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About The skanner. (Portland, Or.) 1975-2014 | View Entire Issue (Nov. 23, 2016)
Page 2 The Skanner November 23, 2016 Challenging People to Shape a Better Future Now Bernie Foster Founder/Publisher Bobbie Dore Foster Executive Editor Jerry Foster Advertising Manager Christen McCurdy News Editor Patricia Irvin Graphic Designer Arashi Young Reporter Monica J. Foster Seattle Office Coordinator Susan Fried Photographer 2016 MERIT AWARD WINNER The Skanner Newspaper, es- tablished in October 1975, is a weekly publication, published every Wednesday by IMM Publi- cations Inc. 415 N. Killingsworth St. P.O. Box 5455 Portland, OR 97228 Telephone (503) 285-5555 Fax: (503) 285-2900 info@theskanner.com www.TheSkanner.com The Skanner is a member of the National Newspaper Pub lishers Association and West Coast Black Pub lishers Association. All photos submitted become the property of The Skanner. We are not re spon sible for lost or damaged photos either solicited or unsolicited. ©2016 The Skanner. All rights re served. Reproduction in whole or in part without permission prohibited. Local News Pacific NW News World News Opinions Jobs, Bids Entertainment Community Calendar RSS feeds Happy Thanksgiving from the staff at The Skanner News Opinion The Three Elections That Shaped Obama’s Legacy The first backlash election of the presidency of President Barack Obama’s time in office was 2010 when Democrats in the U.S. House of Represen- tatives lost 63 House seats. It was the greatest loss of seats by a party in the House since 1938. The second backlash elec- tion was 2014 when there was a 72-year low in voter turn- out. In 43 states, less than half the eligible voting population voted. In New York the turn- out was only 28.8 percent. One has to go back to 1942 to find lower voter turnout. The third backlash election is obvious. It was the election on Nov. 8 of born-on-third- base reality TV narcissist Donald Trump. Trump’s sur- prise victory arrives with the predictable edicts that “it had nothing to do with race” — even though Trump’s boasting and scapegoating of immigrants and stereotyping of African Americans was an often repeated mantra. Now we have swastikas written on high school walls. On Nov. 11 Black students at Lauren Victoria Burke NNPA Columnist the University of Pennsylva- nia were targeted for racist harassment the day after it was reported that the Ku Klux Klan plans to rally in cele- bration of Trump’s victory on Dec. 3 in North Carolina. When President Lyndon Johnson signed the Civil “ Then, there was Nevada Senator Barry Goldwater and Richard Nixon’s talk of “law and order.” All of these policies pointed squarely in the direction of African Americans. America had seen it before. After the Emancipation Proclamation there were Jim Crow laws and the “Black Codes” and other ways to at- tempt to place African Amer- icans back in their place of second- and third-class citi- zenship. The 2016 presidential elec- tion was a massive backlash and created by Republicans on the night of President Obama’s first inaugural to block his agenda is the same obstruction that created so much frustration and hatred towards the federal govern- ment, marketed so well by congressional Republicans. It would be the product of that hatred of government that would lead 59 million Americans to select an un- qualified, narcissist real es- tate investor from Queens to lead the federal government. Just as no one believed eight years ago that a Black Frustration and hatred toward the federal government led 59 million Americans to select an unqualified, nar- cissist real estate investor from Queens, N.Y. to lead the federal government Rights Act of 1964 and the Vot- ing Rights Act of 1965, what followed was a backlash. Soon there was the cam- paign of Alabama’s proud- ly segregationist Governor George Wallace. to Obama’s legacy itself. One can only assume that Donald Trump will focus on disman- tling Obama’s policy achieve- ments. The irony could not be deep- er: The obstruction planned man would occupy the White House on Jan. 20, 2009, few will be able to believe what they’re seeing when they watch a professional birther and serial liar taking the oath of office on Jan. 20, 2017. Democrats Could Lose Even More in 2018 T he apprehension that I felt upon Donald Trump’s victory in the presidential election has only increased as he has an- nounced the appointments of his chief of staff, strategist, and cabinet members. As of this writing, he has mainly an- nounced the selection of old- er White men, including the racist, Alabama Senator Jeff Sessions, to lead the