Supreme Court Aside, Why Do Evangelicals and Republicans Stay Silent on Trump?

Ever the showman Donald Trump is expected to reveal Monday night his next conservative, court-packing nominee for a lifetime appointment to the Supreme Court. It is his constitutional imperative to select a nominee; it is within his rights and privilege to choose a jurist he believes will decide the law based on the values and principles he espouses. Forget for a moment that Trump waffles on principles and displays no values, especially as they relate to family. 

I don’t agree with them, but I can understand why evangelicals support Trump. He promised them a conservative federal court. He is delivering on that promise, thanks in no small measure to Mitch McConnell’s obstructionist strategy to deny a hearing to President Obama’s nominee, Merrick Garland. 

Support, however, does not mandate blind, unswerving allegiance. It does not prohibit conscientious objection to policies that are aberrant to their Christian faith. They should not have to twist Scripture inside out to justify abhorrent behavior. 

The Catholic church, after all, is just as dedicated to the abolition of abortions, yet its leadership, all the way up to the pope, has been intensely vocal in criticism of Trump’s behavior towards migrant families. 

So I am puzzled by the silence flowing from an evangelical community that is accustomed to hearing fire and brimstone penalties to anyone who acts contrary to god’s and Jesus’ admonitions.  

Let me reiterate: While I do not condone one-issue voters, I recognize their right to follow their narrow public consciousness. I have too many friends who voted Trump because they perceived his support of Israel stronger than the alternative, reinforced by his shift of the American Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. 

They remain friends. We try not to talk politics, as I cannot condone their silence, and that of millions who I do not personally know but who profess to be god-fearing, in the wake of Trump’s flagrant abuses and miscalculations. Those millions include elected Republican officials. 

Where is the outcry, the condemnation, or at least an expressed revulsion at a zero-tolerance policy that ripped children from their parents? Should they not be repulsed by the ineptitude of their government not being able to expeditiously reunite families?

Even Democrats acknowledge industry is weighted down by too many regulations. But where is the sense of outrage from Republicans over the revocation of laws that protect our water, land and air quality? 

Do rank and file Republicans, along with Independents and Democrats who voted for Trump, not see that the tax bill provides meager relief to the vast majority of Americans while rewarding the wealthy and corporations with riches beyond their expectations? 

As other countries respond to Trump’s tariffs by targeting products from states he won, why are they silent when their livelihood is at stake? It’s not “America right or wrong” time when it is painfully obvious to all but Trump that winning a tariffs war is not easy.

Do they not see Trump was snookered by the North Koreans, that his boast that we could sleep more easily now because Kim Jong-un agreed to denuclearize was as empty as his claim to educate the gullible and desperate at Trump University? 

And what about our stature in the world? Do they not understand that “America First” runs counter to the principles and leadership embodied by the United States after World War II? That it was that global, communal ethos embodied by NATO and the Marshall Plan that enabled Western European civilization to reconstruct itself after the war’s devastation, that it forged successful economic and political recoveries in Japan and South Korea after two devastating conflicts? 

How do they square Trump’s campaign rhetoric that he is a big builder who will draw up a huge infrastructure investment list with the reality he not only has not initiated a building program but he also has stymied perhaps the most important project, construction of a new rail tunnel under the Hudson River critically needed to support the Northeast which represents more than 10% of the nation’s economy?

Despite Trump’s repeated efforts to hamper it, the Affordable Care Act remains popular. How can they justify a disregard for the health needs of millions? Isn’t caring and concern for the sick part of their religious creed? How can they remain silent when the Trump administration, in support of infant formula manufacturers, disregards scientific data that breast milk is better than baby formula, and compounds the heresy by blackmailing other countries to follow its dictates at the United Nations-affiliated World Health Assembly? How humiliating that Russia—Russia!—had to save the day for truth and science! (https://nyti.ms/2J0WJuV)

And speaking of Russia, how can evangelicals and ordinary Republicans acquiesce to the bromance Trump has with Vladimir Putin? Democrats are not demanding an invalidation of the 2016 presidential election. They are demanding admission that Russia interfered with it. They are demanding Trump instruct appropriate federal agencies insure it doesn’t happen again. To date Trump has not. 

