TRUMP HAS NO PLAN B AS HE AND THE GOP HIT ROCK BOTTOM.

As it becomes more and more evident that Trump is in a hole that he cannot dig himself out off he has nothing to offer other than the same old record that he has played over and over again. As the country is ravaged by an escalating pandemic he is campaigning for a second term relying on racist divisive politics, retweeting screams of “White power”. While he carries on supporting the slave Confederate cause, being so out of whack with the culture revolution taking place that he is unaware that Republican Mississippi has just become the last state to remove the Confederate icon as part of their flag. 

The hope that the Republican legislators would help put a stop to this destruction of every value America has strived for, if not for their sake or their Party’s sake, but for the country’s sake, has all but evaporated. They are mummified in their support for this throw back to Jim Crow. In the words of Billy Joel’s haunting lyrics of the Vietnam tragedy, Goodnight Saigon, “Yes we will all go down together”.

The Republicans are ad idem with Trump’s fantasies waiting for the miracle that will make the virus vanish like he prophesied, or for his daddy to bail him and them out, or for Roy Cohn or William Barr to subvert the law so they can all rise Phoenix like from the ashes. Then there is always the hope that Fox News may learn that Joe Biden went to China to catch Covid and infect America, or for the protestors to rape, murder, loot, burn and destroy cities so Trump can become the Law and Order President. 

Even the Democrats, still smarting from their 2016 loss, are disbelieving that the teflon Trump cannot ascend from the politically dead. However Trump hasn’t got what it takes to get off the floor on his own and turn the tables - he has run out of big daddies. His sales pitch is stale and empty. Like Richard Nixon from whom you wouldn’t buy a used car, Trump is a real estate salesman from whom you wouldn’t buy a time share in Saudi Arabia, Gaza or North Korea. However the Republican band plays on…..

THE LIGHT IS ON BUT NOBODY IS AT HOME IN THE WHITE HOUSE OR SENATE

Fox New’s Sean Hannity threw Trump a life line and asked him what his second term plans were. Trump warbled on for two minutes without articulating one agenda item. He had run out of ideas as he could no longer promise, “I can build a beautiful wall that Mexico is going to pay for, bring back all those manufacturing jobs, drain the swamp, open the coal mines, develop a massive infrastructure program….”, so he meandered on as to what a great guy he was. He could have maintained that he was going to carry on his xenophobia, race baiting, character assassination, and get rid of Obamacare.  If Hannity would have asked him how he is going to reverse his disastrous pandemic management and cope with the racial crisis evoked by the ongoing black deaths at the hands of the police he could have once again reminded that he was “The Law and Order President”. 

While he cannot repeat the old unfulfilled promises he can offer nothing new either. He did inform Hannity that Joe Biden who is a crook like Hillary and who can’t put  two sentences together,  may be elected, “…because some people don’t love me….”. He could also have argued that he was a man of principle because he refuses to wear a mask when every other responsible person does. But for the rest it is more of the same and worse and more of the same and worse is why the latest poll shows him fourteen points behind Biden and the Republicans almost certain to lose the Senate. Oh Jay H. Ell nearly forgot he is offering a fight with China. He will then blame them for everything that has gone wrong - his management of the pandemic, loss of manufacturing jobs ….- see 2016 promises for further details including why Mexico didn’t pay for his wall. 

McConnell and his Senate colleagues have nothing to parade before the electorate either other than appointing “conservative judges”. The do nothing Senate has just appointed the two hundredth Trump nominated Federal Judge. McConnell’s poll numbers are way down in Kentucky. But no one can believe that Red Kentucky, which Trump carried by thirty points, is going to elect a Democratic Senator. The Democrats are in denial about this possibility forgetting that Kentucky recently elected a Democratic Governor and rejected Trump’s nominee for a House Seat for the 2020 election. The best McConnell can proffer to distance himself from Trump is to finally admit that it was very important to wear a mask!

Now no one should be amazed that Trump an ignorant, incompetent, destructive narcissist cannot give one good reason why he should be re - elected but that the Republican Congresspeople have accepted that the only reason to run is to Keep Trump’s America Great is a disgrace, to themselves and the country. Throughout the current virus crisis they have enabled him. When Trump claimed that he was not going to financially help the Northern States hit by Coronavirus because this was only impacting Democratic States, they concurred. In fact McConnell used those very same words when refusing a relief package suggesting that New York should declare bankruptcy.  None of those toadies defied Trump nor did they counsel their State Governors not to be idiots and rather listen to New York Governor Cuomo who warned them that his state was the canary in the coal mine. Instead they took their line from their fearless maskless leader and either never shut their states or opened them too early. The Red Southern and Western states are now experiencing an unprecedented wave of infections surpassing daily record numbers of confirmed cases.

Not one Republican Senator has opposed Trump on his mission to throw out Obamacare while the country is stricken with a pandemic. They have to know that that is insane. They are mindful that their ill prepared Sates are reaching maximum hospital bed usage and no payments from Obamacare will hasten rural and community hospitals going bankrupt and citizens dying. 

However they are beginning to be fearful that the are going to accompany the POTUS into oblivion if matters persist. Anonymously they are, in droves, confiding to CNN and other ‘fake news’ outlets that he better change course quickly. But in public other than a few Senators mumbling some contrary noises there is the usual uncomfortable silence or outright support. Senator Majority Whip Thune maintained that “He is good with the base… but for the majority who are going to decide he has to strike a more empathetic tone”. Senator Lisa Murkowski who almost voted for impeachment is “struggling” to back him for re election while her colleague John Corbyn explained that “Sometimes he undermines himself”. Senator Mike Braun, “Wouldn’t have chosen those words” in response to his racist description of Covid 19. But that pathetic criticism is it.

None of this will wash as it will become more and more difficult to remain distant as Trump becomes more and more unhinged as the election approaches. 

To the Republicans exquisite discomfort the New York Times broke a major scandal relating to Russia this weekend that is central to National Security and brings into question once again his bizarre relationship with Vladimir Putin and Russia. 

