich posted a heartfelt tribute to Nelson Mandela the day his death was announced. Newt called Mandela “one of the greatest leaders of our time” and acknowledged Mandela’s legacy as a cultural icon who fought to free his people from racial oppression. Unlike a lot of other republicans who had nice things to say about the man, Newt had a history of anti Apartheid votes to back it up. When Ronald Reagan tried to veto sanctions passed by congress against the oppressive regime, Newt voted to block President Reagan’s veto. Not an easy decision for a republican to block a veto from a republican president. I have my issues with Newt and he’s said and done some pretty awful things throughout his political career, but on the issue of Apartheid Newt was pretty courageous (probably the last time I’ll ever use courageous and Newt in the same sentence). So after newt posts his short and kind tribute on his facebook page, a tea party wave of nasty racist ugly rebukes are posted in response. The angry posters were calling President Mandela a racist murder of whites, a communist thug, a gorilla terrorist, some said he should have died in prison, one comment said President Obama should be imprisoned just like Mandela, others expressed disappointment in Newt for posting kind words about President Mandela. Comment after comment of this vitriol spilled out on Newt’s Facebook page for all to see. Tea Party darling Ted Cruz wrote some kind words about Mandela on his page and received the same ugly backlash as Newt. In an interview with CNN over the weekend Newt said he was shocked by all the negative comments. Newt may have been shocked, but I and a lot of other progressives weren’t shocked at all. Since the day Barack Obama won the presidency there’s been a very visible raise in racial tension throughout conservative America. Any black person who talks about racism or tries to point out racism or even engages in a discussion that touches anything dealing with race makes the tea party go absolutely crazy. Go to any conservative message board and read some of the comments. When the movie “12 Years A Slave” came out I searched for movie reviews on it to see what it was about but instead I found page after page of the most disgusting vile racist nonsense I’ve ever read. Conservative media has fed their followers a false narrative about why the economy is so slow at recovering, about why they can’t find jobs, about why upward mobility and the ladder to the middle class has completely disappeared. Who’s to blame? The usual suspects of course. Minorities and undocumented immigrants. Every problem in the United States is caused by minorities and undocumented immigrants. Newt shouldn’t be surprised because he has helped cultivate this nonsense. Him and right wing media guys like Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Bill O’Riley etc. They find ridiculous ways to link every single issue to minorities and undocumented immigrants. They have tapped into the angst and anger of ultra conservative whites who feel marginalized by the changing racial makeup of this country’s citizens which will eventually make whites a minority. Conservative media are constantly telling them that they are the real victims of racism. Minorities are the “takers” living off the hard work of the “makers”. To them Mandela and Obama are the same because they are both black leaders… and their very existence is offensive to them. Newt plays the game but he knows it’s a game. The people who follow and listen to him and other conservative media personalities aren’t aware that there’s a game being played. They are true believers. To them Obama is a Kenyan muslim who hates white people and hates America. They actually believe that & won’t accept facts that tell them otherwise. Even though Newt stood up for Mandela and chastised those tea party nuts who left the misguided comments, he can’t throw up his hands and pretend that he has no idea where the hate and vitriol comes from. It comes from you Newt. They learned it from you.
A Few Examples of Newt Gingrich’s History Of Racially Offensive Comments:
“I’m prepared, if the NAACP invites me, I’ll go to their convention and talk about why the African-American community should demand paychecks and not be satisfied with food stamps.” – Gingrich, at a town hall meeting in New Hampshire
On September 12, 2012 Gingrich told National Review Online that “Obama has pretended to be normal but actually seems to be engaged in Kenyan, anti-colonial behavior”. He went on to say “What if [Obama] is so outside our comprehension, that only if you understand Kenyan, anti-colonial behavior, can you begin to piece together [his actions]? This is a person who is fundamentally out of touch with how the world works, who happened to have played a wonderful con, as a result of which he is now president,”
An April 1, 2007, Associated Press reported that Gingrich described bilingual education as teaching “the language of living in a ghetto” and mocked requirements that ballots be printed in multiple languages.
D5 Creation