Tag Archives: trump

Mischlinge

When Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending their best. They’re not sending you. They’re not sending you. They’re sending people that have lots of problems, and they’re bringing those problems with us. They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists. DJT, June 15, 2015

Government-sponsored horrors aimed at the vulnerable require planning. The target group is first identified, their deficiencies propagandized, then malignant operations begin to remove that group. This age old pattern is a how-to for witch-hunts from 1692 Salem, to Native American extermination, to slavery, and to Joe McCarthy in the 1950’s Red Scare. Other examples in history abound as well, most notoriously the rise of German National Socialism following World War One.

Embittered by the 1918 Armistice, former Corporal Adolf Hitler founded his National Socialist movement in Bavaria. After organizing two para-military gangs, the Brown Shirts and Black Shirts, he led a failed coup attempt in 1923 Munich. This act of revolt landed him in jail, where he penned his infamous tract “Mein Kampf.” The substance of the book raked over grievances, particularly against Jewish people and other “so-called” betrayers of Germany. Hitler was clear in his writing, only genocide would root out Germany’s traitors.

Granted an early parole by a sympathetic judge Hitler quickly resumed leadership of his growing Nazi movement. By January, 1933 he had attained power as Chancellor under German President Paul von Hindenburg. Hitler efficiently made use of his expanding influence in the Reichstag, (German Parliament) to fulfill his unholy mission. Taking incremental steps the Nazi leader began with boycotts of Jewish businesses, then removal of Jewish and other undesirables from employment as civil servants. Soon Jewish students were forced from public schools, permitting only a small quota each year to enroll. By May of 1933 Hitler ordered book burnings of Jewish authors and others he viewed as subversive.

Events accelerated.

When President von Hindenburg died in 1934, Adolf Hitler seized absolute power over Germany. And he wasted no time in dialing up the violence against people he considered vile.

At a 1935 Nazi Party rally in Nuremberg the Fuhrer issued formal classifications of who was Aryan (pure German) and who was Jewish. Known as the Nuremberg Laws, marriages in particular were outlawed between Jewish and Aryan couples. The image above is one document reflecting that Nazi framework, outlining which marriages were permitted by the state and those “verboten” (forbidden).

Hitler insisted these laws were necessary to protect German blood, but the laws also served to isolate not only Jews, but Gypsies, Homosexuals, Jehovah Witnesses, and others. In truth one man defined which human lives were valuable, and those that were expendable.

The ground was prepared for the genocide that would follow.

Dachau was the first extermination camp built in 1933. From that beginning until 1945 the railcars rumbled nonstop to thousands of ash-strewn death camps, while Hitler’s SS liquidated Jewish ghettos of thousands of men, women, and children. By May of 1945 somewhere around 11 million victims perished in a region historians refer to as the “Bloodlands,” including 6 million Jews.

Euphemistically referred to as Racial Hygiene, the Holocaust unfolded gradually and in relative secrecy. However, by the end of the European war and Germany’s defeat the world wondered how this horror could have happened.

We are watching how at this moment.

In Trump’s America that pattern is repeating. The founding of the United States according to Thomas Jefferson insisted that people are born with natural rights, life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. But from the George Floyd murder to Trump publicly announcing brown people traffic drugs and are rapists, that assumption has been ignored. This administration has taken racial profiling to a criminal level, as this tyrant harnesses the might of the federal government to carry out warrantless abductions.

Even if American citizens are caught up in sweeps, many insist that this is different, and that those taken deserve it. The pieces of evil are all there.

Racial exceptionalism has been the cause of mass suffering from the Armenian genocide in World War One, to Cambodia’s killing fields in the late 1970’s. The signs are all too familiar.

Trump’s makes no pretense of his intentions stating on 60 Minutes that his ICE goons haven’t gone far enough in terrorizing and kidnapping civilians. The sanctioned ongoing violation of civil and human rights has been grinding away as you’ve read this essay.

The United States was meant to be different–a land with freedom from fear, where people are secure in their places and property. This tradition does not rely on one man’s racism and deliberate cruelty. A cautionary tale is replaying, and we cannot escape that past, nor avoid the sinister outcome.

Mischlinge was used by the Nazi’s as a derogatory legal term. Literally mischlinge means mongrel, a person of mixed blood.

Gail Chumbley is the author of the two-part memoir “River of January,” and “River of January: Figure Eight,” co-writer of the screenplay, “Dancing On Air” based on those books. She has penned three stage plays on history topics, “Clay” on the life of Senator Henry Clay, “Wolf By The Ears” examining the beginnings of American slavery, and “Peer Review” where 47 is confronted by specters of four past presidents.

An Open Letter to the GOP

A great deal of chaos has been unleashed in the last 8 months of Republican rule. The leader of the party, Mr. Trump has harnessed the federal system to pursue interests that are exclusively his own. More concerned for opportunities to line his own pockets, leveraging executive power for revenge, and concealing criminal records that compromise his interests appear to take priority. This behavior is not surprising as creating turmoil is Trump’s signature move, evidenced through his trail of bankruptcies, and fraud, to the tune of 88 indictments and 34 convictions.

He is a rapist. 

That is the net sum of the party’s leader.

Perhaps you find solace in arguing Trump was the choice of the people, and since the electoral tilt leaned Republican, you tell yourselves his crimes are irrelevant. By extension, the destruction of law does not bother his base, so why should it bother GOP legislators? 

Because you know better, that’s why. 

The harm? Willfully ignoring that criminality and sanctioning Trump to whip about like an inflatable tube man, deconstructing America’s blueprint of government as he pleases. Perhaps you actually believed him when he said he could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue and get away with it. Your indifference, or fear of being primary-ed seems to say yes, the party would condone even that.