TRUMP PUTIN RUSSIA AND CONGRESS

This weekend the New York Times reported that the US Intelligence learned in March that Putin offered the Taliban bounty for every allied soldier including Americans they killed. The Washington Post followed up with a report that the Taliban collected their “reward” from Putin’s Russia for Americans killed. Since March Trump publicly announced that the G7 nation group should become the G8 with expelled Russia being invited back. Putin has also been invited to visit him in the Oval Office.  

Trump who is currently negotiating a deal with the Taliban to get out of Afghanistan did not deny the veracity of the reports but claimed neither he or Pence had been informed of the intelligence. It has to be assumed therefore he like everyone else learned about it from the “failing” New York Times and Washington Post. Once again the anonymous Republicans rushed to the ‘fake news’ to issue their condemnation of the situation. His chief enabler Lindsey Graham whom the polls, unbelievably indicate that he too is in a close race in South Carolina claimed that “it was imperative that Congress get to the bottom of this matter”. Needless to say the Democrats were scathing, Nancy Pelosi claiming that “…this is as bad as it gets.”

Well sanctions on Russia is a bipartisan issue. Trump has defied in spirit even his own GOP caucus on the subject. Whichever way this saga is viewed Trump is responsible. The stories are legion that he doesn’t take security briefings - too busy calling into Fox and Friends at that time of day. It is impossible to imagine that such sensitive intelligence wasn’t brought home to the President.

 Well the Republicans have a responsibility to probe this to the limit. They have yet another opportunity to cut loose from this President and render him harmless from the country and the world in his last few months in office. Let them salvage something from the wreck. As for William Barr, who has sought to legitimize Trump’s lawlessness through the Department of Justice, no words can describe his behavior as he has sought to deceive, manipulate and desecrate the constitution in order to allow Trump absolute power.

The words that Trump repeated and repeated at his 2016 Nuremberg style rallies are ringing in Jay H. Ell’s ears, “We’re going to win so much. Your’e going to get tired of winning. Your’e going to say, ‘Please Mr. President, I have a headache. Please, don’t win so much. This is terrible’. And I am going to say, ‘No, we have to Make America Great Again. Your’e gonna say, please. I said nope nope. We’re gonna keep winning’.”

All this and everything else from the man who one way or another was so negligent and or evil to not act against Russia when those in the armed services lost their lives in defense of the country. On top of this he has abrogated his responsibility to lead the nation where a hundred and twenty - five thousand are already dead from a pandemic. Nor is he prepared to face the fact that African Americans have been betrayed by placing the police above the law. Amidst this the Republic Congress band plays on in this the most shameful period in the nation’s history since the Civil War.

AT THE END OF THE DAY

A huge responsibility rests on Biden and the Democratic Party as to how they react - but that is a story for another day.

The only way the Republican Senators can salvage any respectability is to initiate an impeachment enquiry into Trump in the Senate. That is less likely than Trump giving North Dakota back to the indigenous Americans. 

The House Republicans that are still there will hang in with Trump till the bitter end in the belief that they are safe in their gerrymandered districts. 

It is unbelievable to reflect that from the Obama Presidency where America was the moral compass of the world that their status is now with the third world countries and Russia. Their citizens will not be allowed to fly into Europe till their corrupt and incompetent Administration gets its act together on the virus. 

CULTURE CHANGE IN AMERICA AS CHAOTIC TRUMP SLUMPS IN THE POLLS

This was a bad bad week for the POTUS. Even he must be getting that Atlantic City feeling when his casinos were going belly up. The ever sensitive Donald has to be aware that there has been a culture change in the country. A transformation in American culture is taking place that impacts his narrative enormously. He is hopelessly out of step with the majority of the country on who constitutes being an American. As he was venerating the Confederate cause three quarters of the country were removing statues and contemplating name changes. 

As his poll numbers shrink he has watched the Supreme Court deal three blows to his agenda. In a desperate bid to resuscitate his election campaign he organized a campaign rally, against his Center for Disease Control's advice, which turned out to be a damp squib. His red rally was blanketed with empty blue seats. 

One fact is for sure is that this painful episode in American history with its unempathetic President is heralding social and culture change, the most important of which is that the acceptance that African Americans have been discriminated against. The Black Lives Matter movement has resulted in a national and world wide awakening as to bias conscious and unconscious towards those with black skins. 

The Supreme Court, in the light of the dysfunction of the Presidency and the obstinacy of the Republican Senate to reflect the cultural change of attitude in society, have issued two rulings to reflect where society is on these matters. With regard to the immigrant children brought here decades ago the Chief Justice Roberts Court has affirmed the Obama decision that they may remain here, reversing Trump’s order to throw eight hundred thousand young adults out. Then in a historic decision they confirmed the rights of the LBGT community to equal protection under the law. 

And these weren’t the only setbacks to the POTUS in the week that was.

A TRIFECTA OF WORRIES IN ONE WEEK

In addition the POTUS has had a trifecta of other problems. He went full steam ahead with his indoor rally in Tulsa Oklahoma with all the racial overtones that that implied in that place at this time. In so doing he has used the event as a rally cry for his cult to congregate thereby openly risking a mixture of coronavirus spread and fighting in the streets. As if anticipating the latter, he added fuel to the flames of the burning country, warning the protestors that they will meet law enforcement with a vengeance. His problem with this effort was that the cult did not pitch up in enough numbers to even fill the arena. In spite of his prognostications nobody lit a fuse to the powder keg in the streets, so he could enact his Law and Order agenda. 

Also the meeting was one long big yawn as he explained to the maskless faithful step by step why he went down tiny step by step down the ramp at the West Point Graduation. That’s not apparently what they came to hear. It is all getting so old. Trump doesn’t learn. You have to change the show. The Casino’s went bang. The Apprentice ratings dropped as there was no one left to fire. And now “Rally with Make America Great” - a live show - is not doing so well in its second season.