With all that Trump has accomplished in undermining the values and doctrines of America, Republicans have steadfastly stood behind him. It is foolish to presume they will abandon him in the 2020 election. 

The only way to unseat him will be if enough citizens who failed to vote in 2016 realize their voices can and must be counted to avoid a decades-long descent into despair. 

In 2016, roughly 100 million eligible voters stayed home. 

Forget the Deep State Conspiracy, Donald. Investigate Why My Teeth Are Cracking!

I agree with Donald Trump. There is a deep state conspiracy in this country, but it is not the one he believes is undermining his administration. 

No, the conspiracy I see is so nefarious that only someone with my uncanny talent of perception has uncovered it. You have to be of a certain age, someone whose parents let them feast on cakes, cookies, candies and sugared soft drinks while young, the better to produce cavities in teeth that have now matured and are susceptible to cracking and needing crowns or implants. 

From personal experience I am convinced the American Dental Association and its members, having forged a bond in the 1950s and 1960s with the sugar industry to sabotage young mouths, is now locked in a comparable conspiracy with nut growers and their related products to chip away at older, more vulnerable, molars. 

Let me explain. My breakfast most mornings is cheese and fruit, along with almonds, walnuts and macadamia nuts. Sounds healthy and is healthy. But crunching down on nuts can be injurious to my filling-laden teeth. 

It is not only breakfast that is dangerous. The nut industry long has been advocating almonds and trail mix-type snacks as healthy alternatives to pastries and candy. 

It is a recipe for disaster encouraged, I am convinced, by a dental profession that fills fewer cavities because of fluoride protection, technically improved toothpastes, flossing, water-piking and electric toothbrushes. 

To maintain luxury lifestyles for its members the ADA has secretly funded the nut campaign. 

I haven’t had a cavity in decades, but I have cracked at least three molars. The crazy thing about each incident—I was not chewing a nut when my tooth made its break known to me. I was eating, respectively, scrambled eggs, bread and couscous. The most recent incident transpired last Saturday evening.

My dentist advised I probably cracked it on harder foods but the sliver of enamel had not separated from the mother lode. Each incident was a crack waiting to be exposed and repaired with a crown or more expensive implant. 

So, Donald, stop fulminating on the deep state conspiracy. Start an immediate investigation into the deep throat, er, deep tooth conspiracy that threatens all Americans, not just those who abuse the office and power of the presidency. 

Under the Roberts Court, Precedent Be Damned, Even Without Kennedy's Successor

In conversation the other day my sister Lee and I shared a problem afflicting both of us—we haven’t been able to sleep well since Justice Anthony Kennedy announced his retirement from the Supreme Court, leaving to Donald Trump a choice that could well tilt the court to the right for a generation. 

Not that it wasn’t already a mostly conservative ensemble, though Kennedy provided that occasional libertarian vote that sided with the four progressive judges to validate gay rights, same sex marriage and the security of the Roe v. Wade abortion decision.

Kennedy was not flaming in his support of those bedrock Democratic principles. Now that he’s retiring it is open season on his legacy. Here’s just one example of a critique of his record on gay rights: https://nyti.ms/2lEgP4J. Similar dissections of his opinions on access to abortions, Citizens United, the Second Amendment, and other conservative court decisions are easy enough to find.

In the upcoming confirmation battle, Republican senators Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska are said to be crucial because of their past support of a woman’s right to choose. They have been quoted as saying Roe v. Wade is “settled law,” precedent that should not be voided.

Yet, no nominee will acknowledge how he or she would vote on a case to invalidate Roe v. Wade. As for it being “settled law,” we have seen already how the Roberts court has rejected precedent to chart a more regressive course. Just ask civil service union members how they feel about the protection of precedent. 