It isn’t possible you are criminal by nature, surely a desire to serve guided your decision to run for public office, but Trump is a criminal by nature. Yet, the GOP remains on the sidelines rather than insist on transparency to the media or your constituents. This reticence to defend the indefensible speaks of a consciousness of guilt. As handmaidens to Trump, the party is nothing more than accomplices in an ongoing crime spree. 

And those offenses are many. Flagrant. Abuse of power, violation of the emoluments clause, retaliation against his perceived enemies leading to groundless lawsuits, not to forget stealing national intelligence. 

America and the world are witnessing a national smash and grab.

The party is in possession of all three branches of government and yet your stewardship has only made the rich richer, the poor more desperate, the middle class squeezed, and now has closed the United States down. THE UNITED STATES. “The City on the Hill, The World’s Last Best Hope,” We the People,” all closed for business because you have submitted utterly to a remorseless predator.

Soon Trump will have no use for Congress. In Trump-world only one counts and it isn’t any of you, or the rest of us for that matter. The Legislative Branch will atrophy, a fate to which the Supreme Court has already succumbed.

But how about this alternative? What if members were to stand up and vow no more free passes for Trump? Get out there in front of the cameras and announce “I was sent to Congress to do the work of the people, not one man.” Instead of letting him seize ultimate power, you instead take a stand and seize history? 

If any Republican member of Congress who, at this moment, demonstrated the courage of a Jeff Flake, or a Liz Cheney you could break this fever, and save America a lot of suffering. Dear Congressmen and Senators, imagine it, you would prove a honest profile in courage. 

Gail Chumbley is the author of the two-part memoir “River of January,” and “River of January: Figure Eight,” co-writer of the screenplay, “Dancing On Air” based on those books. She has penned three stage plays on history topics, “Clay” on the life of Senator Henry Clay, “Wolf By The Ears” examining the beginnings of American slavery, and “Peer Review” where 47 is confronted by specters of four past presidents.

The People Who Own It

And that — that brings me to the second mode of civil disobedience. There’s a time when the operation of the machine becomes so odious, makes you so sick at heart that you can’t take part! You can’t even passively take part! And you’ve got to put your bodies upon the gears and upon the wheels, upon the levers, upon all the apparatus — and you’ve got to make it stop! And you’ve got to indicate to the people who run it, to the people who own it — that unless you’re free the machine will be prevented from working at all!!

Mario Savio, December 2, 1964

The GOP no longer pretends to care about the American people. Icons of wealth and raw power, along with compliant political figures parade in and out of Mar-a-Lago without a self-conscious blush. Former Trump critics now kiss his ring out of fear of disfavor and losing access to power. Many in the press are fearful of Trump as well, evident in the resignation of Ann Tenaes from the Washington Post over the paper’s censoring a critical Bezos cartoon, while NBC has threatened to jettison its progressive sister MSNBC.

At least smiling Ronald Reagan tried to demonstrate some kind of fidelity to American principles as his administration catered to the same rich and powerful.

This incoming crowd isn’t even trying to fake concern.

While America drowns in floods and burns in fire, both symptoms of advanced climate change, Mr. Musk has purchased access to Trump so Tesla can bring in cheaper, skilled technicians for his business operations. Not alone in his subservience, Mr. Zuckerberg too, along with Mr. Bezos, and Sam Altman, have made significant donations to Trump’s campaign while the world drowns and burns. These 21st Century tycoons intend to purchase the vain new president’s favor and clear the way for less public responsibility, and garner even more profits.

You see, in MAGA-world Trump is never wrong. Wrong doesn’t exist. The title “felon” carries no shame among supporters, nor rape, fraud, insurrection, or theft of sensitive US intelligence. Trump’s malfeasance is more a badge of honor with his supporters than a deal breaker.

American propriety and concern for the United States are sentiments of another, past era. Statesmanship, decency, and integrity are long gone. In the last days of the 2024 campaign Donald Trump mimed oral sex with his microphone, and no one at the rally appeared offended, not even so-called Christians. In any reality would President Carter had done such a thing? Would President Bush? Moreover, MAGA supporters self-righteously wrap themselves in neo-fascist certainty, nurtured by a steady diet of propaganda and misinformation. There is no longer a bottom.

Overseas enemies are delighted. Putin and Xi have waited a lifetime to overrun the United States. That simple fact should give us all pause on the political state of the nation. The Kremlin and Beijing are reveling in the certainty of easy access to the inner sanctum of American security.

And why wouldn’t they be?

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has made known he will no longer fact check posts plastered across his site. This is the same Mark Zuckerberg who threw Trump off Facebook not so long ago for disseminating misinformation. That Zuckerberg seemed to care about the country that has made his fortune. Adding insult to injury this same 21st Century robber baron announced the company will no longer practice diversity in hiring Facebook employees.

His decisions are unacceptable and unAmerican.

Though it certainly makes no difference in the larger scheme, I have decided to take a tiny seed of action by closing my Facebook account. As a writer, Facebook is a convenient way to publish my work as it appears also on Threads and Instagram. However, as Mario Savio so eloquently stated in 1964, I can no longer participate. My spirit is thoroughly sick and outraged with the alarming direction the Republican Party has eagerly chosen to sell out our nation for their 30 pieces of silver.

Though the gears and wheels have been replaced by motherboards, and circuits, the principle holds. The machine requires the public to participate, to provide the metaphoric oxygen for it to survive. And it is down to us alone, the American people. We must demand fair play and decency from the powerful.

If you feel the same please share this post, I know I can’t be alone in my objections.

Gail Chumbley is the author of the two-part memoir River of January and River of January: Figure Eight. Chumbley has also written three plays, Clay, Wolf By The Ears, and Peer Review, exploring the life of Henry Clay, the advent of chattel slavery, and four visits to DJT from past presidents.

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