Then there is his previous National Security Advisor, John Bolton’s no holds barred expose, which lays bare in exquisite detail his corrupt administration. Now that the money is in the bank Bolton will throw off his sensibilities about testifying to anyone who is interested. Some of the content has been leaked with the effect that it is already, before being released, top of the best sellers’ list. The book is five hundred and fifty - eight pages long so it is going to be a doozie that will make every Republican run for cover when asked to comment on Adam Schiff’s warning about what constituted the depths of depravity of the Trump administration. Besides a few new scandals as a teaser there is the devastating assessment by Bolton, who is the former darling of the Conservatives, that Trump’s whole foreign policy was dictated by his own personal needs.

Finally, without warning to his allies, Trump instructed his Attorney General, William Barr, to fire the Federal Prosecutor of New York who is in the process of investigating his current personal attorney having locked up his first, Michael Cohen. What must have shocked Trump to the core was the comment that Lindsey Graham his number one supporter said he could not go forward with Trump’s new nomination for the position unless Democratic Senator Schumer agreed! The New York Attorney General finally agreed to leave office with the concession that his own deputy would take over. The latter will continue the agenda of investigating Trump and his side kick Giuliani that this attempt to abrogate the rule of law was supposed to achieve. One wonders how low Attorney General Barr is prepared to sink to carry Trump’s water?

All this came on the heels of the top military brass disassociating themselves from his illegal use of their imprimateur in dispersing a peaceful protest so he could have a photo op next to a church. It is unbelievable that the Chief of the Military publicly apologized to the nation for being maneuvered into a political event. He did this on the eve of the West Point graduation that Trump childishly insisted on addressing in person. The speech was more in tune with a middle school graduation but the socially distanced masked graduates dutifully applauded their Commander in Chief and watched in amazement as he navigated the wooden ramp off the stage.

BLACK LIVES MATTER - NATIONAL AND INTERNATIONAL MOVEMENTS

The awareness by Americans of racism towards the descendants of slaves became evident with a month of protests in six hundred and fifty cities and towns. The protests have not let up.  Perhaps even more significant is that this spontaneous outpouring triggered protests throughout the world. But in America they ushered a transformation and reflected a major attitudinal shift toward the African Americans centuries old plight. 

 First and foremost the myth of the lazy crooked African American who was being arrested in droves for “good reason” was shattered as the nation witnessed two discriminatory encounters, both of which ended up in murder. The nation’s sentiment was for the victims and they awoke to the fact that there was racial prejudice. The streets are still full of protestors of all shades and colors proclaiming, “Black Lives Matter”. As a corollary to that change the invincibility of the police took a massive hit. Changes are in progress now to no hold them accountable for what is considered to be murder. Their defense will no longer be the subjective assessment, “I feared fro my life” followed by acquittal.

This empathy for African Americans’ situation and their lack of equal protection under the law and the acceptance that law officers could be held accountable represented a reversal of a societal position that had been tacitly accepted for generations. 

The whole issue has sparked a reawakening of reversing the discrimination. Nearly every other CEO has donated moneys to this effect as well as programs to diversify their management. There is near unanimity that June the nineteenth, the anniversary of the freedom of slaves, should be declared a local and national holiday in America. 

What amazed Jay H. Ell was the extent of the worldwide involvement in America’s number one issue. As a soccer fan he was thrilled to watch the first televised English Premier League Soccer Matches with their built in sound effects to compensate for the empty stadiums. All the players in the games he viewed didn’t have adverts or names on the back of their shirts. Rather they had the slogan “Black Lives Matter”.

SUPREME COURT OF UNITED STATES (SCOTUS) RULES IN FAVOR OF CULTURAL CHANGE

The Conservative Supreme Court in a relatively short space of time has dealt blows to Trump’s approach to voter suppression and discrimination against all people not white. While this Supreme Court Session is not over Chief Justice Roberts is obviously not going to allow the court to appear to be an appendage of a minority government representing an even smaller minority of the population. In three decisions that have evoked Trump’s ire, as they were contrary to what he promised to deliver, two directly impacted on the status of minorities. The third was directed at preventing voter suppression of a minority.

Trump in order to frighten Hispanics, “legal” or not, to fill in census forms thereby weakening the legislative representation of states that have a large Latino population, insisted that those who fill the forms declare whether they were citizens or not. Roberts plus the liberals denied him permission. Robert’s rationale, almost in so many words, was that while the Executive had the right to do so the reasons the Trump administration offered were an insult to the Court’s intelligence. 

The second decision, which is far more reaching, was not to allow Trump to reverse Obama’s executive order allowing children who were brought here as minors and have not gained citizenship, to remain legally in America. Trump’s reversal of Obama’s decision was a betrayal of trust in the Executive Branch that no responsible leader would have dreamed of undertaking. The born outside of America Hispanics brought here by their parents had to register with the government in order to continue working or studying. This guaranteed them protection from deportation. That decision by the beleaguered “children” took trust in what America’s word meant. Trump had no compunction in breaking that trust, All this makes a resounding Democratic victory of the Presidency and both legislative Houses essential so as to begin to reinstate America’s good name and regularize these DACA residents’ statuses. 

The other central cultural issue that the Supreme Court ruled on was the rights of the LGBT community. The Trump Government unbelievably argued the rights of employers to dismiss an employee on the basis that they were lesbian, gay, bisexual or transexual. He already had issued a host of discriminatory orders against these groups including in the area of health care. The opinion denying employers’ the right to do so was written by Trump appointee Justice Gorsuch making this a 6 - 3 decision. 

These rulings are large reversals to Trump. One of his key constituencies, the Evangelicals, have stomached this sinful heathen because he was going to carry out their cultural agenda. They are not much interested that the Judges are labelled “conservative”. Trump picked them. Trump promised that his judges would deliver and they haven’t. 