It’s important to remember that even if Roe v. Wade is overturned, abortion would be permitted in states where it is legal, such as New York. But each state could pass its own restrictions. In New York, an abortion could occur for any reason up to 24 weeks of pregnancy. Other states could have tighter deadlines, or outright ban the procedure even if a mother’s life is at risk.

Kennedy framed his more libertarian votes on the concept of personal privacy. His conservative detractors point out that the Founding Fathers and Framers of the Constitution never identified privacy as a freedom or right. A new, more conservative majority could reject Kennedy’s foundational argument, setting aside the rights and freedoms he found ensconced in the Constitution. 

The challenges might come from a direction not previously expected. Stripping civil service unions of their ability to collect dues from all workers served by their collective bargaining unit came about, for example, through a First Amendment challenge, a tactic heretofore rarely used by conservatives. 

I’m not a lawyer, so this analysis could be off-base. But I’m fairly certain it has merit. The upfront fear of a more conservative justice than Kennedy being appointed is naturally focused on the issues that have been most explosive over the last several decades, gay rights, gun rights and legalized abortion. 

There are, however, two government programs that conservatives have long sought to disembowel: Social Security and the Internal Revenue Service. (They’d also like to ax Medicare, Medicaid and Obamacare.) Again, I’m no lawyer but I am distressingly confident that conservative think tanks are poring over legal strategies to upend these programs. Don’t argue with me that the first two are near-century- and century-old programs, that the population at large would not stand for dismantling Social Security and even the IRS, if push came to shove. It’s also hard to imagine a majority of Americans favoring elimination of the healthcare programs.

But I’m not talking about the population at large. All it takes is one citizen to battle all the way to the Supreme Court where he or she could find a receptive, conservative ear, or should I say, 10 ears. 

The frustration my sister and I feel (by the way, I am not excluding my brother—just haven’t talked to him about it) is in no small measure a result of our living in California and New York, two states that lean liberal, though we are both old enough to remember legal abortion in New York passed the legislature by just one vote five decades ago. 

Rights presumed to be fundamental and guaranteed as “settled law” are susceptible. The landmark Voting Rights Act of 1965 has been gutted by the Roberts court. Restrictions on the influence of corporations on the political process have been lifted by the Robert court. 

Assume nothing is permanent. Assume no election is safe. Don’t leave it to someone else—VOTE! Not just for president, but for senate and congressional candidates, for governor and attorney general, for state senate and state representative, for mayor and city council, and especially for school board candidates.   

Passings in My Profession: 5 Killed at a Newspaper, the Sale of My Employer of 32 Years

I was touched by two events Thursday, one that made national headlines, the second another example of economic realities in today’s business environment. 

Both events involved my chosen profession, journalism. 

When news broke of the fatal shooting at the Capital Gazette in Annapolis, my mind raced back 41 years. In early 1977 I turned down a job offer at the newspaper. I had left my newspaper job in New Haven in September 1976 to work as press secretary to a congressional candidate in a race both he and I knew he would lose. But the opportunity to leave The Register for “something” was too appealing to pass up. For two years management had frozen our salaries after the editorial staff voted in the Newspaper Guild. It was not easy living on $200 a week (as one of six bureau chiefs on a staff of 100 I was one of the better paid reporters. About a year later the union won a contract. Had I stayed I would have been paid about $450 a week). 

Once the congressional race ended as expected, I began searching for another newspaper job. The Gaston Gazette in Gastonia, NC, a suburb of Charlotte, offered $200 a week. After all, the editor reasoned, it was a lot cheaper to live in Gastonia than New Haven. When I demurred, he upped the offer to $250 a week and membership in a country club (I don’t think he knew I was Jewish). There was one catch, however. Instead of the two reporters he hoped to hire, for $250 a week he expected me to do the work of two staffers. Again, I resisted the call of the South.

My next possibility was a job at the Capital Gazette. Again, $200 a week. As my brother and his family lived some 50 miles away in Rockville, MD, Annapolis appealed to me. However, the state capital and home to the Naval Academy was a high priced community to live in. No way $200 a week was going to cut it.

