An American Political Agenda for 2018 and 2020: Six Suggestions for the Upcoming Election Cycles: Part 6

We come now to the final point in our list of six issues (read parts one, two, three, four, and five) we want congressional and presidential candidates to focus on in 2018 and 2020: an aggressive push for social justice.

America needs this, especially now, because the Trump years represent a 21st Century low point in the nation’s commitment to equality. We didn’t think, in our sunset years, fighting the civil rights battle all over would become necessary. 

That seems required now, given the ugly underbelly of America’s social fabric unearthed by Trump’s presidency. This underbelly consists of those who see America as the birthright of only white, English speaking Christians and those who do not believe the constitution’s guarantee of equal protection applies to people of other faiths (or no faith), women,  gays, transgender individuals, and people of color. The next president, with help from Congress, must reestablish the moral authority of the office on the issue of fundamental fairness to all Americans.

Racial Equity

Trump’s sins on race cover symbol and policy. Symbolically, we need only recall his statements equating white supremacists denouncing Jews with those protesting confederate monuments in Charlottesville, Virginia. Before Trump, we wouldn’t have imagined a modern-day American president doing such a thing. Candidates in 2018 and 2020 must make clear during their campaigns that won’t happen while he or she holds office. No room exists for hedging, compromising, or equivocating. America needs a president, and members of Congress, with zero tolerance for bigotry who understand no equivalency exists between anti-Semitic and racist chants and protests against monuments that romanticize America’s history of chattel slavery.

  Statue of Robert E. Lee, commander of the Confederate States Army, in Lee Park in Charlottesville, Virginia (credit: CVille Dog via Wikimedia Commons)

However, Trump’s bad acts go beyond intemperate public statements. Administratively, his government has pulled back on the federal commitment to enforcing anti-discrimination laws and signaled how it disfavors civil rights enforcement. The Justice Department, for example, stopped using consent decrees as a tool for enforcing civil rights laws. Government agencies now limit the data they collect on civil rights violations and have reduced the size of their anti-discrimination staffs. For example, instead of cutting back, the Justice Department should step up its efforts in investigating and prosecuting hate crimes, as there has been a spike in them since Trump’s election.

Civil rights enforcement isn’t part of Trump’s plan. He appears not to believe in it and acts as if it doesn’t serve his political interests. He thinks, probably accurately, his base doesn’t want civil rights laws enforced. The next president must make civil rights part of his or her agenda. Civil rights laws remain the law of the land and every president must vigorously enforce them.

Equity for Sexual Minorities

Racial minorities aren’t faring well in the Trump world. Sexual minorities may fare worse. Trump’s announcement on Twitter that he’d ban transgender individuals from the military demonstrated his attitude. Court rulings and the decision by military leaders to bury the plan in the Pentagon review process stopped the idea for the moment. Trump put out the suggestion for blatantly political reasons – a bone thrown to the Christian right he must feed to keep under his ever-shrinking tent. Eliminating transgender people from the armed forces, however, potentially harms national security by limiting the military’s ability to recruit individuals with particular skills and may damage units that depend on transgender troops.

 Trump's original tweet from July 26, 2017 announcing his ban on transgender individuals in the military (Twitter.com)

As with racial equity, candidates for Congress and the Presidency need to make clear their commitment to gender equality and equity for sexual minorities, including lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender individuals. The force of American leadership in the world depends both on military and diplomatic strength and on moral authority as a democracy committed to equal rights for everyone. No room exists for fudging on this.  

Religious Pluralism

America, since its founding, has been a land of many religions and a land of many who profess allegiance to no religion. Our constitution assures the rights of all Americans to practice whatever religion they want or to practice no religion at all. With due respect to the principle of separation of church and state, we hope candidates for office in 2018 and 2020 will talk about and support religious pluralism. We hope they explicitly acknowledge that America recognizes no state religion and no religious test exists for holding office. We saw encouraging signs on this point in the 2017 off-year elections in which members of many religious groups won state and local races. Candidates can freely express their faith preference, as long as they recognize that every American enjoys the same right to practice their faith or to practice no faith at all.

So, there you have it – the six key issues we believe the 2018 and 2020 elections should turn on. As we commend them to you, we believe they’re worth repeating:

1. Restore the dignity of the office of President of the United States;

2. Reverse the toxic, divisive race and ethnicity baiting of the current president;

3. Address income inequality;

4. Develop a thoughtful, intelligent foreign policy that reflects American values 

and security interests and those of our allies;

5. Promote a domestic policy agenda that improves the lives of ordinary Americans; and

6. Renew the American commitment to social justice

It’s your turn – tell us what you think the focus of the 2018 and 2020 elections should be?            