This SCOTUS session is far from over and decisions on abortion are awaited. At best Trump can hope for is some more latitude for individual states but if the other cultural rulings are anything to go by there is no way, with close on sixty - five percent of the country not wanting the reversal of Roe v Wade, that Roberts will buck that precedent. The question of the release of Trump’s taxes may well go the POTUS’S way but that is not the reason that the Evangelicals voted for him.

WHAT CAN THE PANICKED TRUMP DO?

Trump in the teeth of the pandemic and the pain of the country over police shootings did what he does best - put on a show. By so doing he is employing the best possible tactic under the circumstances, trying at least to hang onto his base. With them and the weird electoral college he cannot be finally counted out. However his thrust directed to the cult has alienated, perhaps for good, the waverers, the switchers, the independents, the old GOP guard, the suburban women, the elderly in Florida and Arizona and the youth everywhere including those of the Republican Party. Most significantly the military leaders, including the current Chief of Staff have been highly critical and they have been traditionally silently Republican. Also the Evangelicals may just stay away because it is obvious he cannot deliver the cultural agenda he ran on. 

With all the police shootings followed by generally well behaved protests, the only major arrest thus far being a right wing nut, his change of campaign slogan to Law and Order is incongruous. 

Trump knows however that the Republican legislators are stuck with him. They had their chance with impeachment to run on their own merits but now they are hoist on their own petard. Trump can hope that the individual legislators can muster support to win and once the faithful are at the polls they will vote for him.

AT THE END OF THE DAY

It all looks hopeless for the Donald but as Anthony commented last week you can never count him out to try anything. He is constrained by no rules, no sense of decency, no loyalty other than to himself. If Bolton is right he could declare war against Iran to boost his chances at the polls. 

RACISM APARTHEID CIVIL WAR TRUMP AND FLOYD

The grotesque incident, which has screened again and again, where an officer of the law is graphically shown murdering a suspect, George Floyd, begs two questions:

1. How in 2020 an officer of the law felt he was in tune with society’s value system to brazenly kill an African American amid crowd shouts for him to desist, knowing full well that his actions were being recorded on a cell phone;
2. Why this particular homicide finally evoked anger disbelief horror and condemnation by the overwhelming majority of the American population as this barbarism has been the subject, recently, of intense discussion since the establishment of Black Lives Matter in 2013 and racism has been part of American society since its inception.

This month saw America’s centuries long history of overt and subliminal racism brought sharply into focus by the murder of a black suspect who allegedly passed a twenty dollar counterfeit note. This travesty evoked unprecedented national and world wide revulsion and protest. It also brought to light the discrimination that the African American sector has endured since time immemorial. The enigma is how a country known for its leadership in democratic principles and the integration of citizens of so many countries was capable, barely under the radar, to tolerate such prejudice. This discrimination was towards a sector that represented thirteen percent of its population whose ancestors were, for the most part, slaves.

CIVIL WAR ENDED SLAVERY BUT THEY WERE NOT QUITE “FREE AT LAST”.

America has been in denial since the Civil War reconstruction that its black citizens were being discriminated against. Following the Civil War in 1865  with the fourteenth, (1868), and fifteenth, (1870), amendments the battle for racial equality was considered to be all over bar the shouting.

A hundred and fifty years later there is still undisguised voter suppression, condoned in part by the Supreme Court which has a long history of enshrining racism and then undoing some aspects of it.  The whole sordid reawakening of underlying racism became front and center when a defiant policeman staring into a recording cell phone epitomized the disdain for the life of the modern day negro by squeezing the breath out of him while the victim pleaded for his life and then called for his “mama”. All hell broke loose as the nearly nine minute public lynching, with three of his colleagues standing nonchalantly by, became viral. It needed little imagination to be reminded of those faded photos of the four thousand black faceless victims hanging as a result of lynching.  A practice that had gone on into the twentieth century. Only this time the martyr wasn’t faceless and the onlookers yelled at the murderers to stop.  

This wasn’t the first such recent incident. As a matter of a fact to mount opposition to this barbaric practice a movement entitled Black Lives Matter had been founded in 2013. While there is consensus that the majority of law officers are a credit to their mission these events occur all too often. Now these episodes are recorded. They are not just notes in the official police record, “Suspect resisted forcefully and reached into his pocket for what appeared to be a gun”. 

HOW ON EARTH WAS THIS ALLOWED TO HAPPEN?

Jay H. Ell has noted that the American society is in denial as to the antagonism towards their African American citizens. This is in part because there has been on the one hand meaningful progress in their economic and political stiuations. In addition there have been exceptional African Americans that have made their way to the top against all odds. Nowhere has that been more epitomized in the ascendency to the Presidency by Barack Obama. Those, like the fifteen billionaires and the stars who have dominated sports and entertainment have also hit the jackpot. In addition there is widespread representation of African Americans at all levels of government. But to believe that the existence of all these giants belies underlying racism is as naive as to conclude that because of Einstein, Freud and Marx that anti semitism is dead.

So for the rest the males have a one in four chance of landing in jail, (they are stopped, arrested and sentenced more aggressively for minor infringements), they live shorter lives, (they are less likely to have health care), and are less likely to attain a College degree. This has been put down to the fact that in America “you have to pull yourself up by your bootstraps” but as Martin Luther King stated what if you have no boots….. . 

So to a certain extent the success of those in politics and of course in entertainment and sports helped hide what was going on underneath. In addition there has been progress in the courts of law to enforce their civil rights.  Other than the denial that a problem exists, Jay H. Ell will get to some other hypotheses as to possible reasons as to why a police officer felt empowered to snuff the very existence of a fellow American in full view of the world in the belief that society has rigged it so that he can get away with it. 

DRURY AND MICHENER WEIGH IN ON SOUTH AFRICAN APARTHEID WHILE RACISM SMOULDERS ON AND ON IN AMERICA

While post war discrimination was endemic in America the focus was on South African “apartheid”. While the latter admitted that segregation was their official policy American Administrations denied the reality that existed. Nowhere was this reality better epitomized in the attention two famed authors Allen Drury and James Michener showered on South Africa’s racism rather than address what was happening in their own country.

