Page 2 The Skanner January 31, 2018
®
Challenging People to Shape
a Better Future Now
Bernie Foster
Founder/Publisher
Republicans Will Ride with Trump Forever
Bobbie Dore Foster
Executive Editor
A
Jerry Foster
Advertising Manager
Christen McCurdy
News Editor
Patricia Irvin
Graphic Designer
Monica J. Foster
Seattle Office Coordinator
Susan Fried
Photographer
2017
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SPECIAL ISSUE:
BLACK HISTORY
Feb. 22
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TheSkannerNews
m
me
•
nts
fter every Trump out-
rage, we go through a
similar routine. Trump
says or does something
that most sane people believe
to be over the top; he is round-
ly condemned; some Repub-
licans shake their heads;
masses of people ask that
something be done…and then
it all fades into the next news
cycle.
What was different in con-
nection with Trump’s recent
alleged remarks against Af-
rica, Haiti and Latin Amer-
ica—the notorious “s--thole
remarks”—was that some
Republicans who were in the
room at the time of the alleged
remarks first played dumb
and then claimed that the re-
marks had not been verbal-
ized. At that point, there was
laughter in the audience.
Yet, in talk show after talk
show there is a question that
keeps getting asked: why isn’t
something being done about
this situation? Why can’t
Trump be brought back to
the standard of a respectable
politician? The answer is not
very difficult, but has several
parts. Here goes.
Bill
Fletcher Jr.
The Global
African
First, he is not now nor has
he ever been a “respectable”
politician. Whether as a real-
ity-show celebrity or candi-
date for office or now as Pres-
ident, he has insisted on being
provocative. He believes in
stirring things up. It is this
modus operandi that inspired
his right-wing populist base.
They were not looking for
what they believed as more
of the same. On top of that it
remains far from clear that
Trump would understand
how to be a respectable politi-
cian in either case. It seems to
run against his nature.
Second, who will do any-
thing about Trump? The Re-
publicans control both houses
of Congress, the White House
and the U.S. Supreme Court.
They look at Trump as a blunt
force object that serves the in-
terests of their agenda. Many
of them may be personally
uncomfortable with him, but
they know that if they move to
take him down, they may pro-
vide momentum for the Dem-
ocrats. They would rather
that the United States become
and remain a global laughing-
stock, than lose the political
edge.
“
Trump’s in-
fatuation
with author-
itarianism is
not a simple
rhetorical
device used to
increase rat-
ings
Third, the so-called mod-
erate Republicans who are
deeply uncomfortable with
the crudeness of Trump wor-
ry that they will be challenged
in Republican primaries by
the extreme right should they
move against Trump. Perhaps
they wonder and hope that
there will be deeper revela-
tions in the Mueller investi-
gation of alleged Trump/Rus-
sia ties, but for now they will
do nothing.
Thus, holding Trump ac-
countable is a matter of polit-
ical power. It is not a matter
of morality and good will. If
those who see the Trump re-
gime as a threat to humanity
do not engage in mass politi-
cal action, including, but not
limited to, electoral politics,
the situation will go from bad
to worse. By worse, I mean
growing authoritarianism.
And here we must all be clear
that Trump’s infatuation
with authoritarianism is not
a simple rhetorical device to
increase the ratings. It seems
to reflect the centerpiece of
his worldview: Life is about
Trump; Trump is the savior
of the U.S.; Trump’s ideas are
the greatest that humankind
has every experienced. Those
who get in the way of Trump’s
truth, therefore, are enemies
who must be removed.
The challenge is now ours.
Bill Fletcher, Jr. is a talk show
host, writer and activist. Fol-
low him on Twitter @BillF-
letcherJr, and Facebook.
What We’ve Lost During Trump’s First Year
info@theskanner.com
in y o u r c o m m u n
Opinion
T
he year leading up to his
inauguration in 2017, as
the Republican presi-
dential nominee, Donald
Trump espoused senseless,
baseless and ultimately emp-
ty assertions about the state
of Black Americans and our
communities.
“What the hell do you have
to lose?” he screamed in front
of a predominantly White
crowd in a small, predomi-
nantly White suburb of Lan-
sing, Michigan.