A few weeks later I answered an ad in The New York Times from a trade publisher. I started at Lebhar-Friedman’s Nation’s Restaurant News March 14, 1977. A year later I transferred to Chain Store Age, a title that appeared on my business cards for the next 31 years. I retired in June 2009.

On Thursday, family-run Lebhar-Friedman, founded in 1925, was acquired by Chicago-based EnsembleIQ, a portfolio company of RFE Investment Partners, a private equity investor. At one time L-F had as many as 16 publications, half covering the retail industry, the rest healthcare, employing more than 500. At the time of the sale, only three books remained, Chain Store Age among them, as well as two CSA conferences, SPECS and X/SPECS dealing with store construction and facilities. The company employed fewer than 100. 

What happened? Consolidation of the retail industry at the same time more publications entered a shrinking field. These competitors were more nimble, with lower operating costs, allowing lower advertising rates. L-F always used internal funds to power growth. But an ill-timed, ill-advised acquisition into the healthcare field saddled L-F with heavy debt just when revenues toppled. The Internet sapped classified advertising while forcing investments that did not pay off. 

No need to elaborate any more causes. My bottom line: The 32 years I spent at Lebhar-Friedman as a staff editor, editor-in-chief and publisher afforded the opportunity to support my family and treat them to pleasures not experienced by many others. We travelled across the country and to distant lands. My children attended top schools. During the summer they went to camp or travel programs. Our home, I like to say, is the “house that Chain Store Age built.” 

Working on Chain Store Age from 1978 through 2009 enabled me to meet and at times befriend some of the most important retail luminaries of the last half century, including Sam Walton, Charles Lazarus and successive heads of Walmart, Sears, Kmart, JC Penney and many chains no longer around including TG&Y, Caldor, Zayre, Rose’s, Woolworth. Equally, if not more importantly, working at L-F introduced me to some great creative professionals. 

I am saddened by the loss of the Lebhar-Friedman nameplate. But I am comforted that Chain Store Age-SPECS-X/Specs will continue to provide, in the words of David Shanker, CEO of EnsembleIQ, “a comprehensive view of retail insights and information.”

Fasten Your Seatbelts for Another Bruising Court Nomination Battle

There is no relief in sight. I’m not talking about the weather, which, depending on what part of the country you are in, continues to assault living creatures with floods, fires, tornadoes, volcanic eruptions, mudslides, hail storms and excessive heat. 

No, I’m talking about nonstop big news events, some thrust upon us by Mother Nature, others part of the natural course of daily life, and still more by the actions, pettiness and peculiarities of Donald Trump (notice I didn’t mention principles as I do not believe he has any. And neither does he. How many remember a statement Trump made in the Oval Office to John Dickerson of CBS News last year? When pressed by Dickerson for his position on an issue, Trump demurred, saying, “I don’t stand for anything”).

It has been an eventful 18 months: Paris Climate Accords; NAFTA; Trans-Pacific Partnership; NATO; Russia Election Meddling; Neil Gorsuch; Iran Nuclear Deal; Jerusalem Embassy; Wedding Cakes for Gay Marriages; Muslim Travel Ban; Zero-Tolerance Border Policy.

Tweet after tweet on matters consequential and not. 

It will be up to late night TV talk-show hosts to get us through the coming travails.

Brace yourself for another bruising, months-long battle, the choice of a successor to Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy who announced his retirement Wednesday. Apart from the selection of a new member of the high court, bound to be hailed by Republicans, trashed by Democrats, the fiercest part of the confirmation debate may well be over timing—Senate Republicans will want to nominate and confirm prior to the midterm elections in November.

Democrats will be fighting to delay, delay, delay a vote. They will be using the court vacancy as another example of why citizens must register and vote in November so there can be a definitive counterbalance to the administration’s conservative tilt.  

But even if Republicans should lose their majority, newly elected senators would not take office until January, giving Republican Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and his caucus eight additional weeks to approve Trump’s choice. 

Keep in mind that just 51 ayes, not 60, are now required to end debate on Supreme Court nominations, a McConnell legacy from the Gorsuch confirmation process.