Charlottesville: The Last Straw

Last weekend, the stench of racism that’s been simmering below the surface of the American landscape bubbled to the top for all to see and smell. The white supremacist movement that’s been building, waiting for the right time to wreak havoc, showed up in Charlottesville, Virginia with tragic consequences. Three Americans senselessly lost their lives as a result and 19 others were injured.  In the process, President Trump showed convincingly why he lacks the moral authority and statesmanship of a President and why the American people and their other leaders must find a way to remove him from office.

The loss of life in Charlottesville should sadden and concern every right thinking American.  In terms of a response to Charlottesville, we first, as we think the President should have, honor and mourn Heather Heyer, the young woman killed in an act of domestic terrorism by an apparent misfit now charged with second degree murder and other crimes for ramming a car into a crowd, and Lt. H. Jay Cullen and Trooper Berke M. M. Bates, Virginia law enforcement officers killed in the crash of a police helicopter patrolling the area.  None of them would have been where they were but for the wretched, despicable acts of hate mongers who converged on Charlottesville to protest that city’s effort to come to grips with America’s original sin by removing a monument to Confederate General Robert E. Lee.

It’s Not the Statues: After Charlottesville, no longer should anyone entertain the fiction that opposing removal of confederate monuments and statues merely reflects dedication to cultural heritage, separate from its racist underpinnings. Nor should the argument fly that removing the monuments represents a misguided attempt to rewrite history.  The white supremacists demonstrated the monuments constitute an integral part of their campaign to thwart the efforts of decent Americans of all colors to recognize slavery’s stain on our nation’s history.  The monuments aren’t recordings of history to the white supremacists. They are essential tools in conveying their message that this should remain a “white country” in which white people call the shots and out groups – blacks, Jews, Muslims, immigrants -- remain just that.      

Trump Speaks: It was the response of Donald Trump that produced the real outrage and presents the test his Republican Party must meet, along with the rest of the nation. Trump initially appeared, uncomfortably, on camera, making a statement that (1) failed to specifically and unequivocally call out the white supremacists whose presence precipitated the Charlottesville tragedy and (2) made a disappointing try at equating those who protested the white supremacists with the hate mongers themselves. Trump said he condemned “this egregious display of hatred, bigotry, and violence on many sides, on many sides.”  This attempt at equivalency made no moral sense to us.  The fact he felt compelled to say it suggested Trump believed he had to do so to avoid alienating white supremacists, many of whom openly admit Trump’s election emboldened them and claim he’s on their side. Trump’s tepid, misguided response to Charlottesville brings the country face to face with a fundamental question:  Having elected Trump on a promise to make America great again, will America say to him, “Mr. President, you aren’t great, you aren’t even good.  In fact, you’re harmful to our national aspirations?”

To their credit, some Republicans called out their party’s leader. Utah Senator Orrin Hatch’s Tweet seemed particularly appropriate.  He said, “My brother didn’t give his life fighting Hitler for Nazi ideas to go unchallenged here at home.” That’s a good start, but the GOP has much more work to do if it’s to avoid being tarred by the brush with which Trump and his supporters in the white supremacist universe paint.  Until Republicans, both the leadership in Congress and the statehouses, and the rank and file, say out loud they will not tolerate support for or from white supremacists, we have more difficult days ahead.  We’ve already seen that. Trump, under pressure, Monday made a more Presidential sounding statement about the evils of racism, but undid it all Tuesday by equating the counter protesters with white supremacists. “There’s fault on both sides,” he claimed.      

A Perfect Storm: Charlottesville may have been inevitable,  given Trump’s election and the strength the white supremacy movement claims it gave them.  A similar event was going to happen somewhere. The city’s decision to remove the Robert E. Lee statue became an excuse for the white supremacists to gather there.  Charlottesville’s reputation as a college town (home to the University of Virginia) and a relatively liberal place (Hillary Clinton won 80% of the vote there in 2016) probably assured pushback against the intrusion by a large group of outsiders spewing an ideology at odds with the predominant community ethic.

But Charlottesville didn’t have to become the tragedy it did, not if we had a President who understands and appreciates the America so many of us long for – a place that’s imperfect, that has many sins to atone for, but one brimming with promise for becoming what it has always had the chance to become – a beacon of hope and opportunity for anyone willing to help it achieve its highest aspirations and, therefore, share in its bounty and blessings.      

Sound off in the comments below to share your thoughts.