(White) Power
Destruction continues as obstruction halts all else
This may be the worst lede I’ve ever written, but I’m at a loss. You don’t need to be reminded of the bad news you already know, and you certainly don’t need a sermon about just how bad it is.
How does one avoid dogma when the principles we’re defending are so fundamental?
After all, it isn’t just this or that statute that’s being flouted, it’s the Constitution itself. Talking about what’s at stake – things like the rule of law, free speech and a free press, and (for more than a month now) taxation without representation – becomes reminiscent of a class in the early history of the republic.
And how does one avoid moralizing when the country is in the hands of people who forsake common decency?
Empathy as weakness is their mantra, coupled with macho men and submissive women – whites only, of course, and the non-billionaires among them will be required to keep worshipping the rich folks from afar (behind the ballroom ropes as it were).
Meanwhile, the House of Representatives can’t function for fear of revealing the president’s pedophilia, and the administration’s decision to ignore due process while laughing off the nicety of producing evidence now includes murdering people the Felon says are trafficking drugs.
None of this is conservative. MAGA is as radical as it gets.
And that doesn’t just show up in the blatant racism of their anti-DEI campaigns or the enthusiastic cruelty of the president’s secret police force. It’s a wholesale rejection of civility in favor of demonizing the other side. For the anti-intellectuals propping up this libertarian selfishness, the government had to be brought to heel.
Keeping Black folks in their place – and out of the White House – means election districts must be gerrymandered and public education gutted. In exchange for tax cuts, the less intelligent among the richest Americans appear content to let the racists run amok. The smart ones know that’s bad for business.
In Alabama, where I live, the state superintendent of education just announced that 2025-2026 enrollment has fallen by 5,800 students, the biggest drop in four decades. The explanation is simple, and one you may have seen in your own state: The legislature channeled a sizable share of Alabama’s education dollars into reimbursing residents who prefer to send their kids to private schools.
The breadth of this criminal administration’s dismantling of American excellence in research, American benevolence – first abroad and now at home – and its transparent looting of American treasure and extortion of foreign oligarchs, all cry out for accountability.
I have to believe we’ll get there. The president is a weak excuse for a man; his “strong arming” of our allies, among others, is empowered entirely by the office he holds. The world is more dangerous since that pathetically unserious person was given serious power indeed.
Let’s all hope the would-be originalists on the Supreme Court confront the indisputable truth: The founders never imagined America would so embrace a liar and cheat.
But there I go, getting preachy.