Minority Leader Charles Schumer will be tested to try and contain the process. Doubtful he will be able to succeed any better than the Gorsuch experience. 

Kennedy’s retirement also will place greater pressure on Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer, both in their 80s, to do all in their power to delay leaving the bench as long as possible, at least through the 2020 inauguration of what they hope would be a Democratic president. 

Pundit Hits It: Chris Hayes of MSNBC characterized Trump’s actions thusly: He treats those fleeing ISIS as if they are ISIS, those fleeing MS-13 as though they are MS-13. 

How sad that under Trump our nation has closed its shores to refugees. Did we not learn anything from our heartless response in the 1930s and 1940s to Jews seeking asylum from Nazis and the Holocaust?

Carson Was Prescient: Trump has tweeted his displeasure with late night TV comedians, specifically Jimmy Kimmel, Seth Meyers, Jimmy Fallon and “that guy on CBS.” 

That guy is Stephen Colbert. Noting that Trump said they lacked the talent Johnny Carson had on The Tonight Show, Colbert Tuesday night agreed Carson had talent. And he played a January 31, 1992, Tonight Show clip proving he was a legend ahead of his time:. https://youtu.be/994SI2rT5JA (the clip is just 31 seconds long—worth the link. For those not familiar with Gennifer Flowers, she alleged having an affair with Bill Clinton while he was governor of Arkansas.)

A Radical Idea to Limit National Discord: Restrict Trump's Voice on Mainstream Media

The pain, the anguish, their overwhelming sense of loss, was not an act. Grief, despair, even more than a tinge of desired revenge, could be discerned from the amalgam of parents who lost children at the hands of undocumented immigrants, witnesses Donald Trump presented last Friday as counter evidence to the trauma of family disruptions he created by ordering a zero-tolerance border security policy that wound up forcibly separating children from parents. 

Trump hoped to win a contest of optics. His congregation of aggrieved parents lamenting their permanent loss of a child versus pictures and audio in Spanish of crying children wailing for their mothers. 

During the run-up to his election Trump trotted out a similar group of parents to buttress his claim that illegal migrants are dangerous. That they are murderers and rapists. That they are the worst elements of Latino society. 

Statistics, however, do not support his argument, unless you are willing to accept, as he did Friday from a parent, an unsubstantiated claim that 60,000 Americans have been killed by “those people” since the beginning of the century.

On the contrary, statistics from the FBI and other law enforcement agencies show violent crimes are committed by illegal immigrants at a rate lower than the number perpetrated by native-born American citizens. Crime in major cities such as New York, where many illegals live, is at or near record lows. In Germany, where more than a million refugees have received sanctuary, crime is down. Yet Trump disseminates falsehoods by saying crime is up in Germany, part of his dissembling strategy to inject fear into the populace. 

The demonization, the dehumanization of the Latino community is a crucial part of Trump’s governing and election strategies. He must inflate bogeymen to fan fear and resentment among white Americans. It seems to be working. His approval rating among rank and file Republicans is at 90% (https://nyti.ms/2MS7Edj). I’d venture to say it is even higher among Republican politicians. 

Trump’s lies become ever more outrageous. As do those from the pols who would follow his footsteps. Technology is making their obfuscations easier and more infernal as Timothy Egan displayed in The New York Times (https://nyti.ms/2MQtCNM).

It is futile to try to match outrage with Trump. Sadly, his “true believers” cannot be swayed to abandon falsehoods for truth. Their allegiance, strangely enough, is reinforced by evidence of Trump’s lies (https://www.newyorker.com/news/letter-from-trumps-washington/trumps-cynical-immigration-strategy-might-work-for-himagain). 

So scrubbing their brains won’t work. What should be done? Sadly, again, it must be said that effort should not be wasted on the “lost.” Triage provides the example. Put effort behind those who may be educated and informed by facts and decency. 