Justice Department. The senator’s use of highly inflammatory racial rhetoric (including describing the NAACP as an “un-American” organization, and expressing support for the KKK) prevented his con- firmation to the U.S. District Court in 1986. Now, he will be charged with law enforce- ment in our nation. Equally troubling has been the selection of Stephen Ban- non, his campaign chairman, as chief White House strat- egist and senior counsel- or. Bannon is the Executive Chairman of Breitbart News, a news website that has been the home of the alt-right, the source of lies, hate, nastiness and racist rhetoric. President Barack Obama had to walk away from Min- ister Jeremiah Wright be- cause one of his sermons was considered racist by some Whites. Trump openly em- braces racists and is applaud- ed for it. The position that Bannon will hold does not require Senate confirmation, while the position that Sessions will be nominated for does. With 54 Republicans in the Senate, Julianne Malveaux NNPA Columnist Sessions is almost certain to be nominated. Hopeful- ly Democrats have retained enough of a backbone to raise questions about Sessions’ rac- ism. Senate newcomers Kama- “ Senate. The Trump campaign (and its affiliated super PACs) have as much as $60 mil- lion to spend, and can use it to build ground operations in states where Democrats closely lost this year. (Hil- lary and her affiliated super PACs may have as much as $70 million to spend). Demo- crats lost Michigan, Wiscon- sin, Pennsylvania, Florida, North Carolina, and Arizona by less than five percent. In- Democrats must start now to edu- cate and encourage people to turn out for the midterm elections la Harris (D-Calif.) and Cath- erine Cortez Masto (D-Nev.) may be among the first to raise the questions. Still, Re- publicans will have the votes to confirm anyone they want to confirm. Welcome to the age of Trump. Will Republicans get more of an edge in the Senate when we go to the polls in 2018? Thirty-three Senate seats will be up for grabs then. Republicans hold eight of them. Independents Ber- nie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Angus King (I-Maine), who caucus and vote with Democrats are both likely to be candidates for re-election. A whopping 23 seats currently held by Democrats could be flipped. If some of the states that went Republican in this year’s elec- tion can be tilted, Republicans can widen their margin in the cumbent Democrats Tammy Baldwin (D-Wisc.), Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), Bob Casey (D-Pa.), Joe Donnelly (Ind.), Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.), Bill Nelson (D-Fla.), and Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.) are all in states that Republicans won in 2016. While many of them are popular, and incumbency is a challenging thing to over- come, we’ve just seen that the right kind of Republican can- didate can prevail. These candidates, and the Democratic Party, can’t af- ford to take incumbency or popularity for granted. They can’t afford to savor a polling lead and conclude that they don’t have to fight for every vote. If these folks want to go back to Washington, they’ll learn from the Hillary Clin- ton loss and work indefati- gably, starting now, to keep their seats. They’ll make lots of visits back home, host town hall meetings, and make sure their voters understand what their contributions have been and what challenges they face. If Trump and his team can brag of results, if his actions are perceived as “making American great again,” then incumbent Democrats may be in trouble. Virginia Senator Tim Kaine, also on the ballot, has described Democrats in the Senate as the “emergency brake” on Trump’s policy pro- posals. I expect the Democrats to vocally take Trump and his team on when they revert to the racist rhetoric and pro- posed racist, misogynistic, and jingoistic policies that Trump promoted during the campaign, but will they? They may not want to be perceived as obstructionists (though Re- publicans surely didn’t mind being obstructionists with President Obama), and they will certainly need to pick their battles carefully, but they must speak out. Midterm election turnout is always extremely low — it was just 36 percent in 2014, the lowest level in 70 years. Dem- ocrats must start now to ed- ucate and encourage people to turn out for the midterm elections. Voting rights or- ganizations must begin now to reverse the voter suppres- sion that kept millions from voting on Nov. 8. If Democrats don’t get busy now, Republi- cans will, indeed, prevail in 2018. So, let’s stop wringing our hands and moaning. Let’s get busy!