Allen Drury, the novelist, who to this day is regarded as the author of the definitive description of the mechanics of American Politics, “Advise and Consent”, also penned a far less known non fiction work on South Africa entitled, “A Very Strange Society”. It has always fascinated Jay H. Ell, a native born South African, why he had not saved that title for the United States of America, for indeed that is what the United States is. Drury’s work was an attempt to delve into the social, economic, psychological, historical and political dynamics of a society whose government was openly segregationist under the label of “Apartheid” or separateness. 

The United States is a Federation whose states are more diverse than the nations of Europe. Besides the indigenous peoples they were populated  by immigrants or slaves. In spite of the incredible diversity of cultures of the different states there has only been one major internal war as opposed to the myriads the Europeans have suffered over the same last two centuries.That war was to liberate slaves. Yet the result of that war has never been fully accepted to this day. This fact is reflected in the racism and discrimination that is evident and is the principle motivation to “voter suppression” that has reared its ugly head since the Civil War.  Professor Cox Richardson has written a thought provoking book on the subject, “How the South won the Civil War”. 

Ironically while Drury was patronizingly “understanding” of South African bigotry in the 1960’s, the period of his review, enough of it was going on in America. Only a decade earlier Rosa Parks had insisted on not standing for a white man on a bus and the Supreme Court in 1957 finally ruled that the very basis for segregation, “separate facilities” were inherently unequal. In the decade of the sixties African Americans were battling for their rights supposedly constitutionally enshrined a hundred years earlier.  An enlightened coalition of Northern Democrats and Republicans passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and the Fair Housing Act of 1968. This legislation followed the legendary protests lead by the Civil Rights Movement with Martin Luther King at its head. However the backlash to all of this was epitomized by three assassinations - those of King, Malcolm X and Robert Kennedy who like his brother Jack was slain in the bloom of his life. Bobby Kennedy’s assassination cleared the path for Richard Nixon’s Presidency.

Lyndon Baines Johnson who engineered the Civil Rights legislation knew that was the end of the Democratic Party in the South as the bulk of the segregationists found all this a step too far to take. What he could not have foreseen was that the Republican Party of Lincoln would under Nixon’s Southern strategy take over the mantle of Southern Segregationists. 

An even greater literary giant James Michener weighed in on South Africa nearly two decades later with a tome entitled “Covenant”. The mantra was much the same as Drury brought forth but in the famed author’s compelling story telling historical style. Indeed the South African situation was complicated. Indeed all the citizens were not all bad. There were trends that Americans could identify with as both had been former colonies dominated by England, The South African Afrikaner Nationalists had felt dominated by  England who had stolen their country. They fought for their independence and believed that the more liberal English speaking South African whites would join with the indigenous Africans to oust them.Thus they would be forever denied voting rights in white South Africa. However at the end of the day Michener like Drury came down on the fact that apartheid was unsustainable if not inherently evil…. 

Meanwhile back home in America the eighties was the period dominated by Ronald Reagan. He outlined his attitude to African Americans on his campaign to get the Republican nomination from President Ford. In 1976 his key stump message became known as the “Welfare Queen” speech. He argued that the Federal Government wasted taxpayer money in their welfare programs, “…people were buying T Bone Steaks with their food stamps, a housing project in New York had eleven foot ceilings and a swimming pool”. Then Reagan added his most quoted stereotype of the freeloading Blacks, “In Chicago, they found a woman who holds the record. She used 80 names, 30 addresses, 15 telephone numbers to collect food stamps, Social Security, veterans’ benefits for four nonexistent deceased veteran husbands, as well as welfare. Her tax free cash income alone has been running at $150,000 a year”. This woman became the symbol of the racist stereotype Reagan was projecting of the African American.

During the twelve years that Reagan dominated American politics, and in California before that, he made no secret of his attitude to African Americans. He used the term “states’ rights” which had been the code to discriminate since the time of the Confederacy. During the 1980’s twenty - two states passed laws that denied women further payments on the birth of a child. Inherent in this law was the belief that a poor black woman would have a child merely to obtain another hundred and thirty dollars a month. In 1988 Reagan vetoed the Civil Rights Act. His support of the South African apartheid government was attacked by Nobel Laureate Archbishop Desmond Tutu who commented that as far as blacks were concerned Reagan, “who sits there like great big white chief of old”, was the pits.

The DuBois Review first volume  notes that under Reagan the life chances of Americans became more unequal in all arenas including employment and income.

So Jay H. Ell does not bring up Drury and Michener to show them up as hypocrites. Rather to point out the denial mechanism, as reflected by these famed author/commentators, adopted by the Americans who were rightly condemning flagrant unhidden South African apartheid while under their own noses first Jim Crow laws dominated the South then the discrimination continued under Nixon’s Southern strategy which Reagan continued  by projecting the African American as a lazy crooked bum. 

However in spite of this racism no Administration came out and stated that segregation, racism or apartheid was their policy. It just gnawed away below the surface.

Let Jay H. Ell illustrate the impact that the above observation has on society’s awareness. In South Africa he lived in a white suburb. He was conscious that only he, “a white person”, could reside there as legislation mandated the separation of races. His colleagues lived in suburbs designated for their race. This was government policy there were laws. In America if one resided in a suburb where only whites had homes it would just be a fact of life. It would not be a daily reminder that Government policy enshrined racism. Racism in the period of Drury and Michener was not official Federal government or state policy. Nor has it been till the Age of Trump. 

WHY CAN’T AFRICAN AMERICANS DO WHAT IMMIGRANTS DO?

Implicit in the criticism of African Americans till this day is why can’t they achieve what the Asian immigrants, for example, do who “pull themselves up by their boot straps” achieve the American dream and graduate their children from College.  A key pointer to this problem is immigrants generally are more motivated than the general population even more than the whites as the Asians graduate from College at a far higher rate than their white brethren as well.