In Trump-world the news cycle races from outrage to unbelievable seemingly in nano seconds, nano tweets. The media, at least the media that cares about our democracy, must not let his transgressions be forgotten or supplanted by trivial pursuit of a nonsensical tweet or action. They need to stay focused on what really matters. 

The story of the day, of the last week, is Trump’s treatment of children at the border, not his wife’s jacket or his press secretary’s ouster from a restaurant. As Michelle Goldberg opined in The Times, “We have a crisis of democracy, not manners” (https://nyti.ms/2MZPUx1). Politico’s Marc Caputo and Daniel Lippman provided added perspective: https://www.politico.com/story/2018/06/25/liberals-attack-bondi-sanders-trump-667934.

Trump repeats, retweets, lies until they are accepted as truth by his followers. In this dastardly endeavor Fox News is complicit. Not only does it broadcast misinformation and untruths that Trump regurgitates as fact but it also chides other media outlets for failing to preempt their regular programs to air Trump campaign rally speeches (https://apnews.com/7ea133bf32394cd6aaa1b0a6040a436d).

Responsible, fact-based media must repeat and repeat his faults. They cannot allow him to gain legitimacy beyond his delusional core. 

This is a war of optics. We know on whose side Fox News is. We know MSNBC and CNN are against him. CBS, NBC, and ABC must choose dedication to truth over a warped interpretation of balanced reporting that gives equal weight to Trump’s lies. Our democracy is at stake. 

It is a radical stance from a (retired) journalist but we are navigating choppy, unchartered political waters. Evidence of national discombobulation is everywhere, at restaurants movie theaters and public gatherings. Comity has evaporated. Moreover, at this time of national agitation we cannot expect any soothing thoughts or gestures from the provocateur-in-chief.  

Democrats are divided as to the most proper way to respond. Do they follow Michelle Obama’s encouragement to “go high” when Trump and his acolytes “go low,” or do they listen to Congresswoman Maxine Waters’ call for in their face confrontation whenever and wherever Trumpsters appear in public.

My take is trading insults and belligerence would not be effective. It wouldn’t change any of Trump’s committed voters and could turn undecideds and independents into abstainers in the upcoming midterm elections and in 2020 as they would not distinguish any difference between the parties. 

A more effective countermeasure requires the cooperation of the mainstream media. Fox News has all but changed its name to Trump News. Trump and Fox News have become a circle of reactionary misinformation, demagoguery and bigotry. 

But is it ethical for the mainstream media to limit, even censor, Trump? Here’s part of Bryan W. Van Norden’s reasoning (Van Norden is a professor of philosophy at Wuhan University, Yale-NUS College and Vassar College):

“Donald Trump, first as candidate and now as president, is such a significant news story that responsible journalists must report on him. But this does not mean that he should be allowed to set the terms of the debate. Research shows that repeatedly hearing assertions increases the likelihood of belief—even when the assertions are explicitly identified as false. Consequently, when journalists repeat Trump’s repeated lies, they are actually increasing the probability that people will believe them” (https://nyti.ms/2lyyr2c).

Trump will always have Fox News, Rush Limbaugh and extreme right wing news outlets to spout his venom. There is no need to inflict the populace at large with his mean-spirited, egotistical, abusive monologues. The mainstream media should concentrate on exposing the consequences of his actions on our citizenry, those who long to become part of the American fabric, and the rest of the world that depends for leadership on a stable, liberal, democratic United States. 

Trump Blinks on Family Separations But It's Up to Voters to Thwart His Tyranny

Donald Trump is on the verge of blinking.

After his zero-tolerance illegal immigration policy separating children from parents provoked outrage from the general public, religious and business leaders, naturally from Democrats, and even from some Republicans who have been among his most ardent supporters, the provocateur-in-chief is said to be mulling an executive order Wednesday afternoon to rescind his inhumane, draconian dictate (https://nyti.ms/2I7wWAA).

Just a day earlier, speaking at a meeting of the National Federation of Independent Business, Trump said he wanted “the legal authority to detain and promptly remove families together as a unit. We have to be able to do this. This is the only solution to the border crisis.”