After Trump was inau-
gurated, the Congressional
Black Caucus (CBC) found
it prudent to answer his
question. In March, the CBC
Executive Committee, led
by our Chairman Cedric L.
Richmond (D-La.), presented
Trump with a 130-page policy
document entitled, “We Have
A Lot To Lose: Solutions to
Advance Black Families in the
21st Century.”
The
document,
which
was compiled by the entire
49-member Caucus, outlined
policy solutions down to the
bill text for issues facing our
communities. Voting rights,
criminal justice reform, eco-
nomic justice, education,
health care, immigration –
these were just some of the
topics we presented to contin-
ue our progress.
Unfortunately, these are the
issues that Trump and his ad-
ministration have chosen to
ignore. The President, who
has not commented on the
document since we present-
ed it to him, obviously has
had other ideas, almost as if
he wanted to answer his own
Rep. Karen
Bass
Senator
(D-Calif.)
question in his first year, to
show us what we can lose.
The truth is that in this first
year, we’ve lost a lot.
Almost immediately after
being elected, Trump estab-
lished the Presidential Ad-
visory Commission on Elec-
tion Integrity and appointed
a known vote suppressor to
lead it. The commission was
designed to intimidate vot-
ers and Trump—because of
political and legal pressure—
“
Hard-earned
progress will
never be safe
so long as big-
otry, hatred
and racism
hold power
recently decided to dissolve it
into the Department of Home-
land Security.
Throughout the past year,
Trump has stacked the fed-
eral courts with judges with
nothing short of scandalous
records when it comes to vot-
ing rights. Among his nomi-
nee group was Thomas Farr,
who helped lawmakers draft
and defend a 2013 law that the
Fourth Circuit Court of North
Carolina ruled targeted Af-
rican American voters “with
almost surgical precision.”
On the criminal justice
front, Trump has used the
Department of Justice to em-
brace mass incarceration and
shy away from transparent
policing. One example of this
is an FBI report published last
August entitled, “Black Iden-
tity Extremists Likely Moti-
vated to Target Law Enforce-
ment Officers.” One problem
with the report is that the
term “Black Identity Extrem-
ists” is an invented group
that does not exist. There are
no Black people organized
to kill law enforcement offi-
cers. When I asked Attorney
General Jeff Sessions, Dep-
uty Attorney General Rod
Rosenstein and FBI Director
Christopher Wray about the
origins of this report, none of
them could tell me what the
report was even based on or
how the term was created.
Economically, Trump has
gone after our consumer pro-
tections. Congress is working
to repeal Dodd-Frank, a land-
mark piece of legislation de-
signed to protect consumers
from the wreck of the 2009
recession. Trump’s favoring
of big banks will ultimately
leave consumers in the same
spot they were during the re-
cession, or worse. In 2014, for
the first time ever, the major-
ity of public school students
in the United States were
non-White. Secretary DeVos
has been less than helpful to
these institutions, ignoring
grave disparities in how stu-
dents of color are disciplined
compared to White students,
and supporting a budget that
would further attack services
that public schools provide.
Trump has also gone after
our healthcare by actively sab-
otaging the Affordable Care
Act, continually issuing state-
ments citing death spirals and
other doomsday prophesies
in addition to cutting funding
for advertisements and allow-
ing health insurance compa-
nies to sell short-term plans
with inadequate coverage.
Trump and other Republican
leaders have already openly
discussed cuts to the social
safety net, meaning Medicare,
Medicaid and Social Security,
as justification for their defi-
cit-exploding tax plan.
Trump has spent a consid-
erable amount of time attack-
ing Black immigrants and
their countries with both his
racist words and policies. In
addition to referring to Hai-
ti and African countries as
“shitholes,” he’s attacked re-
cipients of the Diversity Visa
Program, rescinded the De-
ferred Action for Childhood
Arrivals (DACA) program
and scheduled the elimina-
tion of Temporary Protective
Status for many countries
like Haiti and El Salvador.
The entire reason we have
this program is to help pro-
tect immigrants from ills in
their home country, which
can range from famine to civ-
il war. To deport hundreds of
thousands after opening our
borders to them is unconscio-
nable.
When we look at the is-
See TRUMP on page 11
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