Pre college school education in America to a large extent is funded locally. The richer the area a citizen lives in the more money garnered by property taxes and the higher the standard of pre college education. If you live in a black ghetto your chances of competing with the type of education you are receiving are minimal. So unless this education becomes Federally funded the deficit will remain. Black society as a whole will not benefit from College Affirmative Action programs where in College they recognize talent and allow the exceptional few to reach their potential.

WHERE DOES AMERICA STAND TODAY - TRUMP FOLLOWS OBAMA

The civil war was over the issue of slavery where six hundred thousand lives were lost so as to rid the continent of that curse of human bondage. Today, two hundred and fifty years later, the country is wracked in pain and anguish over the treatment of the descendants of those self same slaves. This only four years after the nation had celebrated that a Black man had completed an eight year term as the elected President. However rather than advance the cause of the average African American Obama’s ascendency brought the backlash of Trump who has traded on racism since the word go. His entry into politics focussed on the alleged illegitimacy of Obama’s right to be President. He claimed that Obama wasn’t an American. Rather than say because he was black he spread the calumny that Obama was born in Kenya.

Trump has continued his racist message whether it be on Blacks, immigrants, Latinos, Muslims and anyone else who is not pure white. For this and other reasons he has taken over the Republican Party ironically changing its direction. Following two triumphs  by Obama and the prospect of a Hillary Clinton victory and  the projection that whites would be in the minority in America in 2050, the Republican National Committee produced a report on how to become more representative of the minority groups in America. Trump’s winning of the Republican nomination and then in a perfect electoral college storm winning the WhiteHouse changed all that.

WHY OFFICER CHAUVIN AND HIS COLLEAGUES DIDN’T CARE THAT FLOYD’S DEATH WAS BEING RECORDED

For nearly two hundred years since the Civil War the perception of the average white American has been that his African American brethren are not prejudiced against, they are just not up to speed. In addition sympathetic administrations have intervened positively to rectify injustices such as the Jim Crow laws. Not until the Trump era has an administration been outright racist.

When Derek Chauvin looked at the cell phone defiantly as he choked the life of a handcuffed African American man never in his wildest imagination could he have imagined that America would revolt. Chauvin and the three police onlookers had heard the President prompt them not to be careful of suspects’ heads when they put them into the wagon. They had listened when the National Football League cow towed to Trump when they put an end to Colin Kaepernick’s career when he took a knee to protest that Black Lives Matter. Trump had harangued his faithful by misinterpreting what Kaepernick was protesting, “Wouldn’t you like to see one of those NFL owners, when somebody disrespects our flag, get that son of a bitch of the field now”.They also knew that no cop had been successfully prosecuted in Minnesota for killing a suspect. 

However for the same reasons that reassured Chauvin that he was within his rights to kill a black suspect society could no longer deny that there wasn’t racism at work in this atrocity. The President had told them for over four years that he was a racist, had backed segregationists, revered their Confederate history and symbols and they now finally believed him. By Trump’s actions and words he had convinced them that, “Black Lives Didn’t Matter” and Chauvin and his colleagues were illustrating the sickening truth.

TRUMP CAMPAIGN BEGINS IN TULSA  - CIVIL WAR II WOULD NEED A LAW AND ORDER PRESIDENCY:

Jay H. Ell is  convinced that there is a new reality in America. Trump has albeit declared that racism is the official policy of the Republic Party. He is doubling up on his racism as he monotonously repeats that he is a Law and Order President. He is holding his first Nuremberg style rally in Tulsa Oklahoma where race riots killed an untold number of “negroes” ninety - nine years ago in what is considered the most infamous white race riot in American history. 

The original date of his restarting of his campaign, June 19, was the day of the Emancipation of the Slaves. Those who believe he will lead his confederate flag waving supporters in prayer to ask forgiveness for their sins and those of their forefathers are in for a shock. Rather he will use the opportunity to inform the African American minority how much his administration has done for them. However he will reassure his MAGA supporters that he is the Law and Order President. There is still the potential for chaos as a counter protest had been organized for Trump’s original date.

AT THE END OF THE DAY

The latest  breaking shooting by a policeman of a black suspect in Atlanta adds a surreal reality to this sad sad episode in American history. The recorded episode pathetically puts an exclamation point to the belief that “Black Lives Don’t Matter”.

Whatever Trump may or may not do history will reflect that the Civil War was finally won when a citizen of African American descent was twice elected as President of the whole Republic. Although Trump and his freak show took over for four years, that Black Man’s second in command , posterity will show, thrashed him at the polls. Former supporters of apartheid will reassure the segregationists that the sky didn’t fall when Mandela acceded to power. 

Not surprisingly the remnants of the Confederacy ideal, with Trump as their leader, are relying on voter suppression to cling to power. 

Trump hasn’t entirely forgotten about the ongoing Coronavirus epidemic now ravaging the Southern States. He is making every attendee of his June 20 rally sign a waver that they will not hold him responsible if they contract Covid 19 at his gathering.  

What Jay H. Ell fears most is that Trump’s defeat in 2020 will not see the end of him but a new malignant beginning like there has been after each one of his bankrupt ventures.

FROM BIDING WITH BIDEN TO RIDING WITH BIDEN

Joe Biden, the Democratic nominee for Presidency, while always slightly left of center, is the arch politician.- the connector, the deal maker, the conciliator, the smoozer, a plain talker - the people’s candidate. While never too far off in front of his electorate he consequently never was at risk of loosing a local election. That is why he has been around such a long time. By the same rationale he has never had that spark that could reward him with the ultimate leadership that he so craved. He never became the Democratic Senate Party leader and it was only on the third attempt that he became the Presidential nominee of his party. Fate has now placed Biden in a situation where “Greatness has been thrust upon him”. 