Surprise, surprise, he already had that authority! According to the “Fact Check” column of The New York Times, “Mr. Trump is (also) wrong that Central American families who enter the United States illegally cannot be removed together. Like individual adults, families with children can be placed under a process known as expedited removal—unless they seek asylum.

“Through expedited removal, immigration officials can quickly remove an unauthorized immigrant from the country without having to go through an immigration court. If the families do make a claim of credible fear and are denied, they are then placed into removal proceedings.

“As Mr. Trump said, his administration could release one or both parents with their children. But it has instead chosen to prosecute people who cross the border illegally under a new “zero tolerance” policy, leading to the separation of children from their parents” (https://nyti.ms/2llMOGE).

To read or hear from a federal public defender what the situation on the southern border with Mexico is, click on this link from NPR Morning Edition: https://www.wnyc.org/story/a-public-defender-on-immigration-cases-and-separations.

If there is any good that may come out of Trump’s abhorrent action against defenseless, scared and now scarred children, it is that it might mobilize sufficient voters to flip one or both houses of Congress in November. Perhaps crying children have awakened dormant emotions within an electorate whipsawed by Trump’s vindictive approach to government. Even as he professes to be heartbroken over the dislocation of family units he repeated unsubstantiated allegations that many of the undocumented migrants are criminals. 

The demonization of outsiders is not  confined to America. In Italy, the new Interior minister, Matteo Salvini, wants to count Roma living in Italy (Roma are also called Gypsies). It is feared he wants to expel those without valid residence permits. 

As reported in The Times, “The proposal for the census evoked distant but still-bitter memories of the racial laws against Jews and the Roma, instituted by Mussolini’s government 80 years ago” (https://nyti.ms/2MDQsZ9). The census made it easier for Nazis to seek them out for deportation to death camps during World War II.

Final, Prescient, Words: A little more than a year ago, four months into the Trump administration, my recently deceased friend George Rosenbaum, who fled Hitler’s tyranny, penned these thoughts: 

“Now, four months after his inauguration, President Trump is being compared to Fascists, the name Mussolini among others, mentioned. Although many Fascists rule for some time–Franco of Spain, a prominent example, they are generally deposed and often suffer a bitter end.

“It is unlikely that Trump will follow their example. He is a skilled showman but not an accomplished dictator. 

“Rather than being a fanatic ideologue his focus is on himself. He is profoundly victimized by his narcism. Like despots he lies, fires subordinates, divides the populace, threatens outsiders and unleashes aggression. But, he is not possessed by an overarching goal; he is only self possessed. Thus, like theatre, the show has limited time span. And like improvisation the audience catches on to the act.

“While for Trump there is no desire to leave the stage, the audience eventually wants to depart the theatre for home. Trump is inexhaustible, but the audience becomes exhausted. So, after four months, his own supporters begin to question him and his approval rating is well below the norm for newly elected presidents after a brief time in office.

“He will continue to do mischief for some time because in America a coup d’état is unthinkable and assassination of an admired actor and improviser is unlikely. His emotional need makes resignation unlikely, and impeachment is a legal process that may last most of his term. Thus, what has been called a melodrama stands to continue unabated until the people speak in the next election.

“Fascist rulers stay in power by fueling control over opposition. They shut down opposing press, suppress opposing parties, arrest dissidents, silence the courts, and control the police. These leanings are also evident in Trump, but none is succeeding within the checks and balances of our system. 

“Those checks and balances stand on deeply embedded pillars. They eventually encourage honor and duty or at least jumping ship from an administration that reveals the emperors clothes.

“The hope is that this happens soon enough to limit the damage and contain its costs. While executive power and its acolytes have the capacity for substantial harm, Congress, now so out of balance, once awakened to the charade and recognizing its self interest in jeopardy, will be bulwark for sensible rule of law.

“History is unlikely to call the present tribulation of America a period of Fascism. More likely it will call it a test of the American system that at considerable cost has demonstrated the strength of that system so carefully designed by our founding fathers to protect against descent into tyranny.”