“When it’s finally over.
When the nightmare is done.
When he’s finished.
When he is gone.
I don’t EVER
want to hear
his name again.
NEVER EVER!”
Those words appeared on a friend’s Facebook page next to a picture from the back of a black-suited Donald Trump walking slightly hunched over through a doorway.
Those words reflect a sentiment many anti-Trumpers feel. And yet, as much as I want to see him disappear from the public discourse, I felt obligated to contribute my reaction to the posting:
“As much as I usually agree with you, we need to keep his name in our vocabulary as an example of someone who would pervert our nation for his own ego and benefit at the expense of our fundamental constitutional rights,” I wrote.
Sadly, Trump no longer is an anomaly among Republicans. He has managed to instill in Republican elected officials and party regulars a loathing of the truth, for what their eyes clearly saw happening January 6, for what they said at the time. Trump has been their vessel for disbelief in the sanctity of the electoral process, of our belief in the legitimacy and objectivity of our judicial system, of our appreciation for law enforcement organizations, of our dedication to precepts that have guided American supremacy for the last century.
Just as we label disgraced Wisconsin Senator Joseph McCarthy as a blight on our national heritage back in the early 1950s, so too must we designate Trumpism as a cancer on our country.
How devilishly ironic that 70 years later another McCarthy, Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy of California, has attained a position of responsibility in our government that he has squandered in pursuit of power. He has forsaken the truths he expressed during the Trump-inspired insurrection at the Capitol.
We cannot afford to forget the evils Donald Trump has dumped on our country, even at the expense of saying and hearing his name over and over and over.
Day of Reckoning: Monday is sizing up to be a day of reckoning in Israel. As I write this, it is still uncertain if Bibi Netanyahu’s government will vote for the required third and final time to overhaul the country’s judicial system.
There is something repulsively unseemly when the prime minister of Israel takes his leadership cues from the likes of Viktor Mihály Orbán of Hungary, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan of Turkey, Donald Trump, and Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin of Russia. Each of them have undermined democracy in their countries including neutering their legal systems.
There is no disputing the fact that Bibi’s government has the legal right to act. Its majority in the Knesset is four votes. The debate has been about the moral legitimacy of the vote and subsequent actions it could engender.
If passed, the legislation would make it less likely that Israel’s Supreme Court could invalidate laws and action Bibi’s hard right and religious coalition wants to implement that would stifle dissent, approve unrestrained settlement in the West Bank, deny religious freedom to non Orthodox Jewish sects, possibly strip Arab citizens of their voting rights and, most important personally to Netanyahu, quash criminal investigations of his actions.
Even as the West anguishes about the return of anti-women rules in Afghanistan and Iran, occurrences that no knowledgeable, realistic observer should be surprised about as they are repressive regimes anchored in 8th century thinking as it applies to half of their populations, there are troubling vibes about how Israel’s judicial changes would affect women.
The Israeli left wing newspaper Haaretz recently reported, “Protesters warn that the government’s plans to strengthen the Chief Rabbinate’s authority will damage the status of women in Israel. These plans include a bill that would expand the powers of rabbinical courts to adjudicate in civil matters, and a bill which would strip municipal rabbis of their independence” (for more details on proposed rules to control women, click on this link: https://us18.campaign-archive.com/?e=fa3f110eca&u=d3bceadb340d6af4daf1de00d&id=931540d607).
Monday will be the sixth day of the Hebrew month of Av. Three days later, the 9th of Av, commemorates the day in 586 BCE and again in 70 CE that the temple in Jerusalem was destroyed, first by the Babylonians and then by the Romans. To many Israelis and friends of a liberal, democratic Israel, the 6th of Av might well be imbued with an equal sadness if the Knesset passes judicial reform they believe will strip Israel of its soul and standing as a light unto all nations.