THE COUNTRY IS DESPERATE FOR LEADERSHIP AND BIDEN HAS TO STEP UP

From the word go Joe made it clear that he was running to restore “The soul of the nation”. However the criteria that put him in that position, namely to ensure beating Trump, to quote him by, “Not being a revolutionary”, have dramatically changed. In a country so bereft of leadership hankering back to Jim Crow and riddled with a pandemic where those in charge are doing nothing to make the, health economic and social adjustments that are needed, there is a desperate cry for help from the overwhelming majority of the electorate. In fact the Trump Presidency has seen an abandonment of American values, deserting its role as a global leader in liberal democracy and his undisguised grab to turn America into an autocracy. The current medical, economic and protest crises have exacerbated Trump’s naked crude self serving ambitions as well as magnified his woeful ignorance and incompetence.

The middle of the country who were, initially, crying out for a transitional President are now looking for a transformative President. We are talking Theodore Roosevelt, FDR, Lyndon Johnson and Ronald Regan here - Lincoln would be a bit of a stretch. Biden could put together a humongous talented administration that would rival, “Lincoln’s Team of Rivals”. The highly capable Democratic field, to a man and woman, the moment he was the obvious candidate, fell in line behind him like ten green bottles. You see on top of it all he is a likable empathetic individual. Empathy is his strongest genuine value - an attribute which has never been in shorter supply in leadership in America at a time it that it has never been greater need. 

To sum up he is the last politician on earth who you would think would morph his campaign message from “I’m Biden My Time” to “Riden with Biden”. In order to show leadership Biden has also to step out of his comfort zone.

WHAT SHOULD BIDEN DO AND WHAT SHOULD BE HS AGENDA?

Biden has many boxes to fill in. He knows better than most that whatever the polls show it ain’t going to be easy. Trump maybe running against himself but he still has his base running with him. At the end of the day the ten to fifteen percent that protested in 2018 mustn’t be left standing at the ballot box with the thought in their minds, “At least we know where Trump stands and he is a strong leader”. Biden’s job is that much harder because since Sanders called it quits the world has changed medically and economically as a result of a smoldering pandemic and what America now stands for has got even worse. Citizen and economic equity and justice are top of the agendas in line with American values. 

He also has to face the administrative chaos that Trump has created by denuding the Federal Government of all its talent. Biden needs careful thought out policies on everything and needs to build a sustainable winning coalition that will win the Senate as well.

So “Good old Joe” needs to prepare to take off on day one on governing and introducing legislation to produce change. He has a number of manuals that Obama’s administration prepared for the Trump administration to continue the functioning of the Federal Government. Dust them off and hand them over to potential cabinet secretaries whom he should put into place now. So on day one they too can be off to the races.

WHO HE NAMES AS RUNNING MATE TAKES ON A GREATER GRAVITAS NOW THAT HE IS TRANSFORMATIVE.

Top of his agenda and what will put a stamp on the direction his Presidency is leaning is who he will elect as his Vice Presidential running mate. He read the mood right when he announced that his electoral partner would be a female. Symbolically that reflected the battle for gender equity. Also he leads Trump in the polls with the female vote by up to nineteen percent. Nothing more epitomizes the change in direction of his prospective Presidency than who that nominee might be. To guess which way that sentiment is being directed the guru to follow is Jim Clyburn the African American Chief Whip of the Democratic Party. If one person is responsible for delivering “Joe knows us and we know Joe” to the Presidential nomination it is Clyburn. Clyburn, who has been around as long as Nancy and Joe stated not so long ago the color of the skin didn’t matter in the selection. 

The seasoned Chief Whip like everyone else thought it needed to be someone who could deliver the Mid Western States that Trump had flipped in 2016. No - one was more qualified than Amy Klobuchar from Minnesota. That State is now her problem as Amy was Attorney General of Minnesota where George Floyd was murdered. The record of prosecutions against this type of offense was abysmal and that includes the period of Klobuchar’s incumbency. The patriarch Clyburn had this dry comment on the ongoing tragedy which has galvanized the nation, “We are all sometimes victims of timing. This is very tough coming for Amy Klobuchar who I respect so much”. He added that this impacted her Vice Presidential chances. 

What with Biden’s run in the youthful black radio host, Charlamagne the God who made it quite clear that he wanted something for his community in response to Biden’s flippant remark, that in the light of his record, “If you have a problem figuring out if you are for Trump or me, you ain’t black”. Biden has had to run around reassuring all that he had been a wise guy and that he doesn’t take the black vote for granted. So in Jay H. Ell’s humble opinion, in this point in time, a woman of color has to be favorite. Arising out of the recent three murders of African Americans, the legitimacy of their complaint that they are still to this day discriminated against has gained even more currency and support. Furthermore they cannot be seen to be taken for granted. 

The short list of candidates has to include the sharpest tool in the whole Democratic field Kamala Harris who was also a prosecutor and whose legal activities are now being vetted up the ying yang. Then there is Stacie Adams who nearly won the Georgia Governorship for G-d’s sake. The Mayor of Atlanta, Keisha Lance Bottoms, has put in a sterling performance midst the coronavirus and mass protests and unhelpful Republican Governer. The eloquent and capable Val Demmings who was formerly a police chief and has called for cops to report brutality has to appeal all round.  All the latter have strong credentials at working across the aisle. There are others as well but you get Jay H. Ell’s drift.

The crisp point is that any of these talented woman of color would be in tune with the majority of the country at this point in time.

BIDEN’S LIMITED MEDIA EXPOSURE

Bearing in mind that with Trump around sucking all the oxygen out of the air Biden hasn’t had that much media exposure. Those opportunities he has had he used to good effect other than the odd gaffe which has been characteristic of his whole career. He has, in the coronavirus disaster, accompanied by economic hardship for the most vulnerable sectors of the community and in the George Floyd murder and its aftermath, acted as mourner and consoler in chief in stark contrast to Trump. He is as authentic as they come having lived through profound losses himself.

 He has stepped out of his comfort zone by going against the powerful police union that has been hyper protective of officers even in the current situation. Unions have generally backed him including the Police Union. However this situation called for him to condemn the culture whereby some police stand around and defend their own and do nothing to prevent brutality and even murder. In another major symbolic move, he juxtaposed Trump’s golfing jaunt by silently laying a wreath to the fallen on Memorial Day.

He is expected to attend George Floyd’s funeral in Houston in mid June. Anything Floyd is receiving wall to wall coverage even across the world. If Biden does speak every word  he utters will carry more weight than a thousand tweets from the President. 

A CONSENSUS IS BUILDING FOR CHANGE IN SOCIETY - THIS MILIEU IS BIDEN’S CHOP AND HE MUST GALVANIZE THE WINDS OF CHANGE

“Cometh the time cometh the man” - there is no one more suited to put together a coalition that could hammer out a parcel of sweeping changes than Biden. Problems that have been ignored for decades and in some instances not addressed for centuries have risen to the boiling point in the current crises of the pandemic and racial injustice.

At the moment there is as close to unanimity that the American population want to attain racial justice and contain abuse of Presidential power. The former has been triggered off by the three recent deaths that in the eyes of many amounted to murder. Close on eighty percent of those polled believe that the problem is far deeper than the murder of George Floyd. The blatant savage brutal homicide has triggered off close on a fortnight of protests in nearly every city in America. Those present have been in many instances largely white. 

The protests for racial equity have come from every section of the community political, economic and in the sports and entertainment field. They have also taken place in every nook and cranny of the United States. The numbers attending in Washington DC and Chicago have been estimated at being the largest ever for demonstrations. Protests have been recorded in six hundred and fifty cities and towns in America. The CNN web page provided details of activities of some of the small town America where these outpourings were taking place. Locations included State Town Pennsylvania, one hundred and ninety two miles west of Philadelphia, Farmington Missouri and Holland Arkansas. 

Republican opposition has been vocal headed by former President Bush, and Republican Presidential contender Carly Fiorina. Not to be neglected are the sports figures and their governing bodies, most notably the National Football League who admit they played down the issue in 2016 when Colin Kaepernick took a knee and begun an abortive campaign that” Black Lives Matter in response to other “ignored” deaths at the hands of police. 

The key constituency in America today - businesses have also joined in an unprecedented way. From JP Morgan and their legendary CEO Jamie Dimon, to Johnson and Johnson, Apple, Amazon and Nike just  to mention a few that have come out against racial and economic inequity. While they and the philanthropies represent billions of dollars and untold influence they need cohesion and direction. 

Biden should find a forum for all these entities to meet and create a number of principles and projects in partnership with the Federal Administration to provide policies such as minimum wage, educational opportunities or housing just to mention a few options. It is little publicized fact that the key movers and shakers of the deal that was created between Mandela and the Afrikaner Nationalist Government in South Africa were in large part  the corporations. 

A CONSENSUS IS BUILDING AGAINST THE ABUSE OF PRESIDENTIAL POWER FROM THE MILITARY ESTABLISHMENT

The Commander in Chief has to date believed and acted as if the Federal Agencies were departments of Trump Inc. There was no branch that he felt more attached to than the military whom he misread as being his own private militia. With the explosion of the nationwide protests following the sickening video of the murder of unarmed George Floyd mushrooming uncontrollably, Trump decided to make Law and Order the issue he would run on in 2020. In a call to the Governors that became public he berated them for being weak with the result that  he would send in the United States military. 

As the protests themselves grew less and less violent so it took a Trump/Barr orchestrated provocation to bring the military intervention issue into focus. Officers from various agencies broke a massive peaceful demonstration in front of the WhiteHouse in Lafayette Park with batons, tear gas and violence. The reason it transpired was in order that the President and his retinue including the Secretary of Defense could create a photo op in front of a church. This abuse of power and the threat of using the American military unleashed a reaction that Trump could never have imagined, from the one arm of America’s institutions, the militia ,that had rarely ever raised a peep.

Secretary of Defense Espey made it quite clear the forces under his control could not go into battle with their own civilian society. This open opposition to the WhiteHouse angered the POTUS but did not prevent a flood of former Generals to come out of hibernation and revolt against Trump’s treachery. The bitter biting criticism of his recently resigned and highly respected Defense Secretary General Mattis had the profoundest political impact and the Republican caucus has to be bursting at the seems in frustration. Lisa Murkowski is having her Damascus moment, it really took a lot for it to happen! But for the rest of the gutless they are not available for comment. It is really a question of time before more rats desert the WhiteHouse bunker. Another eighty three Defense officials and personnel sent a scathing letter to the President. The signatories included four former Secretaries of Defense two Republicans and two Democrats. Added to them are former National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice and Secretary of State General Colin Powell.

The very fact that Trump could have unilaterally turned his military establishment  into his those opposing his policies was an unthinkable hypothesis a week ago. Biden could well use this consensus to re examine the relationship between the armed forces and the Executive. America was a mere declaration away from the President instructing the army to mow down protestors.

PARTICIPANTS IN PRODUCING A CONSENSUS 

The creation of a consensus which has to recognize, as well, the constituencies of the angry that supported Trump and pushed him over the Electoral College top as well as the group that catapulted Bernie Sanders onto the national scene is not going to be easy. Biden is more than aware that politics is the art of the possible and that if he wishes to reset the soul of this country he cannot only have a two year stint of legislation, losing the legislature at the first midterms. Nevertheless as he well knows leadership matters, America is in a deep mess at the moment the economic sequelae of the mismanaged ongoing coronavirus pandemic have still to be met. In fact the latter is far from over it has only been declared finished. So Biden needs to heal, be honest with the citizenry as to the challenge needed as well as declare to them the vision of freedom and equity he would like to attain with their help and sacrifice.   

So to end where it begun - the country needs vision and leadership. To effect this Biden has to move from his comfort zone and project a world that moves America forward not merely replace the experiment of Trump’s “Great America” by the previous status quo. He must move from “Biden with Biden” to “Riden with Biden”. In so doing he has the opportunity of going down in history as a transformative President who not only settled the ship but created a new equitable democratic America which lead the world in coping with diversity and the revolutionary challenges it faces in the twenty - first century.